Who should I be dealing with here?

GlasweJen

I've been an orange customer for 5 years. Have had several of the highest band contract phones and I realised I was due an upgrade.

I had a browse online and decided I wanted an HTC desire or an HTC wildfire, went into the orange shop and asked to try them. I was told that they were out of stock of the desire and that they don't stock the wildfire. Fair enough I thought, I went to 3 different orange shops and tried orange online and no one had the phone in stock.

Frustrated I went online and ordered the HTC wildfire with a 24 month contract and a cashback cheque from mobiles.co.uk. Next day phone arrived, set it up as the leaflet said I should and waited for the network to transfer to the new SIM card.

This hadn't happened the next day so I called orange to get an estimated time of switch over. Girl on the phone said SIM had only been added to my account at 7.15 that morning and it could take a further 48 hours to go over.

56 hours later I still had no network coverage on the new SIM and all of my MMS and Internet services wouldn't work on my old SIM. Called Orange again who said that my account was inaccessible and that's what I get for ordering through another company!

I was told to contact mobiles.co.uk so I emailed their customer services with the problem and they said that Orange have all the information they need and it's up to them to set up the new account and port my number over.

Called orange again and was told that they still couldn't see my account so they can't do anything and I'll just have to wait.

Who should I be pursuing this with? I love the handset but it's a bit pointless as all of the features need the internet so I only really get to enjoy my phone at home which sucks really.

OneADay

If you are already with Orange, then I would have thought you cannot keep your existing number unless you move it first to another network and then back to Orange.

GlasweJen

No, I've always kept my orange number, orange always send out a new sim with all their phones then transfer the number. Not sure why they do it.

OneADay

Yes Orange might send out new sim cards - when you upgrade with the network you are with already, its straightforward.

Go via any retailer, then you become unstuck even if the new phone is on the same network. In these cases, you usually have to port out to another network and port back in onto the new sim to keep the number.

Orange might let you off the hook - only Orange can sort it out.

There is usually some delay with getting information from retailer to network. I had that with t-mobile recently. They had no record of new sim but they took my details and sim serial number and registered it over the phone. If that is not possible, you would have to allow 2 working days I think to get it all sorted.

GlasweJen

they already have the new sim number, they got it from mobiles.co.uk and also i gave them it first time i called. the website I used had an upgrade option so it is an upgrade package i have and not a new customer one.

OneADay

GlasweJen wrote: »

they already have the new sim number, they got it from mobiles.co.uk and also i gave them it first time i called. the website I used had an upgrade option so it is an upgrade package i have and not a new customer one.

Keep badgering them then I guess till they flip your number. Mind you if its an upgrade and same network, maybe you could continue using the old sim??
Anyway, whether you can or can't use it, its Orange who need to sort it out me thinks. Good luck.

GlasweJen

I'm using my old sim just now and i have my new sim in my old phone to see what's happening network wise with it but neither is connecting to the internet when i'm out and about which is frustrating to say the least especially as orange are insisting that they can't access my account to see what's happening, if they can't who can?

GlasweJen

Got my internet access back today but onto old sim. Been in touch with mobiles.co.uk and apparently it can take up to 7 days for orange to get my account sorted so they've got until saturday morning to get me sorted.

SpiritDawnWolf

Hi GlasweJen,

Unfortunatley when you go through a dealership (any 3rd party supplier) rather than your original netwrok, things get a little fuzzy.

A new sim card is sent out with every new phone contract/upgrade - this is because it is the correct profile sim for that type of handset (can you imagine trying to use your old 2G sim card in a brand-spanking new 3G handset and wondering why you weren't getting a fast 3G service or any video calling, etc?)

When we register the sim card, we always advise 24hrs from registeration incase anything goes awry on the system and it slows down - however most sim cards are registered within the first 2 hours.

Now, important part - when you order your handset online (or even over the phone with us) you have the 7 day distance selling rule in your favour. If you find within the first 7 days from signing for the handset (which is normally sent by courier or recorded delivery) that it's just not what you want, or doesn't function the way you want it to, etc, you are within your right to get in touch and let us know you will be returning it. You need to let us know *within* 7 days from signing for it, but don't neccesarily have to send it back during that timescale as long as we receive back within a couple of week (Of course, the longer it takes to receive a handset back into our warehouse, the longer it will be before the account is reverted back to original state and upgradable again.)

However, what we find with *some* dealerships, is the way they pass their 7 day cooling off period is to request the sim swap to go through in 6 or 7 days time. This may be the case with yours. And because of this, we will only have your old sim card and handset IMEI details on the system, as the dealership have either a) requested a 7-day delay, or b) have not supplied us with the details yet.

This is not unknown, and we will often get the dealer telling the customer it is Orange causing the problem when in fact they are to blame.


Not that I'm saying this is the case for yourself, but just thought I'd give you a bit of insight on the workings.

What we try to do in this situation is get you original simcard running as best we can while the new simcard request is going through the system, but of course there will be an interruption in the service, but we do try our best, so please don't think we are not trying to help - it's just that sometimes the online stores and 3rd party dealers do not make it easy for us.

Okay, enough rambling.

SDW

Silk

SpiritDawnWolf wrote: »

However, what we find with *some* dealerships, is the way they pass their 7 day cooling off period is to request the sim swap to go through in 6 or 7 days time. This may be the case with yours. And because of this, we will only have your old sim card and handset IMEI details on the system, as the dealership have either a) requested a 7-day delay, or b) have not supplied us with the details yet.

This is not unknown, and we will often get the dealer telling the customer it is Orange causing the problem when in fact they are to blame.

A fine upstanding company like mobiles.co.uk using the system to disable DSR's ....surely not :eek:

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Good explanation SpiritDawnWolf and I was told much the same by O2's investigation team regarding another issue with them !!!

GlasweJen

Turns out it was orange!

When the new sim details were sent to orange after i upgraded they entered it into the wrong part of the account so they were upgrading my laptop deal instead of my phone. I basically wrote to mobiles.co.uk who sent me the details to my work fax, i then got an orange manager (elusive creatures) to check what they sent against what orange had and they kept going on about my blackberry bundle which of course I wont need as the blackberry is the old handset.

When they realised this they reassigned the sim numbers, 5 hours later my HTC sim and my computers sim were working fine again. Orange are giving me free line rental for 6 months as an apology.