Orange - Poor service

sideshow_matt

Apologies in advance, but this is going to be a small essay.

I purchased my HTC Desire 12 months ago from Car phone warehouse on Orange. From day one I have had problems with data connections on the phone. The service is extremely intermittent, and often I am connected but can get no data.

I have spoken to Orange an many occasions over the last year. The first response is it is a network fault in my area. I travel all over the UK with work, and have started asking them where the fault is. It's always covering my home address (city centre) and when I tell them I am several hundred miles away, we go through the same off and on again and putting my phone on 2g. As soon as it picks up any connection, they say it is fixed. 10 minutes later and it is not working again.

The phone always works on a wifi connection, and my wife has the same connection issues I do on here Orange phone. We have also tried switching back and forth to T Mobile but with no use.

They have asked for patters, and one I picked up was it never works at my local football stadium during a match.......I wish I hadn't as they said I would have to call them during a match so they could investigate. I did this at half time during the last game of the season, and surprisingly they couldn't hear me......In a massive stadium surrounded by 20k other people :rotfl:

I have been promised call backs by managers that never come. The last person told me that I would need a new handset and raised an 'action'. I was then called back and told I would have to take it back to Carphone Warehouse and explain the situation, and that an 'Action' was outstanding, and they would call Orange and confirm this and replace my handset (which imo has no fault).

I took the afternoon off work, and drove to store. They contacted Orange..........but not to agree the handset, but to tell Orange that they have no such agreement with them, and that they should swap the handset for me. The last thing the manager of Car Phone Warehouse said they would do is send it back to HTC for a repair, but I would be without my phone, and they did not think the handset was at fault, as my wife has the same issue.

I have also had new sim cards, and again this did nothing.

My friends have advised me to cancel my direct debits to Orange and tell them that it is not fit for purpose, but from what I can see online, they will just attack my credit file, even though after a year of constant complaints I am no further forward.

Has anyone got any ideas how to help? or should I just cancel my payments and tell them to see me in court.

Guys_Dad

Definitely not the last solution! I know it's tempting, but you will come off worst.

Try a letter to their Chief Exec's office explaining your problem and ask them for a solution. Unilateral action on your part will definitely hit you harder than them - read the forum!

I have poor reception at home and have a UMA handset. Orange branded Desires are equipped with UMA, but not unbranded/unlocked ones from CPW. Check up UMA on the Orange web site and suggest to Orange that you come to some deal on one of them as a compromise. I have an LG Optimus 1 that is ok and reliable.

sideshow_matt

Thanks for the reply, but UMA would not help me at all. The problem follows me all over the country, and when I am at home it connects to my wifi, so is fine there.

I have given them a year so far. I can not believe that I am tied into paying for something that does not work. I will go down the CEO route as you suggested

Guys_Dad

UMA only helps voice calls anyway, so that would not be of any use.

Surprised that both you and your wife have data difficulties UK wide. I tend to get good data reception when mobile. One test that you could do to eliminate the handset is to put in a giffgaff sim with data for a month to see if that works ok. At least it would help decide if it is the network or the Desire.

I know ir could cost a tenner or so, but I think that would be worth it to get to the root cause.

sideshow_matt

Have tried that with a Tesco mobile sim, and worked fine. That's why cfw said it was not the handset. Sorry missed it out of my original post, but It's been a year of trying exerything, and was a bit tricky to sumarise

MissKeith

Try having a read through of this thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2523297

It really worked for me, my signal has majorly improved.

sideshow_matt

Thanks for that, will happily give it a try. Am disgusted with the lack of help I have received from Orange though, and can't wait to get back to another provider.

sideshow_matt

Does not seem to have made much of a difference. I was at the stadium today getting tickets and it was working when I was in the queue, but will be interesting to see what it is like on a match day, when their network is falling over due to the number of people there.

drbesty

The network is going to be quite busy if you're in a stadium with 20000 people, I thought that would be obvious

sideshow_matt

drbesty wrote: »

The network is going to be quite busy if you're in a stadium with 20000 people, I thought that would be obvious

Yes that is obvious, and I would expect it to be slow. However when friends on Tesco, 3, and Vodafone can all get the scores in and all I get is data errors when I pay the most for my contract, I think I have a right to be annoyed.

This is just one place I can always guarantee problems, however I have had problems in the following locations.

London
Manchester
Wrexham
Warrington
Edinburgh
Swansea
Brighton
Norwich
Oxford
Gloucester
Derby
Liverpool
Blackpool

These are the ones I remember off the top of my head........and they always end the same way.......'oh we have a local outage in your area sir.....' 'Oh right where am I then...?' 'Swansea?'

LIARS!

drbesty

It sounds more like a general lack of data capacity on the network rather than a fault on whichever mast you happen to be near at the time