Bye Bye Orange (merged)

mig25_foxbat2003

I've posted elsewhere my story of rubbish Orange customer retentions. When I rang to discuss my contract renewal options, they offered to match their own web exclusive for new customers - then withdrew the offer and said that the cheapest they could give me a K800i was £100 on a £30 pcm contract.

I cancelled my existing contract, and took out the new one as a new customer. I would have loved to have voted with my feet, but the fact remains that you just can't match them on price.

650 mins and 1100 texts, PLUS free broadband and a free K800i, PLUS a Magic Number, all for £30 pcm? Vodafone look miserly and Flext looks a joke in comparison. That's nearly £360 worth of value, compared to £200 which T-Mob offer on Flext 35. The only comparable tarriff is O2 online 750 mins and 750 texts, but again that's £35, and no free broadband or Magic Number.

I had to take my aggression out by writing a fiery letter to their head of Customer Relations, Mike Hughes. Surprise surprise, no reply yet.

Russell

karin

Yesterday I went in to a local Orange shop and decided to upgrade to a new PAYG phone and trade in my old handset.
It seemed to be an easy thing to ask!

The assistant rang through -
1.gave all my details -
2.handed over to me to give passwords etc. - (OK SO FAR).
3.BUT she then hung on for ages to be told that ''theres a technical problem'' and she needed to;
4.''call back again and reregister the transaction''.

She repeated all of the above steps,(again and again), until we had spent 40 minutes of wasted time trying to ''update'' me.

I actually gave my details 5 times altogether.

I never found out what the technical problem was.

At this point I gave up and decided that it wasn't worth the hassle.
The manager then came over to me as I was leaving the shop and said ''Give it one more chance - the call centre is having problems''.

I said that that was really NOT my problem and that I blamed his company not him.

I think I will hang on to my old handset OR go to another network when I used up my orange credit.

heymylastnameislewis

hi! i just left orange and i wasnt even asked why i was leaving, also i think it is the shortest ammount of time ive ever been onto customer service! is it that they are just so keen to get rid of you that they rush you through!? is my money not good enough!? lol oh well on o2 now and loving it! by bye orange!:rolleyes:

rsykes2000

Exactly the same for me. Been a customer for 8 years, asked the price for an N80, was told it was horrifically expensive, so requested PAC and got that authorised, bloke didn't offer anything in way of incentives, so will be going to (probably) O2 soon. See you Orange, was good for a while, but if you won't offer me even close to what new customers get, I won't spend my money with you any more...

newlywed

i rang last week to get my PAC and was just in the middle of explaining why I was leaving Orange and how bad the signal is in the middle of the city and they cut me off!!!

Then when I got through they asked if they could do anything to keep me as a customer and so I said "improve the signal". Which apparently they can't do.

Signal has gone down considerably in the last 1-2 years in our area and missed call messages and text messages take hours and hours to come through and when we have signal we get missed call alerts and the phone never even rings!

The future's bright? Not with Orange!

Will_it_make_me_rich

worldwide3rider wrote:

Hi
I have just joined Orange, (phones not arrived so I could cancel) and I have noticed theres alot of negative talk on the board here about them. I use to be with them sometime back and they where not too bad then. Whats so wrong now? (should I jump to O2 instead)

The choice is 02 or orange as I cant see anyone else giving an £200 video Ipod away.

The plan I have gone on is:
"Orange Canary £40 gives you 300 inclusive anytime, any network minutes to UK landlines and mobiles plus when connecting to Orange this month receive 120 extra cross-network minutes per month for the first 6 months and a bonus of 500 extra Texts messages per month making this tariff have 600 text messages per month for the first 18 months and 100 there after plus 75 Orange to Orange off-peak minutes** plus 1 Magic number and Free Photography proposition for 3 months"

o2 got any better????

Personally I have nothing against Orange service it's just they didn't offer me any sort of retention deal and with all the minutes nowadays being xnet then theres no need to stay loyal to any provider. Although I do perfer Orange voicemail to any others.
One more thing this is a story of how not to take a new contract out. My intention was to keep my existing number and get as much cashback as i could on a 12 month deal with a K800.
I got my PAC code from Orange and I saw that on the market there was 2 deals (Orange & O2) on a 12 month contract where you get 9 months 1/2 price. Orange were a few quid cheaper per month but I
anted to keep my existing number, I decided to go with O2. I decided to go through Dialaphone as I know someone who works for them so we would split the recommend a friend deal. I would get £25 from this.
I also realised that if i go through Greasypalm a could get another £20 cashback. This i did but when i got to the bit you have to enter your friends number it only let me enter 10 digits, thinking this must be a error i carried on.
By the time my phone arrived i knew that if i had gone through Quidco i would have got £40 cashback and that i can't give them my friends number after the order.
Of course the first thing I did with my phone was assemble it and stick it on charge, once charged i used it to phone O2 to give them my PAC code. Much the same way my girlfriend did the week before with 3. O2 don't accept PAC codes and because i used dialaphone who also don't accept PAC codes i couldn't port my existing number. Oh and i can't cancel my contract because i've just used my phone to call O2!.

Oh how I laughed!!!!!

p1an0player

Oh dear. But thanks for letting us learn from your experience.

Will_it_make_me_rich wrote:

I got my PAC code from Orange and I saw that on the market there was 2 deals (Orange & O2)...Orange were a few quid cheaper per month but I
wanted to keep my existing number, I decided to go with O2.
...
O2 don't accept PAC codes and because i used dialaphone who also don't accept PAC codes i couldn't port my existing number.

Are you saying that you cannot port your Orange number to a new contract with either Orange or O2?!

newlywed

Orange usually won't let you port your number to another Orange contract. I saw a better deal on the web but they refused to let me move my number over because it was for new sign ups - although recently they claim they offer existing customers deals too. Too late though, I'm going.

Will_it_make_me_rich

p1an0player wrote:

Oh dear. But thanks for letting us learn from your experience.



Are you saying that you cannot port your Orange number to a new contract with either Orange or O2?!

I think i'm right in saying you can't port your existing number to a new contract with the same provider. You can port Orange to O2 but you have to give the thirdparty your PAC code when ordering but in my case the thirdparty (dialaphone) don't accept PAC codes. I think it may affect there commission or involve to much paperwork!!!
They do mention this in there FAQ's (if you go looking for it)but there no warning when you go through there purchasing system.

p1an0player

Thanks.

Does the same apply if I'm moving from Orange PAYG to Orange contract?

In my case the Orange PAYG number was orig on contract, and the new Orange contract would be through CPW.

It's annoying that the provider/retailer website don't make these things clear.