Orange: Phone cut off - cant afford to pay bill

sortingitout2011

Hi,

Through financial difficulties I havent paid my orange bill for a month and it got to around £200. They cut me off and I have since paid £85.

I am going to call them soon to try and negotiate some sort of payment plan. Can anyone tell me what my best options are? If I offer to set up a direct debit to pay off the rest of the bill when I get paid on the 25th do you think they will reconnect me before then?

I want to pay the bill and have paid £85, but I really cant afford to pay anymore before payday.

Thanks,
Natalie

Tony5101

I would guess that they won't even consider reconnection before any balance is brought up to date. It really wouldn't surprise me if they were to also require some sort of additional deposit before they reconnect you.

grumbler

^^I cannot add anything to the above post. Don't forget that they will keep charging you the monthly charge even while the line is disconnected.

However, I am curious whether the financial difficulties are a result of paying £100-£200 per month for a mobile phone and calls :think:

sortingitout2011 wrote: »

Through financial difficulties I havent paid my orange bill for a month and it got to around £200. They cut me off and I have since paid £85.

Jon_01

Afraid Tony's right, they won't reconnect until you're paid up.

Its a sad fact that many people who call and say 'I'll pay you on XX can you connect me?' never do if they do reconnect them and the debt just gets bigger (I saw one guy rack up a grand in 2 days and that's far from the record).

hook

i was cut of yesterday and i thought i had paid my orange bill last month so when i spoke to them it turned out i owed last months and this months £187 i paid them £100 and they put me back on within the hour the second bill only came out on the 3rd of the month. it was for my phone and my partners.

macman

But how on earth do you come to be paying £187 a month even for two phones? That's £93.50 each!
Even an iPhone 4s is about a third of that.

hook

its £187 for 2 months for 2 phones including my insurance

killer_cam

My Boss use to work for Vodafone in the billing department, he said a bloke rang up to question his phone bill of a £140,000, of course my manger looked in to it turned out the bloke did owne it he had gone abroad and used his phone as a modem to watch dirty films online, he had to re-mortgage the house to pay up !!!

some people manage to rack up serious phone bills my sister went over her minuets with orange by £700 they wouldnt give her any help with paying it off slowly or anything, Shes with vodafone now and is always going over but they seem really good in the fact they actually reduce the amount she ownes to help pay it off ???

hook

Ask them you got nothing to lose so far out of all the phone companies I been with orange have the best customer service

macman

hook wrote: »

its £187 for 2 months for 2 phones including my insurance

OK, but that's still nearly £47per month per phone. Between the 2, £1,128pa.
grumbler's point is valid-can you not switch to a cheaper tariff?

Toe-Jam

killer_cam wrote: »

My Boss use to work for Vodafone in the billing department, he said a bloke rang up to question his phone bill of a £140,000, of course my manger looked in to it turned out the bloke did owne it he had gone abroad and used his phone as a modem to watch dirty films online, he had to re-mortgage the house to pay up !!!

some people manage to rack up serious phone bills my sister went over her minuets with orange by £700 they wouldnt give her any help with paying it off slowly or anything, Shes with vodafone now and is always going over but they seem really good in the fact they actually reduce the amount she ownes to help pay it off ???

If customers can't manage their accounts within the terms of their tariffs without someone holding their hands, then pay and go would be a better option.

You wouldn't go into a restaurant and eat a 3 course meal and then say at then end, actually I only meant to have a starter, can I pay you in instalments.