Orange Swapables - anyone used yet?

jaythered

risenair wrote: »

i got the sky sports package, and it just takes you to a webpage with all the sky sports channels, and the news one plus espn. The quality is rather poor, but is what you'd expect from a live stream, though if you're at home you can easily stream it on the computer at much better quality.

How do you manage to stream a swapable onto your laptop. I can't manage it.

I've had Galaxy S3 for 3 days and get 1 free swapable. Managed to get Sky Sports working and created a bookmark link on homepage to speed up access to it. However, when I set it up it said I would get a free month trial and then pay £6 per month for the service. I have contacted the friendly but useless customer service centre (after holding for 30 mins each time) and they have assured me that I won't be charged - hmmm, time will tell.

My biggest gripe is the quality. Some people in this thread have stated what can you expect? Well I previously had an iPhone with the Sky Sports TV package on it (don't have Sky at home) for which I paid £10 per month - used to be £8 but went up - and the quality was perfection personified. TV HD quality as opposed to this blocky cut out crap that orange are serving up.

Orange have clearly bought a sub standard low definition subscription from bSkyB, dishing it out free on Panther plans and are then able to advertise Sky Sports as being free within their advertising. Nothing short of a scam IMO and one I'll be taking this to Watchdog, Which, OFT and the CEO of Orange as their customer service teams are merely scripted low level low wage droids designed to deflect rather than solve.

I have 11 days to decide whether to keep the phone and due to this I am seriously considering this option despite the S3 being step ahead of the iPhone 4s and waiting for the iP5.

utero

I took out a phone with Orange purely because you could get Sky Sports on it. The quality is like watching a video on a connection that it stuck in 1995 on a 14.4k modem.

Needless to say I have complained to Orange and they don't want to know.

John_Gateshead

rekim wrote: »

I upgraded last week, the swappables only become active when your next billing period starts as you'll still be on the old plan. Once that happens you'll get a service update txt.

They really need to make it clearer when the service isn't active yet. I was unsure until I got a service txt and re checked to see new add this buttons on the swappables page. Before they're active there's nothing to tell you
t's not set up. They should grey out the add buttons instead of removing them.

I have had exactly the same problem. Wasted ages going round in circles with text messages and verification but nothing actually allowing me to choose my one swapable. After keeping me on hold for ages, Orange told me I had to wait until my billing date. Why couldn't they have told me that when I signed up? Tried on the billing date and the day after and things were the same. Even the "Orange helpers" told me to do the same thing and ignored, or refused to accept, my assertion that things weren't properly set up at their end. Three weeks after I signed up, I still can't get this service.

Now I'm told that, if I wait a few more days, the service will start working and feel I'm no further forward. The excuse I got last night is that it's a "new service", but I see from this thread that it's been going since last September at least.

Are companies like Orange actually *trying* to alienate and frustrate their customers? Whether they are or not, if this is the usual standard of their "customer service" then it's baffling how they manage to stay in business.

yellowperil37

Hi! I also spent 2hrs on the phone to orange in india trying to solve the problem of swapables only showing russell grants horrible horoscopes.
Eventually got transferred back to the UK technical support who said that lots of samsung phones get confused by the orangeworld website.To fix this in your phones browser type
about:useragent

select samsung S and hey presto the full list of swapables appears

Hope that helps someone, it certainly helped me!
Cheers
YP

barnstormer365

So do you need to have a Sky Sports subscription at home to use this swappable?

latecomer

No you dont.

JohnnyJohnson_2

One person told me that you only get the first month of Sky Sports Mobile for free with swapables and then have to pay monthly. Can anyone verify whether this is true or not? Cheers.

spiritus

I've played around with the Orange Swapables for around 3 months now and my conclusion is don't take out an Orange Panther plan if the main selling point for you is the Swapables option because it's not worth it !

To date, I have tried the following swappables

• Times Subscription
• Sky Sports
• Book Club
• Navicon

1. Time Subscription. The one I liked the most but also major tech issues with the app. Works fine for the first 30 days but then tells you your "free trial has expired". Many other people experience the same issues and it's a well known problem with the Times swapable app
2. Sky Sports. Looking forward to watching football on this app but the quality is poor. Was hoping I could link to my TV but the quality is barely watchable. On the phone it is marginally better.
3. Book Club. I feel this is a con. If I recall correctly you only get a handful of books to choose from and none of them are new or even reletively new books and most are from unknown authors.
4. I downloaded a free Navicon app for my phone around 5 months ago but deleted the app when it tried to send me up a one way street. I thought the Orange Swapable option was an upgraded version but it looks the same as the free one.

mattgee100

Just sought help from Orange because I could not add my two swapables. The operator told me there are technical issues that they are working on and was not surprised that the swapables were unattainable. Not sure when it would be fixed. To compensate me for the trouble offered a £10 credit on my account this month which I accepted.
Judging by much of the input here a £10 credit could be better than having the swapables.

The problem I was having was that when I followed the link from the authentication text I could see the 2 "add swapable" links but they took me to an error page. Sometimes I would get a page offering me a choice of one - Russell Grant! I should have seen this coming.

fii509

@Mattgee well done for getting some credit back I was only able to access swappables for the first 3 weeks of my contract. I then couldn't access them for about 7 weeks. Tried several times with customer services and finally got told there was a technical issue, not my phone's issue, and that they would call me when swappables were back. Just tried off chance today and found they were working .... but no phone call from Orange. When I did point out that I had taken an orange contract partly because of the swappables on offer and therefore they were breaching their contract by not supplying them, I was told swappables were not part of the contract, just simply a treat. Anyway, I am now back using Deezer I'm a happy bunny :j