Orange Itemised Billing - £1.50 (merged threads)

onlyfair

OK for all you people out there livid at the fact that Orange just decide to increase the Itemised Billing charge from £0 to £1.50 mid way your 12 /18 month contract, this is how to make sure they do not get away with it.

Below is exactly how to do this (tested and works).

Tested on this case: mid 12 month contract, with 300 to 600 minute usage.

How to go about it:

1) Write in requesting that they cancel your contact in accordance with Clause 15.1 and 4.3 of my contract as they are increasing charges for Itemised Billing from £0 to £1.50. The contact can be downloaded from the main page of the orange web site at the very bottom where it says "terms and conditions" Request that they contact you with your PUK code so you can take your number with you and that due to the fact that they are causing this that no charges and penalties should be incurred by you.

2) They will write back saying one of the following: a) That itemised billing (charge or free) is not part of the contract. b) They are not increasing the charge as you do not have to have the Itemised Bill as you can opt out or download it free from the account area of the orange web site. They may also say that if you want to cancel you have to buy yourself out of the contract.

3) You then write to them opening an "Official Complaint" (important that you say this) informing them that you do not agree with their assessment of the situation and that you require them to cancel the contract and if they do not accept to do this you require them to send you a letter saying that the complaint has come to "deadlock" or "lockout", otherwise known as a Deadlock / Lockout letter. You inform them that you will be contacting CISAS (COMMUNICATIONS & INTERNET SERVICES ADJUDICATION SCHEME, they can be contacted on 02074217432).

4) At this point someone from orange WILL have already contacted you. They will offer to refund the itemised bill for the rest of the contact and if you request it they will cancel your contact.


FAQ

COMMUNICATIONS & INTERNET SERVICES ADJUDICATION SCHEME (CISAS):
These people take complaints that can not be resolved and decide who is right. Orange does NOT want it to get to them and will settle with you before then. Only contact CISAS if they have given you a lockout / deadlock letter and have not offered you anything.

Address to write to orange on:
Correspondence Department
PO Box 10
Pachway
Bristol
BS32 4BQ


Official Complaint:
It is important to rase an "Official Complaint" and get a Echo number to track it with.


TIPS and TRICKS

Orange will never accept fault or that they are in breach of contract.
Be firm but polite at all times.
Do NOT at any point show any doubt that you are correct and they are wrong.
Do not ask for unreasonable things. In this situation waving the Itemised Billing charge till the end of the contact id fair and termination of the contract is fair.

xycom1

LOL quite, they will do anything to prevent complaints going to adjudication as it is extremely expensive for them to deal with such complaints!

fiish

Although I think that it could be a bit of an over-reaction to a £1.50 charge, in principle it's a good idea to take the fight to Orange. If itemised billing was part of the core services at the start of the contract, changing it (sneakily) to an additional service and then starting to charge for it is plain... wrong :P

I've already cancelled my itemised billing so I don't think I have a leg to stand on taking up the fight as suggested by onlyfair's post (anyway I'm going away on a summer job abroad and won't be able to correspond such a dispute, sadly), but this is a great idea to perhaps make Orange listen to its customers more closely.

They might try to fob off cancellations, though, by just offering to continue the free itemised billing, as they did with the freephone numbers half a year ago.

mercurystar999

I called orange yesterday to complain about the £1.50 charge. I got through to india or somewhere like that couldn't understand a word she was saying.

Anyway i complained that the charge was a breach of contract and that i found it totally unacceptable. They ended up giving me the itemised biling for free untill my 12 months is up, which is october.

Result?

Perhaps i should of gone down the cancelling route as i quite fancy a new phone at the mo! Anyone got to do this?

I'm cancelling in september now then anyway due to orange using call centres abroad which is new to me as i thought they never had them. I am hunting down all the companies i spend with. If i get through to a call centre aborad i now cancel and try to sign up to different companies.

Which of the mobile companies don't have abroad call centres?

xycom1

I'm told O2 don't outsource to India. I don't think Vodafone do and AFAIK T-Mobile only use UK call centres. Orange and 3 both outsource to India, as do TalkTalk (although if you buy anything from them then you really are asking for it).

pufferfish_2

Thanks onlyfair. Sounds like you have inside "Bristol" knowledge there!

Cheers,
Pufferfish.

mercurystar999

I also didn't realise that orange was now owned by a French company. Will be ditching them asap! Its a shame though been with orange for about 5 or 6 years now.

I'm with talk talk for all my landline calls. I haven't had to ring them so i never knew that they had india call centres!

peter65_2

given this a go - sent off a letter asking to terminate the contract and have my PAC code...

but what's an echo number? is it something orange have internally, or a standard complaints number?

xycom1

mercurystar999 wrote:

I'm with talk talk for all my landline calls.

Unlucky! :rotfl:

saw2k

When I signed up to my current contract, there was no mention (that I recall) of itimised billing being an "additional service", it was just included. Surely, they cannot change the definition of something to suit them, mid-contract!

Moreover, at the time I took the contract, itimised billing was the only type of billing available. How can it be an "additional service", when you can't not have it. Surely it was a "everyone has this" service until they re-defined the term.

Any comments would be welcome, I will be speaking to Orange again. I want to cancel anyway as it sucks - £25 for 120 mins (plus 120 extra evening only) and no texts. The only problem is that Orange and Vodafone are the only providers who I have signal with at home. I left Vodafone years ago because they were unspeakably rubbish, how are they doing now? (Sorry, going off subject).