Can Orange do this?

montsie

Soooo 18 month contract at £20 a month (utilising £15 worth of loyalty). Upgraded at 15months to a Blackberry (same deal).
Had that for 18 months now and have gone to another network. Apparently I can't cancel the contract yet as I have to pay off the 3 months of the old 18month contract where i upgraded. That's fine. HOWEVER, Orange have said they no longer offer loyalty discounts and will charge me £35 a month for the remaining 3 months. Can they do this?!!!!

gjchester

montsie wrote: »

Soooo 18 month contract at £20 a month (utilising £15 worth of loyalty). Upgraded at 15months to a Blackberry (same deal).
Had that for 18 months now and have gone to another network. Apparently I can't cancel the contract yet as I have to pay off the 3 months of the old 18month contract where i upgraded. That's fine. HOWEVER, Orange have said they no longer offer loyalty discounts and will charge me £35 a month for the remaining 3 months. Can they do this?!!!!

If I'm reading this right your bill is £35 a month but you get £15 off for loyalty which is where the £20 PCM comes from. Loyalty discounts are usually a credit to the bill , not taken off before the monthly charge is applied to your account

Paying off never includes loyalty discounts so unfortunatly it looks like you are stuck with the bill a it is. As your leaving you can't really expect them to continue the loyalty discount..

montsie

Oh they don't know I'm leaving.

My issue is that if I agreed to an 18 month contract at £20 a month surely they have to hold up that end of the bargain also. They can't decide that for the last 3 month of my contract it's £35 because they no longer offer loyalty discounts.

Basically because I upgraded at 15 months and have had another 18 month contract they say I need to pay off the last 3 months of the previous contract. But if I signed up to that at £20 a month how can they charge me nearly double for the final 3 months?

Jon_01

'I think' what you agreed to was £35 a month discounted to £20 for 18 months. The 18 months is up so the discount automaticly drops off your acc. So now you're left with the 3 month of the last contract. Upgrading early doesn't void those 3 months, they're just added to the end of the new deal.

montsie

I don't have problem with paying the final 3 months at all!

I just have a problem with them making me pay £35 for the final 3 months.

If I agreed to one contract at 18months for £20 then at 15 months got a new handset at the same price for a new 18 months then i should have to pay 36 months. But I never agreed to a £35 price bracket. If the argument is that I need to finish the first 18 month contract surely the contract is £20 a month not £35.

I don't see how they can chenge that...

Tony5101

Have you spoken to Orange and argued your point with them?

montsie

Hi Tony, yes. they say they no longer offer loyalty discounts and that's the end of the matter but surely if i entered a contract with a loyalty discount...they have to continue it...what with it being a contract and all....
Am I being naive here?

Tony5101

Personally - I would say that you should have a pretty good argument, as your initial contract would have been agreed at 18months x £35 - (minus) 18 months x £15 (unless I'm reading things wrong?), then at month 15, you agreed another contract on the same basis, knowing that the remaining 3 months of the first contract would be tagged on - totalling 36 months.
I think you're probably going to need to swallow the charges initially (if you're looking to buy-out the last 3 months), and write to customer services.
I very much doubt that you're going to get anywhere over the phone, and contacting them in writing at least gives you the opportunity to document things out properly.

montsie

Tony5101 wrote: »

Personally - I would say that you should have a pretty good argument, as your initial contract would have been agreed at 18months x £35 - 18 months x £15 (unless I'm reading things wrong?), then at month 15, you agreed another contract on the same basis, knowing that the remaining 3 months of the first contract would be tagged on - totalling 36 months.
I think you're probably going to need to swallow the charges initially (if you're looking to buy-out the last 3 months), and write to customer services.
I very much doubt that you're going to get anywhere over the phone, and contacting them in writing at least gives you the opportunity to document things out properly.

Thanks for responding, I'm getting in touch with Ofcom also to see what they think. I'm not paying out the contract just letting it run to the end of it's term.

It seems dodgy as I agreed to enter into an 18 month contract with them and pay £20 a month in exchange for the service they provided. They are claiming I need to finish the term of this 18 month contract so surely they must uphold the contract they formed with me of a £20 price whether or not they STILL offer this deal.

Tony5101

Sadly, I can't really see what Ofcom can/will do - as this isn't really anything to do with them providing/not providing services to you. This is/was more of a personally negotiated discount (if you see where I'm coming from?), so I think you're going to need to deal directly with Orange to get it sorted.
If it had been for a larger sum of money, you could have always dealt with it legally using a more 'official' channel - but for £45, it's probably not worth it. (I realise it's not money to just throw away...but in the grand scheme of things, it's not a massive amount)
Good luck!

montsie

Maybe not but £45 is over 2 months of line rental extra. Well I figure Ofcom is worth a try as Orange won't budge. Thanks for the advise anyway