Orange upgrade - mis-sold?

vkall

Hello

I've been with Orange for about 4 years now, and the phone I had on my last upgrade in March 2009 broke (battery refused to charge any more), and when I asked Orange what I could do about it they said it was outside the warranty so I'd have to pay. I said not to worry, then the guy I was speaking to at Orange said hang on a minute, I'll see what I can do so he said he was running something by the system blah blah blah and then said actually, as you're a loyal Orange customer I can upgrade you now and just start a new 18 month contract from scratch, which I agreed to. At NO POINT did he say that there would be a charge for this.

I checked my online bank today and Orange have taken £352 and change out of my account. I phoned them and the lady I spoke to said that £175 of this was an 'upgrade fee' among other upgrade charges. She then spoke to her supervisor who said they could refund me £100 of this, but no more as it's not something they can waive. There's no way in hell I'd have paid this for an upgrade, I'd have just used an old phone until the end of my contract, then got a new one! I believe I have been mis-sold, is there any way I can a) request a recording / transcript of the call I had with the original guy who told me he could upgrade me and b) recover this money? The lady on the phone said the refund of the £100 if I chose to take it would only be given to me next month with my next bill - can they do this???

Any help would be very gratefully received, thanks.

gjchester

Put it in writing, and ask for the recording.

If you can recover the money depends on what was said in the call.

If the upgrade charge is £175 and they took £353 whats the other £177 for would be my next question.

DUTR

vkall wrote: »

Hello

I've been with Orange for about 4 years now, snip
" as you're a loyal Orange customer I can upgrade you now and just start a new 18 month contract from scratch", which I agreed to. At NO POINT did he say that there would be a charge for this.


Any help would be very gratefully received, thanks.

See at that point, the 'this person thinks you are an idiot' alarm would start to sound.But if many or any of you really want to suck up to this loyal customer rubbish, then sadly you deserved to get 'conned'

Guys_Dad

Your salvation may be at hand.

The OFCOM general condition 23 introduced in September 2009 lays down certain obligations on service providers.

Orange very helpfully put their instructions to staff on line at http://www1.orange.co.uk/documents/regulatory_affairs/Ofcom_Sales_and_Marketing_Regulations_GC23.pdf

This document - well worth reading - has the following gems

"(iv) to create and keep records about the sale of the Mobile Service
Provider’s Mobile Telephony Services for a period of not less than six
months"

and, more to the point
"Where the Customer enters into a contract during a sales call, in addition to the oral provision of this information the Mobile Service Provider must use reasonable endeavours to ensure that this information is sent to the Customer in good time following the call in paper or another Durable Medium."

Did you get a paper copy of the "contract" you allegedly agreed?

There is a lot more in that document that you should refer Customer Services to when you ask for your money back!