Data protection: Mobile phone contract

Stormcrow_3

EDIT: Lesson learnt. I understand I should have phoned in the first place and understand the procedure. Fair do's.

P.S. reason my son was on the phone: he said he wanted to have a go at renegotiating a better deal instead of me having to cancel.

P.P.S. Slight frustration is because the manager didn't even let me speak and hanged up.

Side note: they believe the account has been compromised.... but have done nothing to the phone? It's still working perfectly.. odd

Hi everyone. Small query about data protection.

I had my son call the orange mobile network for me to give notice for my contract. He asked me for my DOB before telling the customer service representative (while on the phone). She promptly hanged up.

I called back and they refused to speak to me, saying I had broken data protection act by allowing him to do so. I asked for a line manager, he didn't allow me to get in a word edgeways and said the account has been compromised and hanged up on me.

I now have to provide 3 proofs of ID in the orange shop. This will cost me to get to town, and is a big inconvenience.

Is this my only option? Hardly seems worth it as I want to end the contract as well.

Thank you in advance.

withabix

Why didn't you speak to them to start with?

BoGoF

The way it works is you pass security and ask them to speak to your son.

I'm afraid you are in the wrong. Don't see why you need to visit an Orange shop to cancel though, has the art of writing a letter vanished

Stormcrow_3

withabix wrote: »

Why didn't you speak to them to start with?

Fair point, I realise I should have.

Browntoa

they have done what I would expect any responsible Network to do , suspicious call to attempt to access account , Account locked to prevent fraud

geordieracer

Why didnt you make the call yourself?

The problem for them on the phone is that they have heard someone ask someone else for the date of birth of the account holder and they have no idea if either of you were the right person so they done the right thing to protect YOU and hung up and put the account in Limbo.

Imagine how mad you would be if someone had got hold of your information and then done the same thing and Orange went through with everything thinking it was you and you ended up having 3 contracts all on high rates and expensive phones given away?

Now thank them for their actions because they done it with yours and their best interests to cut out fraud.

Stormcrow_3

BoGoF wrote: »

The way it works is you pass security and ask them to speak to your son.

I'm afraid you are in the wrong. Don't see why you need to visit an Orange shop to cancel though, has the art of writing a letter vanished

Thank you for your response.

Guess it will have to be the shop - as I don't want to end up having to pay another 30 days if they decide not to hold the letter as valid notice.

Techhead_2

As you've gone back and edited the post, rather than add your questions on, I'll just add that they haven't (yet) done anything to the phone because so far all that's happened is an unsuccessfully attempt to gain access to your account. They have no reason to believe anything has happened to the handset.

Fergie76

TBF though, when I have called up before on behalf of my mother or wife, I always explain that I am calling on their behalf and the first thing they normally ask is to speak to them to clear security and then pass the phone back to me.

Why couldn't have Orange not just done this in this case. Never had any problems doing it this way before.

scheming_gypsy

Stormcrow wrote: »

I called back and they refused to speak to me, saying I had broken data protection act by allowing him to do so. .

can a consumer break the DPA? isn't the DPA put in place to protect the consumer

shaun_from_Africa

can a consumer break the DPA

No. The DPA is there to regulate how information is processed by companies.
However, Orange may well have been referring to the OP breaking their security policy by passing password or other security information to a third party and maybe they just got their wording a bit muddled.