Advice re Massive Orange Roaming Bill

DUTR

thatcambridgebird wrote: »

Fair enough, it's on their website, but how many people can honestly, honestly say that speaking to their phone provider is especially high on their list of pre-holiday things to do. Far far more important to me was ensuring I had appropriate insurances, and that my bank were aware I was travelling.

The 'bottle of champagne' example from earlier is a fair one, and maybe I am being naive - I said it earlier and don't deny it - but to take it further, having travelled abroad only 10 or so months earlier, I'd presumed costs would be comparable worldwide, so hadn't looked further into it. That's not the same as not being bothered, and to be honest I am really surprised at the attitude of a number of posters on these forums. Fair enough you may well think me foolish, but I'd always seen MSE as a place to come for well rounded, non-judgemental consumer advice. Seemingly on some level my view was completely wrong.

I think there's some misunderstanding between me and the majortiy of you as regular posters. You seem to presume I'm not going to pay. That would be lovely, but all I've expressed is shock at the charges, I never said I wouldn't pay it. It would be helpful to know the forum thoughts, given you've advised others in similar situations, on the customer service view of just cancelling the DD in order to force collections to contact me. That's absolutely what I don't want to do. I asked Orange on the phone today about setting up an immediate payment arrangement, and the rep I spoke to essentially told me it was a no-go. I don't want a poor credit rating, and that's why my hackles are up, and why being chided for something which has happened and can't be changed isn't necessarily helping.

I know you seem to get post after post about this - or at least that's what I see from comments made elsewhere - but do any of you have experience with Orange or other phone companies re setting up arrangements?

It's also curious that my partner, on Vodafone, got a text informing him of charges, when providers aren't legally obliged to send anything. It's a shame it's not all or nothing in terms of getting all suppliers to sing off the same hymn sheet.

To be honest most people check the prices or implications before they travel, it is the minority that don't check and then post with their complaints, if I went to a restuarant and ordered a meal or drink and the waiter then warned me that it's going to be more than usual I would probably take exception to the comment really.
If Orange won't play ball with agreeing a payment plan then perhaps you could get an interest free credit card and pay the bill via that card, but as someone has mentioned CHECK that you did use 170mb of data in 5 days, as that is not an amount for casual use as you describe, how different were your partner's excess charges compared to yours?

thatcambridgebird

NFH wrote: »

I think this is questionable advice. It will definitely show up as a blip on your credit history which may cause problems when applying for credit in future. I'd go down the route of negotiating a recalculation of the bill before defaulting on payment.

Yeah, I'm going to attempt to speak to them again this lunchtime, as I made it really clear to the sales rep that I was unhappy with his advice. In fact my very words were that I was uncomfortable with what he was suggesting. Today's plan of attack is to try and get through to someone more senior with whom I can actually set up an immediate payment plan, as opposed to one big direct debit payment.

NFH wrote: »

Another more significant difference with Vodafone is that you'd have paid "only" £3/MB in the US, and you would have an inclusive 25MB/day data allowance in Europe on a £40/month tariff. In order to strengthen your argument, it may be worth having a go at Orange about why their data roaming charges are so uncompetitive, and tell them you'll switch to Vodafone unless they sort out this bill.

Indeed! I'm not sure what sort of bill my other half will be looking at, given he hasn't yet recieved it, but we both tended to rely on my phone for any data usage.

Annoyingly, I still can't get into my Orange online account, in order to check the timings of when they say data was used and building up. Their online service wavers between the odd error message I got yesterday, and a different 'oops, something went wrong' style message saying there's a problem with their website.

I also tried the Orange Company Rep, via here, to see if speaking to someone directly in the UK might lead to a bit more success at getting a payment option sorted sooner rather than later - that's my big, main concern, not trying to avoid or otherwise shirk the bill. Negotiations about reduction depending on usage and what they did/didn't tell me can come later.

NFH

thatcambridgebird wrote: »

Annoyingly, I still can't get into my Orange online account, in order to check the timings of when they say data was used and building up.

Neither your online account nor your bill show when the data was used, only on which network it was used. The only way to find out when it was used is for Orange customer services to look this up on their internal system. Their data is reasonably precise, i.e. an amount of data within a particular time period (hours or even minutes).

thatcambridgebird wrote: »

speaking to someone directly in the UK

If you get through to an offshore call centre, just politely demand that they put you through to someone in the UK. I've done this several times and they comply without taking offence. You could even be specific and ask for Plymouth rather than Tyneside if you want.

Hammyman

thatcambridgebird wrote: »

Fair enough, it's on their website, but how many people can honestly, honestly say that speaking to their phone provider is especially high on their list of pre-holiday things to do.

I can. I always have along with the legal requirements for driving my car in the countries I've gone to when I've taken it, the licence requirements if I've hired and if there's a reciprocal agreement for my amateur radio licence if I intend to take some gear and operate there.

owen1978

This is how would go about it

1. Ask them how many MB you used and if they give what time they were used.

See if that matches the times you used your phone

2. If you have used the data by accident or purpose then you got to
pay... but you can try asking for some sort of goodwill

3. Pay on your hubbys credit card if possible or someone elses then take out a 0% Balance transfer credit card and transfer to payment over.

4. Sell your iphone and put it towards the credit repayments

Like i said if you have used the data, then you need to take on the chin!

drbesty

I wouldn't even take my iPhone abroad, it's just not worth the hassle, I'd rather do without it while I'm on holiday. OP if you contact Orange and follow the escalation process you will no doubt get a discount on the bill, still an expensive lesson to learn though

thatcambridgebird

Well, I tried Orange again at lunch, as I said I would, and am still no further ahead.

Their advice within their billing section is very much - "you must cancel your DD so that we attempt to collect payment, it fails, and we then write to you to take it from there".

I tried, three or four times, to ask whether an arrangement could be made - now! - to make payment in installments. I made it clear to them that I had used some element of data roaming and therefore, obviously, was liable for some payment, but that I wanted info from them on usage. I asked to speak to someone in the UK and was told that their callcentre operatives have to dial the same number a customer would, so I therefore couldn't be put through. To be honest, I have asked for their procedure in this particular case to be escalated through their complaints procedure, and asked - on the advice of Ofcom - that they put the US costs aside while the complaint is investigated.

I am surprised that, when they recieve a call from a customer wanting to pay, they say there's no way to do so apart from going through their debt process. It's that which has annoyed me - some of you on here seem to think that I am trying to shirk the bill, I'm not! I want to pay, but on an agreed term so I can actually still pay my other bills for the month. I will carefully double check all of the data use they claim I had, but I am not denying there was any!

Orange, to me, seem to have been thus far incredibly robotic and obstructive regarding my discussion with them, but I am sure will be straight on the line with restricted service and threats if I do follow their ridiculous procedure of cancelling the DD.

In other news, the house sale I mentioned in post one is due to complete on Friday, so perhaps I could put aside some money from that to pay this :rotfl:

thatcambridgebird

Hammyman wrote: »

They have no legal requirement to do so. It is up to you to do your own research and their prices are clearly displayed on their website for all countries they have roaming agreements with.

Also in the USA, not only do you get billed for calls you make but also calls you receive.

Interestingly, in a further discussion with Ofcom today, I asked expressly about the law requiring providers to inform customers, via text, of charges outside the EU. Ofcom are of the opinion that an SMS should be sent, but that beyond that the provider is under no legal obligation to do anything else - i.e. cap usage or warn customers.

I did point out that I'd heard this was the case for the EU only, and mentioned this site and the information you guys had given me, and asked if they were therefore sure on this point. They said yes, they were, so therefore they'd have expected an SMS to have been recieved even though I was in the US.

My partner's bill has just arrived - his came in from Vodafone at £60, including usage in the States.

As I've said above, I have requested escalation, and will see what they come back with from there.

grumbler

Beware that even if you come to some agreement on a payment plan, you number will be suspended, you will keep paying the monthly price, but will be able only to receive the calls until you finish paying the debt. Is this really what you want? If not, find some way of borrowing the money as advised above an pay the bill now.

NFH

thatcambridgebird wrote: »

I asked to speak to someone in the UK and was told that their callcentre operatives have to dial the same number a customer would, so I therefore couldn't be put through.

As you might have guessed, they're making this up. The call centre staff can't dial 150 as they don't have Orange handsets in Manila or India. They can quite easily put you through to a UK call centre if they want to. Otherwise, keep trying at different times of the day pressing different options (e.g. help using your handset instead of billing) and you should get through to someone in the UK sooner or later. If it's the wrong department, they should be able to put you through to a colleague in billing in the UK.

Another thing you can claim is that you would have added data roaming bundles yourself via the Orange web site, but the "your account" section was down (as usual) when you tried to log in. The point is that even if you had tried to add the relevant bundle, you probably wouldn't have been able to do so without going through the pains of an unreasonably laborious long-winded phone call to an offshore call centre.