Orange Broadband Ripping me off?!

NHStealingMySoul

Hi,

I have recently (and apparently foolishly) signed up to Orange broadband. Their communication since I signed up has been non-existent bar a text to tell me an engineer was visiting last Saturday as he needed to swap over or activate the line at the green box. So last Saturday a friendly bt engineer comes, plugs in his gadget to our bt box and tells her-indoors that the line is already activated and he doesn't have to do anything.

Perturbed by this I contact Orange with two questions....
1) When is my broadband going live as it's been ages since I signed up and have had no communication
2) Can you take the engineer visit off my bill as he didn't do anything or even need to have been called out in the first place and I'm not paying for yours or bt's mistake.

The nice man from Orange tells me the engineer charge is set by BT and they pass the charge on to us, the customer, so I will still have to pay it. But hang on, I say... YOU told me I needed an engineer out to activate the line at the green box and he didn't need to come out so they're charging me for their mistake. Where so I stand on this legally. Even though I have no router and no broadband yet, I am still past the 14 (?) day "cooling off" period (I think). Where do I stand legally though on being charged for something I was told I needed when in fact I didn't! Whether lied to, mis-sold, their mistake, bt's mistake... whatever, not my responsibilty to bear the cost surely?!

Any advice would be great...... Thanks!

Buzby

You would still be charged whether the engineer visited your premises, it is not like a fault. The work would be done at the exchange you add BB to your line, and the fact they followed it through was a nice touch - not an opportunity to complain that you shouldn't have to bay the connection fee!

kwikbreaks

I'm guessing this is a charge of ~ £100 or more in which case the advice above is wrong IMO. Just about all ISPs absorb the ~ £50 ADSL activation charge in return for a minimum contract term of 12 months or more and that will never require anybody to touch a cabinet or visit your house.

From my reading of your post there was a fault callout and no fault was found. It sounds to me like Orange screwed up (no surprise there) and are wrongly trying to bill you for that (still no surprise)

My advice resist paying it but not to the point where they cancel the account and pass it to debt collectors. If you do end up paying it then seek redress through the independent complaints procedure which should be detailed on the Orange website (I don't recall just which agency it is handles this sort of problem).

bod1467

OFCOM or CISAS?