MSE News: Orange won't face price hike investigation but door open for complaints

jasonwatkins

simax wrote: »

I seriously cannot believe everyone is tearing their hair out for pennies! Get some perspective.

how should i "get some perspective" then ?

simax

Perspective is the cost of filling up your tank at the pumps has gone up from £35 to £90 a time since 2001.

Perspective is your weekly shop going up from £50 a week to £150 since 2001

Perspective is Gas and Electricity prices have gone up by 300-400% since 2001.

Orange have for the first time since 1994 put their legacy plans up by approximately £1.

That's perspective.

Pilks

I was just looking back through the paperwork giving to me by Phones4U. They bought out my previous contract and specifically sold me the Orange contract based on its monthly price. Term 4.3 and 4.3.1 was not brought to my attention at all during the sale and the whole of the terms and conditions was given to me printed on one A4 size paper which renders the text so small that it is unreadable.

According to Ofcom and I quote the reply I received from them

the contract term which allows Orange to increase charges (by an amount equal to or less than the Retail Price Index (RPI) in any 12 month period) is likely to be acceptable under the UTCCRs, provided the term has been clearly brought to your attention.

I have asked Ofcom to confirm what is the minimum required for Orange or its representatives to have clearly brought this to the customers attention.
I expect that not mentioning the term at all and being given the terms in an unreadable format is more than sufficient for Orange and they can keep their smug grin on their face as they get away with this on technicalities and spineless so called independent regulators.

Guys_Dad

Pilks wrote: »

I was just looking back through the paperwork giving to me by Phones4U. They bought out my previous contract and specifically sold me the Orange contract based on its monthly price. Term 4.3 and 4.3.1 was not brought to my attention at all during the sale and the whole of the terms and conditions was given to me printed on one A4 size paper which renders the text so small that it is unreadable.

According to Ofcom and I quote the reply I received from them


I have asked Ofcom to confirm what is the minimum required for Orange or its representatives to have clearly brought this to the customers attention.
I expect that not mentioning the term at all and being given the terms in an unreadable format is more than sufficient for Orange and they can keep their smug grin on their face as they get away with this on technicalities and spineless so called independent regulators.

Yes -but it's you against Orange and how do you prove that you were not made aware of the t&c and, more importantly, did you tick the box and sign that you had read them?

Mhadf

Well, after lots of waiting, Oranges official response is...... Test Case it.

Biohazard

Pilks wrote: »

I was just looking back through the paperwork giving to me by Phones4U. They bought out my previous contract and specifically sold me the Orange contract based on its monthly price. Term 4.3 and 4.3.1 was not brought to my attention at all during the sale and the whole of the terms and conditions was given to me printed on one A4 size paper which renders the text so small that it is unreadable.

According to Ofcom and I quote the reply I received from them


I have asked Ofcom to confirm what is the minimum required for Orange or its representatives to have clearly brought this to the customers attention.
I expect that not mentioning the term at all and being given the terms in an unreadable format is more than sufficient for Orange and they can keep their smug grin on their face as they get away with this on technicalities and spineless so called independent regulators.

Orange must be laughing What about those like me who have purchased over the phone? No contract details there? I dont remember being sent something out either?

This concerns me in the future because I am serverly dyslexic with regards to comphrension. I just cant take in all that information.

Decided to just accept this change, but they can kiss goodbye to my custom in 12 months time when my contract term expires.

grumbler

simax wrote: »

Perspective is the cost of filling up your tank at the pumps has gone up from £35 to £90 a time since 2001.

Well, if the cost didn't go up you cannot expect to get hit by the price hike in the middle of the process of filling up your tank.

Perspective is your weekly shop going up from £50 a week to £150 since 2001

Ignoring price errors you'd be surprised to face the prices going up at a checkout.

Orange have for the first time since 1994 put their legacy plans up by approximately £1.

Hardly a consolation for the customers that joined Orange less than a year ago. Why would they care about 1994? And Orange contracts aren't the cheapest anyway.

Why "1 October"? Any price rise linked to the annual inflation is justified only for the contracts started at least one year ago.

im-lost

Pilks wrote: »

I was just looking back through the paperwork giving to me by Phones4U. They bought out my previous contract and specifically sold me the Orange contract based on its monthly price. Term 4.3 and 4.3.1 was not brought to my attention at all during the sale and the whole of the terms and conditions was given to me printed on one A4 size paper which renders the text so small that it is unreadable.

According to Ofcom and I quote the reply I received from them


I have asked Ofcom to confirm what is the minimum required for Orange or its representatives to have clearly brought this to the customers attention.
I expect that not mentioning the term at all and being given the terms in an unreadable format is more than sufficient for Orange and they can keep their smug grin on their face as they get away with this on technicalities and spineless so called independent regulators.

But it was clearly brought to your attention, no?
Im sure they asked you to read the terms of the contract you were signing up to, you obviously agreed to them as you got the contract

It seems a lot of people moaning about this want to make a mountain out of a molehill, its a valid term within the contracts, if you believe its an unfair term then challenge it in court, you will lose.

3 mobile done a similar thing last year, people phoned up, and got a credit to their account as they asked nicely a long way from the demanding attitudes of many on this site over this increase.

If you want to have a fight on your hands try the 3 mobile charging for sms delivery reports, a saga that has been ongoing for 6 months, first it went to ofcom, its now been with the ombudsman services where resolutions have been filtering through, although I rejected the first giving a £120 credit to my account, instead ive opted to push for a full cancellation, which im currently waiting to hear back on :rotfl:

A £1 increase, come on, try an increase that if you use every test message on your plan and have delivery reports switched on will end up costing £50 on top of your contract...

People have no hope of canceling over this, its a tiny increase, below inflation, which is allowed within the terms you agreed to, which is below the 10% increase that ofcom / ombudsman services want to enable to prove a detrimental change.

To put it bluntly, you haven't got a snowballs in hell's chance of cancelling over this.

yes you may get a credit to your account if you go about it the right way, but those fighting for a full cancellation, its a waste of time, your time would be better spend getting an app on your phone that pays you a fiver a month and put that towards your contract.

jasonwatkins

Well I made the call to Orange. Spoke to 1st person and told the story of my current situation. He told me he wasn't trained in that area and that he couldn't give me an adequate answer, so he advised me to ring 178 to talk to collections.

Rang collections and regaled the story for the 2nd time. He told me that what they were doing was transferring people to the 'new' priceplans so that i'd get more minutes. Said that these plans had the new price rise built in and that it would end up costing me £36 pounds a month as opposed to the £30 i'm currently paying.

I said "So based on what i've just told you, how exactly does an extra £6 a month actually benefit me ?". He then told me that he would transfer me to an "accounts advisor" who might be able to help me.

Got transferred to India this time. Explained briefly my situation and the "advisor" started reading the T's & C's verbatim over the phone so I stopped her mid-flow.

She told me that the only plan she could offer me was one at £26 pounds a month, but basically my allowance would be cut in half - down to 400 minutes & 250mb data.

I told her I needed the minutes for various reasons and asked her how that was a good deal, considering I was getting a 50% cut in allowance for probably around a 17-18% cut in the bill.

And then it all got a bit bizarre. I mentioned it was frustrating because there's a sim-only deal on Tesco mobile that's £17.50 a month for double the allowance i'm getting with Orange.

I then had to repeat that four times until she put me on hold and came back to me telling me that she couldn't transfer me to a sim-only deal for 1,500 minutes, 5000 texts and 1gb of data.

I was thinking "I'm not really sure I asked you too....". But anyway ..

Told her that she's really left me no choice but to take it up with OFCOM and she said "Well I look forward to hearing from OFCOM then. Cheers !". And that was that.

So I have to decide what to do now. Do I sign up with Tesco for that sim only deal and ditch Orange anyway, or do I try and keep up the payments while the potentially long, drawn out complaints procedure with OFCOM is put into motion ?

Simon11

I got a text from Orange today at 4.30pm

"Hi from orange. We recently contacted you about a price increase on your plan. This was an error and the price of your plan will not change in February. We're sorry for any confusion!"



When i got the text I thought, Right..... a mistake.... hmmmmmm