Orange Mobile Nightmare - What do I do

cyberman2010

I'm really new to this and someone suggested I may get some help on here. I'm having a nightmare dealing with Orange - who actually refuse to take payment for an outstanding bill since Jan 2010. They are so disinterested and have sent me to Moorcroft who say the debt is not with them, its with Orange. Orange say the debt is with Moorcroft and all Orange do is keep asking me to call their collections department so they can speak to their Debt Collection side or something! Argh! They refuse to call me back as apparently they cant call customers that arent with orange anymore? Thats rubbish I'm sure they once rang me on a landline?

It started in Jan 2010 I was out of work for a month, I had some money in the bank, got a new job by Feb had a huge bill, customer services couldnt actually tell me why I got a huge bill, never got calls back as promised.

Ive sent them countless letters and have emailed their exec office but no reply as yet. Here is the letter:

Dear Sir or Madam

I have been an Orange Pay Monthly customer since 2007 when I signed up for a mobile phone contract, in January 2010 I added a mobile broadband line onto my existing plan. Since then I have encounted inadequacy of service which I have not previously considered possible.

Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative and seek to rectify these difficulties -- or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you bill me for services then refuse to take payments from me, send me to debt collectors who have no knowledge of the debt and register defaults on my credit file.

I recieved a bill from you for £221, I called to query the bill and after over half an hour on hold I was told your computer systems were down I would get a call back within 24 hours. This never happened. I called back days later you said it was "maintenance charges" when I queried what these "maintenance charges" were, you said delivery reports on text messages. I have never had delivery reports on any of my texts messages.

This then resulted my account being forwarded to a debt collection agency withhout warning, resulting in my phone being disconnected and spending most of my entire Saturday afternoon arguing with debt collectors. When they forwarded the account back to you as I was disputing the account, I spent a further 57 minutes on the phone to you, and the even more annoying Orange chav robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website. HOW? - when you had disconnected my broadband service too?

I have had no final reminders, no correspondence from you whatsoever.I have made nine calls on my mobile to your so called help line and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals. I have been informed that a theirs a problem on my account (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows about the debt collection (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answering machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Orange woman. And several other variations on this theme.

Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore by sending them to debt collectors and the debt collectors saying the account is with Orange then when I call you I speak to someone who says the account is with a D.C.A .

I thought Vodafone was rubbish; that they had attained the awful customer relations; and that no one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose Orange in 2007 and because, well, you do have some really good deals like 2-4-1 cinema tickets and magic numbers.

How surprised I therefore was when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of cowboys you seem to be.

Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver. Any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief and will quickly be replaced by derision and even perhaps bemused rage.

I woud like to be re-connected to Orange as but I have been told you have infact recycled my mobile number and have been told by the debt collection agency you no longer want me as a customer. Most of my family and friends are on Orange, and have said unless this is resolved they will too be leaving orange. I have calculated at least my friends and family generate over £9000 per year to your company (not including myself)

If you, unlike anyone within your company can deal with this issue then please contact me on 077*********, I expect I will be sent to the debt collector who will tell me that the debt is not with them.

My ofcom reference number is ********. I have been provided the number of your ombudsman and will be contacting them shortly to register a complaint unless this is rectified. This has been going on for almost a year!

Kind Regards

---

What should I do now?


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Guys_Dad

OK. You are upset because they have not supplied you with the information necessary for this matter to be settled and you don't know whose court the ball is in.

But do you think that letter is likely to resolve the matter or did you just want to rant? Sorry, but that lost you the moral high ground. So, how do you get it back - and remember that your Credit Record has probably been trashed too.

First of all, seek some evidence of the amount of the debt using a standard template letter. Here are some on this forum you can adapt
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/963087

Google a bit more and you will find lots.

You need always to be professional and calm about these things and, from your post, you made the initial problem by missing a payment. So, get back on track and keep correspondence brief and to the point, if you want a resolution.

Wintermute

cyberman2010 wrote: »

<snip>
Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore by sending them to debt collectors and the debt collectors saying the account is with Orange then when I call you I speak to someone who says the account is with a D.C.A .

Sorry, they most likely gave up as it was an emotional rant, that's not how you get results, the people reading the emails you send in will generally by a human and most people don't respond well to rants or threats.

cyberman2010 wrote: »

Most of my family and friends are on Orange, and have said unless this is resolved they will too be leaving orange. I have calculated at least my friends and family generate over £9000 per year to your company (not including myself)

Good luck with that! Most of those people will be locked into contracts and by the time they can actually jump ship and leave orange they'll have forgotten about your little argument with them.

You had over a month to sort the bill that you were disputing, the whole "well I'm not going to pay it" approach if never good, you're always better paying it then disputing it.

tazdevil01985

Wintermute wrote: »

Sorry, they most likely gave up as it was an emotional rant, that's not how you get results, the people reading the emails you send in will generally by a human and most people don't respond well to rants or threats.
Good luck with that! Most of those people will be locked into contracts and by the time they can actually jump ship and leave orange they'll have forgotten about your little argument with them.

You had over a month to sort the bill that you were disputing, the whole "well I'm not going to pay it" approach if never good, you're always better paying it then disputing it.

Totally agree rants get peoples backs up and achieves nothing. When I was in CS if I had a calm and rational customer who was having an issue then its easier and more likely they got helped. (not that I didnt help the rest but you get the drift) You should have paid the bill minus the disputed amount and asked for your account to have a marker put on (so that it didnt go through to collections - quite common when dealing with these queries)

The Executives Assistants deptarments will hopefully be able to resolve your issues however with complex issues like yours then it can take time to investigate, find out what went wrong and try (if they can rectify the issue). It may take longer as they are dealing with other companies ! They are a non customer facing team and therefore you wont be able to speak to them personally. It maybe worthwhile just sending a quick email asking if they recieved your email and asking for a response time from them