MSE News: Orange to raise monthly mobile costs

nottinghamfella

gjchester wrote: »

Neither will Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile or any network.

Its all about your monthly spend now not your loyalty. I'm leaving Vodafone as they won't offer me any thing much as an upgrade. Read the threads and Vodafone customer service os regularly slated on here.

The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, but rarely is in practice.

the future is bright the future is orange as they say!

HarrowChap

Just spoke to Orange to register my complaint. Normal response as you'd expect, within small print etc. interestingly they wouldn't escalate The complaint above a team leader. It sits on my file with them and thats it.

Surely this is wrong? Or how do can I take it outside of Orange for a proper review of this?

Anyway I've informed them that when my contract expires in Oct 12, I'll be moving on.

CBH88

I'm gutted, I literally just got a new contract with Orange and they didn't tell me about the price increase, so I'm locked in for 24 months.

nottinghamfella

HarrowChap wrote: »

Just spoke to Orange to register my complaint. Normal response as you'd expect, within small print etc. interestingly they wouldn't escalate The complaint above a team leader. It sits on my file with them and thats it.

Surely this is wrong? Or how do can I take it outside of Orange for a proper review of this?

Anyway I've informed them that when my contract expires in Oct 12, I'll be moving on.

how long did it take them to respond to your complaint?

martin8me2

CBH88 wrote: »

I'm gutted, I literally just got a new contract with Orange and they didn't tell me about the price increase, so I'm locked in for 24 months.

If you brought your contract after September 1st 2011 then the increase will already be included in your price plan so wont go up again in 2012.

GTT

gjchester wrote: »

Neither will Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile or any network.

Its all about your monthly spend now not your loyalty. I'm leaving Vodafone as they won't offer me any thing much as an upgrade. Read the threads and Vodafone customer service os regularly slated on here.

The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, but rarely is in practice.

Well if I just go for speed alone it takes my phone ages to load up google when I'm using HSDPA but a colleague who sits next to me is on 3 and has a 3G signal (I don't) his internet access is amazingly quick.

So I can appreciate Grass is always greener but I now also know if I go with 3 today I can cut my phone bill by £10 a month on line rental and get more minutes, texts, faster internet and a newer phone.

Or I could stay with Orange and accept a price increase. Unless my calculator is broken it just doesn't add up

jmshrrsn

Sadly, as a business user, any price hikes by companies are either passed on by us to the client or we have to try and absorb.

Passing price rises on to our customers does not help keep the economy rolling along, as eventually we end up becoming more expensive and wind up pricing ourselves out of the market.

Better still, for us at least, is to look at Orange's past performance in terms of what they deliver as a service provider and ask if it is worth our time looking for a new provider.

On the whole they have delivered a very good service; we have no other reason to end our contract with them.

On balance, therefore, the 4% or so they are talking about on a £30 monthly contract is not worth our time to start researching a new provider - even if we could, given their T&Cs are probably more than legally binding.

Like most things in life, especially to do with money, a reality check is needed:

In this case, is it worth my business investing the time to save £40 or so a year on a product we actually cannot fault?

Probably not... in my opinion (and this is only from my point of view - I realise others will see it differently) this is a crisis that is rapidly becoming an unnecessary time-wasting drama.

CBH88

martin8me2 wrote: »

If you brought your contract after September 1st 2011 then the increase will already be included in your price plan so wont go up again in 2012.

Fantastic news, thanks!

Daft_Punk

!!!!!! wrote: »

But if Orange are still taking the money for Orange Care that means that cover continues

Well you didn't mention they were still taking the payment for the care. If your sure they are (it appears on your orange bill, it is not a separate DD) then yes you are covered.

But if they told you care was cancelled then it would appear you are no longer paying for it as both things cannot happen. i.e Care is cancelled and you still pay for it.

When your Orange insurance is cancelled your payment automatically stops.

Seansmum

Just called Orange Customer Service who confirmed they are increasing my contract amount. First of all he told me that this increase has NOTHING to do with Orange - it was Government imposed. Secondly, he said it could be 0.1% and not the 4.3% as stated. Told him to (a) stop lying and that Orange could choose not to impose the hike and (b) that a 4.3% increase had been announced by Orange to which he replied 'Oh'. He then got upset stating that Orange, as a British company, had been hit hard by inflation. I said 'join the club and suck it up'.

He then threatened that, if I cancelled my contract early, they would chase me for £250 fees and (I quote), 'this could seriously upset your life'.

Actually felt sorry for the guy as he's reading off a script but told him that I don't respond well to threats and If I wanted to leave Orange then I would.

He eventually swapped tariffs for me (increase 4p) which means I will not be charged the increase of 4.3% and can still cancel my contract when it ends.

Jeez! PR disaster Orange - think again!