Orange Cancellation & MAC Code

Ed500

HI

I've just cancelled by 30 trial with Orange. They told me they couldn't give me a MAC Code beacuse that would have meant entering into a contract.

Instead I Must wait 7-10 working days for a marker to be cleared and then I can resign up with someone else.

This means that I can't migrate somewhere else free of charge.

Is this right? Or are Orange doing some kind of scorched earth policy?

Thanks.

espresso

They do not have to give you a MAC, so you may well just have to wait. You could also be on an LLU exchange which some ISP's don't issue MAC's for and other ISP's don't accept LLU MAC's.

:eek:

carolwat

goodluck with orange. i have been a customer with them for about 2 years and recently moved house. i order broadband to be moved also and waited and waited. eventually i got an email to say it was done so i tried to log on. my love box powerpack had stopped working so i called orange and the stupid woman told me to wait until midnight and it would work again tried for nearly an hour to explain that the power supply was broken and waiting till midnight wouldnt change that. i ended up very frustrated and told her just to cancel the account. my mistake i later discovered. i shoudl have obtained that precious mac code. so i called them back but they couldnt give me one as my account was closed. went back and forth between orange, bt and aol. nearly 2 months later i have just had the marker removed today. bt kept promising to sort it and after filling in a form i was told someone would ring me to confirm the marker had been removed. i waited again and nothing so i called bt again. filled the form in again and told to wait again. i waited, still nothing so called bt again. this time told they couldnt help me and had to go back to orange and they had to place an order to get marker removed. called orange again and set the ball rolling and told everything would be sorted. then i was asked why i left orange so told her about the stupid woman obsessed with midnight only to be told that as i had been using my livebox they couldnt remove the marker. told her i cant use the livebox cos the bloody power pack doesnt work. she told me then that as i had a livebox my account wasnt cancelled ???? what difference did that make ???? so had to go to another dept and cancel account. got through to other dept to be told account was already cancelled. really eventually got this order for the marker to be removed which has finally happened today. was just going to place my order with virgin for the new sim only and freee broadband thing but now have to wait another !!!!!!!g 5 days for a PAC code. oh i hate codes

so goodluck

carol

mrJ_5

tbh i think orange are right, after all - they haven't made any money from you - so why would they want to move you to someone else and gain nothing? You have cost them £47 to activate broadband on your line, £10 or so for a modem, and probably £10 at wholesale level for broadband for one month..... it makes complete business sense not to give you a MAC because of this

... there ain't no such thing as a free lunch!

Ed500

Carolwat that sounds awful -hope I have better luck.

Maybe I did cost them money but I didn't want to get locked into 12 months contract at the high level of downtime I was getting during the trial.

btw is there a way to detect when the marker has been removed?

Thanks

valli2

Hi Go here it will tell you when your line is clear.
Orange do give out LLU MAC codes but you have to insist on one as they try to fob you off to be awkward i had to report them to the ISPA to get one off them and i had been a customer since Freeserve days then migrated from that awful company with a LLU MAC. (i was actually told by an agent of Orange i wasn't getting a MAC if i leave i would have to pay ) what a way to treat customers.
I always thought a free trial was a FREE trial its a rip off, their service is crap beware of anything with FREE in it its never what it seems, very clever marketing not to make it clear that if you dont accept their service after 30 days trial a MAC is not given.

Regards

Madasafish_Customer_Care

Orange have signed the Voluntary Code for Migrations. There is nothing in the code that states that the customer has to be in contract in order to issue a MAC:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/advice/codes/bbm_cop/

I would call Orange and ask them about this.

Kind regards,
Samara

bbb_uk

As mentioned before, it is only volunatary so there is no legal obligation for them to issue MAC's and Ofcom can't actually force them to do so currently.

This is Ofcom's failed attempt at letting the industry volunteer to be helpful instead of just regulating them. Ofcom seems to think that having a volunteer method is going to work when comon sense would tell you that companies don't like to lose customers so therefore they would come out with all sorts of lies or blatently refuse to issue MAC's hoping that you would stay rather than wait the 2 weeks you would be without broadband.

I'd recommend all those that have suffered from MAC issues like to respond to Ofcom's current consultation on this as mentioned here. The more Ofcom are aware of the MAC (for those that haven't already complained), the more likely they'll have to make it legal which would stop most of the current MAC issues and if not, Ofcom could then take legal action against a company whereas right now because of Ofcom's "light-touch" on this whole issue, they are powerless to do anything.

Madasafish_Customer_Care

I agree with bbb_uk, it would be better to have a mandatory policy.

However I think that in terms of a press angle it would be pretty damaging for an ISP to be called out for signing a voluntary code and then not abiding by it. No one made them sign it in the first place!

Kind regards,
Samara

bbb_uk

Madasafish_Customer_Care wrote:

However I think that in terms of a press angle it would be pretty damaging for an ISP to be called out for signing a voluntary code and then not abiding by it.

I agree but then it has to be very major thing in most cases for the press to single them out. For example, I knew of E7's collapse (via this site) but didn't know that two of E7’s wholesale suppliers, Tiscali and Netservices, were unwilling to release E7’s customers once E7 had terminated their contracts.

According to Ofcom consultation, "They instead gave customers a choice: to move to a specific broadband provider to resume service quickly – by signing up to a 12-month contract costing £19.99 per month which was higher than a number of alternative providers – or in all likelihood to have no broadband service for several weeks."

This effectively meant that E7's customers were being blackmailed or risk going without broadband for more than 2 weeks.

No one made them sign it in the first place!

I wouldn't be surprised if some companies sign it so as to avoid it becoming compulsory. These scrupulous companies could sign it so as to give Ofcom the overall impression that no compulsory MAC arrangements need to be done instead leave it as voluntary.

A perfect example is Tiscali who have signed the voluntary code but refused to issue MAC's to E7 customers even when Ofcom approached them over it simply because they knew that because Ofcom had chosen the easy route, Ofcom were powerless to force Tiscali or anyone to do anything.

valli2

I agree with all comments on the situation, in my case and experience with Wanadoo/Orange it was a total nightmare and after many weeks of more outages than connections i asked for a MAC, of course i got all the lies etc and was offered a £10 reduction on the package i was on and a free month why? all i wanted was to have internet access it wasn't going to change anything seems they wasnt interested in fixing the problem but just trying to get me to stay so i decided to play them at their own game and accepted i simply used my free month to find a good reliable provider after some research i found one that would accept an LLU MAC of course Orange made it as difficult as possible to give me one but after i contacted the ISPA i got one off them and succesfully migrated away (have had no connection problems since), the sooner Ofcom get their act together on this the better.
Good luck to those who are in the progress of getting LLU MAC codes.

Regards