Major Problems with Orange Mobile Phone Contract

Ms_Chocaholic

In June I took advantage of an offer from Orange - Racoon 30, £30 per month but with 18 month contract got free insurance, 1000 texts per month and an extra 200 minutes for first six months.

The first paperwork I received from Orange had the wrong address on (road was correct, number was wrong) and luckily I received this but only due to the fact that my postman knew that it should have come to me. I rang and asked them to make the correction on the account. A short while later I realised I had not had insurance documentation so rang them re this and the woman at customer services explained that the account had not been set up correctly.

Just returned from holiday and checked my online banking and noticed last month's DD from Orange was for £154!!! I nearly had a heart attack. I'd still not had the bills (they must have still being going to the wrong address) so I rang Orange again to change address and they agreed to send copy bills to me (foc). My son uses the phone (the contract is in my name) so I just thought the excessive amount was due to his overuse and not any problems with Orange - how wrong I was. Luckily I didn't ring him immediately on noticing the huge bill, I would have blown my top.

I then realised that I could probably access the bills online so went online and noticed that the 1000 free texts hadn't been added to the account (son had used 914 txts in that month for which I had been charged 10p per text). Rang Orange again and they said that as I had taken out the contract in store that I needed to return to that store with my receipts etc. I did this the following day (a 30 mile journey out of my way) but the journey seemed a wasted journey. Spoke to Manager and all he did was ring billing (the same team that I'd been on the phone to) who would re-calculate the bills and credit my account. He said that this couldn't be done for 10 days and as my next bill was due the following day they couldn't do it in time for that bill to be altered.

They gave me an address of head office which I can complain to in writing. Does anyone else know what else I can do, is there a telephone number I can ring to compalin. What are my chances that the money I have been overcharged will be returned to me and not just credited to my account. What are my chances of claiming anything over and above the refund I receive (and how do I ask for this).

Any advice would be most welcomed.

Thanks.

gyzmo

I think that you have done all you can for now. Any regulatory body will only get onvolved once all Oranges procedures are exhausted. I would cancel any direct debit (to make sure they don't plunder you account again), and keep note of all losses incurred by yourself, along with copies of all paperwork and details of all phone calls and conversations (include names, dates, times etc). Wait to see what they say and then take it further if necessary.


Good luck, and...

914 texts a month??? wow! That's some tapping!

Ms_Chocaholic

I did think about cancelling DD - if I do, could they legitimately charge me for non-payment of DD?

magyar

Chocaholic, you are 100% entitled to any monies overpaid to be repaid in cash or cheque rather than credited to your account, if that's what you want.

This sounds like it is clearly their fault, so if you're patient you should get everything put right. Make sure you get the name of everyone you speak to and document each call. If, for example, you are wrongly informed (as it sounds) and made a wasted journey then a small token to compensate you for this is reasonable.

I wouldn't cancel the DD for now. Give them time to sort it all out and get the account in order, see what they do to rectify it and then make your decision as to whether to stay with them etc.

RightRevBod

If you phone your bank and tell them that the DD was wrongly claimed, they will immediately refund you under the direct debit guarantee. It was wrongly claimed for 2 reasons:

1. You were charged the wrong amount.
2. You did not receive a bill before the DD was taken.

If orange have there act together if/when the next bill arrives, they can roll the correct charges for this month onto the next month. Otherwise get the bank to refund the next DD as well.

I had a simlar problem at an old house with Telewest. They had been overcharging me for about 4 months. I notified them of the problem and when they still had not resolved it after a further 2 months, I got my bank to refund the previous 6 months worth of DDs. I wrote to Telewest and informed them that I would happily pay the 6 months charges, once they could issue me with the correct bills.

piper5

with regards to orange crediting your account, what that will mean is they will reimburse what you overpaid, but put it onto your account! so if they reimburse you £100 and your next bill is £30, then they still owe you £70, so in affect you arent going to pay a bill for the next 3 months and then your bill after that will be £20 as they are still in debt to you for that amount. this is providing that your son does not go over his allowance.
how have your previous bills looked? have they always been over the priceplan cost?

Ms_Chocaholic

The first bill was around £41 but I never gave it a thought that the texts hadn't been put onto the account, just that my son had using more talk minutes than on his price plan. The next bill was just above £50 but when I spoke to Orange about the insurance not being put on the account, she said I hadn't been billed for that either so I assumed that was the backdated month's payments for the insurance. I intended speaking to my son about it (he's away at Uni) and never realised I hadn't had the bills as so busy with all the paperwork (and loads of problems with Student Finance) re getting him to Uni.