Orange Deposit

crocket

I took out a contact with forward cellular.

paying £50/mo to orange, however orange took £150 deposit, forward cellular told me of this, they said when I cancel ill get a refund. (orange directly took it! so no chance of loosing it!)

However, on the orange letter ive just noticed it says after 12 months, i will receive the money to my AIRTIME account!!

Does this mean i will not actually receive it back as cash? Is there a way so that, if i pull down the contact to 15/mo after 6 months and pay off the contact orange told me i would loose the £150, i would have to wait untill 12 months then i would receive the amount.

Are they allowed to do this, is there a way out of this?!

I want to get out of the contact, so i can port a mobile number, they wont let me switch numbers!! (i want to keep the number thats on it too!) So i would only be taking out anohter contact with orange.

Steve_xx

The £150 deposit you paid to Orange is held on the account, usually for 12 months, in order for them to monitor how well you service the account.

If you cancel the account, giving 30 days notice at the 11th month, then they will have to refund your £150 and they will refund it in the form of a cheque.

If you want to cancel early then they would be entitled to use some of the £150 deposit money in order to pay the remainder of the monthly charges that you would have paid had you remained with the contract to its natural conclusion.

If you reduce the contract to £15 monthly then they would be entitled to take as many £15's as there are remaining in the 12 month term and they would be entitled to take it from the deposit money. They would then have to refund the remainder.

crocket

Yep! thats what i wanted them to do.

Either i pay up the 6 x 15 then they give me my full £150 back or they take it out of the deposit.

but they said nope!! if you cancel the contact like that, you will not get the deposit, you have to physically stay with us for 12 months!!

So should i argue the above?! I shall be going through the T&Cs a little later!

Steve_xx

I think that paying up front for the remainder of the minimum period should entitle you to a refund of your deposit.

You might try calling them again and then it is possible that whoever you speak to will give you a different storey. Get their name if they do.

You might try writing to them, then they have to give written response. I cannot see why they would need to hang on to your deposit if you paid upfront for the full term.

By the way, Orange offer an equivalent to a Vodafone plan which you could transfer to for the remainder of the period. This is called Equivalent of Vodafone Business and it is only £14 per month. Here is a link:

http://www.orange.co.uk/cgi-bin/ovp/network.pl?network=Vodafone

crocket

Thanks for your help! I shall see what they say!