New Phone For Christmas, Orange Useless!

marko2002

My wife and I bought our daughter a phone for Christmas, it's on the Orange network and since Christmas day I've been trying to activate it so we can receive a phone number and activate the top up voucher WE HAD to by with it. That was the first mistake we made, buying a phone where a £10 voucher was compulsary and not optional!.

All Christmas day I tried activating it online using orange.co.uk/activate and just kept getting the message "We're having some technical problems processing your activation." So I gave up and tried phoning them on Boxing Day, got through to an Indian call center and was told it's not working, try again tomorrow. Not able to comprehend what I was just told I asked for an explanation and the rep told me some sims were going through OK and some were not. !!!!!!?!.

Tried again on Boxing Day to activate online, no joy. So, yesterday I phoned the number to add the topup voucher and got through to a rep after a 10 minute wait only to be told I needed the phone number to add the voucher, when I told them I didn't have the phone number they told me to phone the freephone number 0800 079 0006 to get the phone activated and to answer "NO" to all the questions asked by the bot - I did this and went round in circles and eventually started pressing random keys on the phone and was told I would be put through to an agent. Wopeeee I thought. Eventually I got "All agents are busy, please phone back later", and I've continued to get this ever since!.

What is it with these mobile phone companies when they push sales through advertisements left, right and centre and then can't handle the rush of customers they get!. I'm on the verge of taking this back to the shop but I'm unsure what, if anything, I could argue with them as the phone works, just not the network provider at the moment but nothing annoys me more than companies that do this kind of thing, anyone got any advice or having similar issues?
Cheers
Marko

OneADay

Its Christmas holiday perio, not may people at work - try tomorrow when a few will be back.

The £10 voucher (or more in some cases) is virtually compulsary when you get a pay and go phone.

marko2002

The sending of the phone number and other required details should be automated as soon as you insert the sim card and battery in the phone as far as I understood it. This means their systems are failing, 3 days on they are still failing!. This is what annoys me most about the situation, they are obviously swamped with people complaining about the same thing but in the meantime still no sign of their systems working properly - for a mobile phone company that has got to be bad.

OneADay

True but if they are having technical problems, the tech mob is away as well (most likely).

Not defending them - just give it a shot tomorrow morning - if you got phone over the net, you could return it within 14 days I think.

marko2002

Got the phone from Argos, not sure whether it's possible to return it on the basis that the network isn't working, I'm probably being a little too anxious about it all but it really does my nut when we spend £100+ on a phone and the network provider screws it up!. Will try again later today, have emailed them as well with the SIM number so we never know - just hate that there is rarely anything we can do in these situations, other than highlight them on these forums!. Will post back if I get any joy

DarkConvict

Customer services will be in as they are outsourced, but for technical problems as above that staff has probably taken their christmas holiday, + with the national bank holidays there is going to be little onsite support.

Buying top ups with a PAYg phone is quite common nowadays to prevent people just buying a phone.

marko2002

Managed to eventually get a run through to the 0800 number and the guy there managed to activate and apply the credit as well as give me the number off the phone so happy days for my daughter now - wonder how many people are still trying though!. Thanks for the replies guys

samperry209

Orange are dire! Awful network

I left them in 2008 now i regret coming back

DarkConvict

I think we all had good/bad experiences regardless of the network, for me orange have been the best so far.