MSE News: Orange to raise monthly mobile costs

Mhadf

Terminating your contract because orange has changed it's terms. Yup, but is it legal to hide their charge limits in there rather than the section that says "changes to your contract" in a consumer agreement?

I agree that this will probably end up being a regulator/court decision. Although the OFT are generally the ones that look into consumer contract terms.

Guys_Dad

Mhadf wrote: »

Terminating your contract because orange has changed it's terms. Yup, but is it legal to hide their charge limits in there rather than the section that says "changes to your contract" in a consumer agreement?

I agree that this will probably end up being a regulator/court decision. Although the OFT are generally the ones that look into consumer contract terms.

On that point, we agree and that is why I have complained to OFCOM about their failure to take any action against ANY of the networks who have clauses against mid-contract rises incorporated in their t&c.

I am not sure that contracts that have price escalation clauses built in fall foul of OFT - for example I agreed a number of 3 year maintenance contracts on out I T servers/software/printers/cleaning etc that had the ability to raise prices subject to limits and these are perfectly fair.

What is different in this case is we have OFCOM regulations that include rights when contracts change. The dispute is whether or not these would rule the Orange/Vodafone mid contract increase clauses unfair, thereby triggering the right of customers to cancel.

That being the case, then OFCOM needs to get off its backside and produce some definitive statement so that we all can become friends again, or we need someone to have got a court decision. Until then, there are differing views on the situation.

What we all can agree on, I hope, is that raising prices mid contract is a PR disaster and should not have happened. And the fuss that is being kicked up will certainly have caused Orange to consider its actions, whether or not they had the legal right to bring in the increases.

Mhadf

Agreed, I'm quite happy to be that someone if Ofcom refuse to take action (Not like they do anything if they can avoid it).
And in the meantime I've been working on other things, as well as keeping an eye on this Orange disaster and researching consumer contract law

On the plus side, comparing case numbers shows that the exec office have had over 100 cases a DAY since this started. I wonder how many were price hike related.

billwah

Just been on the phone to Orange and the rise is definitely going ahead. The guy I spoke to said it doesn't matter what OfCom's reg's say, "it's in the T&C's"

I have been offered to swap my £35.75/month iphone contract to their new £36/month one which will be cheaper after the price rise, but they are being cagey about the internet.

I currently get 'unlimited' internet (fair usage 750Mb) and if i go over, they just slow it right down and send me a text msg. If I swap to the new plan, I get 500Mb 'with no fair usage policy.' That sounded great until I pushed the CSA. Then I was told if i went over the 500Mb, I would be charged £1/day until my next bill!

I fail to see also how if you pay more and get 1Gb of fair usage, tou are being any fairer than someone using 750Mb? Doesn't seem fair at all. I mean, what's a fair amount is a fair amount.............isn't it?

Awaiting call back.............

thischris1991

I had a call from the Orange earlier to say that ny request to cancel and go over to pay as you go couldn't be done as one of their legal team were looking into my account now don't know what it was but it might just be a ploy to stop ne complaining further.

billwah

sounds like it................

DUTR

thischris1991 wrote: »

I had a call from the Orange earlier to say that ny request to cancel and go over to pay as you go couldn't be done as one of their legal team were looking into my account now don't know what it was but it might just be a ploy to stop ne complaining further.

billwah wrote: »

sounds like it................

How can it be a ploy, if the guy is currently within commitment of a contract, then how can he just switch to PAYG?, if he is out of contract then there is no need to be whinging I'm afraid

thischris1991

DUTR wrote: »

How can it be a ploy, if the guy is currently within commitment of a contract, then how can he just switch to PAYG?, if he is out of contract then there is no need to be whinging I'm afraid

You can pay the buy out fee as they say and go over to pay as you go burnt argument was thay I'm cancelling contract and going to pay and go so not to impact on my finances so I can then say that it is material detriment

DUTR

thischris1991 wrote: »

You can pay the buy out fee as they say and go over to pay as you go burnt argument was thay I'm cancelling contract and going to pay and go so not to impact on my finances so I can then say that it is material detriment

Seems a lot of fuss.

GRINTS1981

Hi, I have just had an email from Orange and here is part of the email

"We are obliged, as are all UK operators, to abide by condition 9.6 of the OfCOM/EU Framework for EU Regulation.
Condition 9.6 sets out what we must do if a change is of material detriment to a customer. We must provide 30 days notice and allow customers to terminate their contracts without paying a termination fee.
When changes are not of material detriment, we need to provide 30 days notice (as stated in our terms), but the customer doesn't have the right to terminate their contract without paying a termination fee"
So Orange are saying that they are obliged by 9.6. They have said that i can not cancel due to this not being "material detriment"