Escaping my signal hell with Orange

TMelt

I have about 3 and a half months left to run in my 18 month contract with Orange and I desperately want out. The signal is just so poor where I live and it's beginning to get so annoying. I want to get an iPhone with Tesco but can't really afford two sets of line rental and don't know if I can take another few months of terrible signal with Orange. On the My account bit of Orange's website I tried to drop my line rental (currently £35) to a cheap one but the cheapest option I had was still £35 a month.

Is there anything I can do to get out of this? Preferable cheaply!

slugger09

I don't think so unfortunately, if you still have the phone sell it and use funds to pay off contract

4$£&*(£$&*(!

Why have you put up with it for the last 15 months in that case?

bingy_burge

you might be able to pay a charge to get out of it> I am not sure orange do or dont now?

after 9-12 months orange will do a best plan review and drop you to a lower tariff if thats matches your usage. I got from £45 to - £20 10 months in so I know they do it. If your that far in the only reason i can see they want you on a £35 a month tariff is because your usage is that high.

£20 is the lowest tariff they do unless u have an iphone.

TMelt

Thanks for the help guys. The reason I put up with it so far is the signal was fine at work (even though it was rubbish at home) but now I've switched work it's rubbish at my new job too. So it's bad in pretty much every place I spend time!

Do you reckon the best thing I can do is to call them and see if I can drop tariff and if not try and negotiate a buy-out? I got the contract through Phones4U, I heard they buy out contracts sometimes?

terryya

Do you know what is the t-mobile signal is like at work/home? Orange is merging with t-mobile and will be allowing roaming over both networks soon (probably around the end of the summer). Eventually they will just have one combined network and will also share with Three.

bingy_burge

orange have best 3g coverage of any netowkr but like any network they have black spots.

They certainly should drop you to £20 a month if your not using your current package.

Its worth doing postcode searches on any network to make sure they work where u will mostly be using it.

Gareth.Smyth

TMelt wrote: »

I have about 3 and a half months left to run in my 18 month contract with Orange and I desperately want out. The signal is just so poor where I live and it's beginning to get so annoying. I want to get an iPhone with Tesco but can't really afford two sets of line rental and don't know if I can take another few months of terrible signal with Orange. On the My account bit of Orange's website I tried to drop my line rental (currently £35) to a cheap one but the cheapest option I had was still £35 a month.

Is there anything I can do to get out of this? Preferable cheaply!

If the service is so poor that it affects the use of your handset significantly, then you must end the contract immediately. Under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, the provider of a service has to provide reasonable care and skill. It is unlikely that lack of service on a mobile phone, with which its primary purpose is to use in more than a fixed location, amounts to such standard of reasonableness.

It is likely that they will respond quoting part of the contract which refers to service, for example, "we cannot guarantee service all of the time and in all locations". Such a term is in my view against the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, as one cannot exclude liability for rendering a service significantly different from that that would be expected. When we take out a mobile contract we expect to be able to make full use of its benefits.

Hope this helps.

gjchester

Gareth.Smyth wrote: »

If the service is so poor that it affects the use of your handset significantly, then you must end the contract immediately. Under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, the provider of a service has to provide reasonable care and skill. It is unlikely that lack of service on a mobile phone, with which its primary purpose is to use in more than a fixed location, amounts to such standard of reasonableness.

It is likely that they will respond quoting part of the contract which refers to service, for example, "we cannot guarantee service all of the time and in all locations". Such a term is in my view against the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, as one cannot exclude liability for rendering a service significantly different from that that would be expected. When we take out a mobile contract we expect to be able to make full use of its benefits.

Hope this helps.

The OP has been using it for 14 1/2 months. The law is often based on a "reasonable man" hypothesis.

There is no way a "reasonable man" will consider it grounds to cancel the contract when the OP has accepted it for so long. If they had taken action as soon as they got it maybe but not so far into a contract.

If you can persuade the laws of physics to obey the UCT act you may have a case. In reality a radio based system will have dead spots, the way around it is more bases stations but people don't want more masts. You are unlikely to get anywhere if you argue that you should get a signal everywhere, that's not the laws "reasonable man" would accept. It's reasonable to accept any radio system will have blackspots, and that is acceptable.

Gareth.Smyth

gjchester wrote: »

The OP has been using it for 14 1/2 months. The law is often based on a "reasonable man" hypothesis.

There is no way a "reasonable man" will consider it grounds to cancel the contract when the OP has accepted it for so long. If they had taken action as soon as they got it maybe but not so far into a contract.

If you can persuade the laws of physics to obey the UCT act you may have a case. In reality a radio based system will have dead spots, the way around it is more bases stations but people don't want more masts. You are unlikely to get anywhere if you argue that you should get a signal everywhere, that's not the laws "reasonable man" would accept. It's reasonable to accept any radio system will have blackspots, and that is acceptable.

UCTA is clear in its drafting and whilst I concede your point about physics, the law has little regard for your point. If somebody is offering a mobile service, then the reasonable person expects to be able to use it on the move without significant inconvenience. If your argument were to be put forward by the service provider to the courts, then the response from the consumer would be such that the contract has been frustrated, as the service provider cannot carry out its obligations through no fault of either party; it is impossible to perform the contract and hence the doctrine of frustration, accordingly the consumer would be discharged from further performance in any event.

Back to the original argument, I see your point about having accepted the fault by continuing to use the service for 15 months. However, the service provider may not be privy to that knowledge. For example, the poor service may have only recently developed; if you get my drift.

catswhiskers4

In the Sunday Mail (Scottish paper) there is a column called 'The Judge'

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/life/consumer/

In Sunday's paper (22nd) one of the cases was someone with an Orange contract and no signal. They had moved from Edinburgh to Argyll so Orange said it wasn't their fault. However, the judge got them to cancel the contract, can't remember all the details, but it shows it is possible.

Perhaps you can find out what arguements they used to get Orange to cancel the contract?