Orange Bullying Tactics after Loss of Service (Their fault) - Help & Advice needed

lenorman

simax wrote: »

If you leave a network on PAYG, you forfeit any remaining credit.

not in this instance where i was forced out and ofcom did say any credit i had would be returned as did the executive team

gjchester

lenorman wrote: »

. I had to force the issue by switching networks as Orange couldnt provide me with the service they should have.

That may be the problem, you were not willing to give them time to resolve the issue.

lenorman wrote: »

My point is the service i received from orange was crap. They are not compensating for anything - £30 is measly and ridiculous for a customer of many years who regurlarly used the handset and was happy.

The service was poor , and it should not be. But again you didn't follow Oranges process, it may be slow but you chose to go another route.

How much you spend is no relevent it was money you chose to spent to resolve the issue, when they had told you it would take time to fix.

How much you used them in the past is irrelvent to Orange (or any network) they are not interested in what you have spent, just what you are spending now.

Any compensation you get is is over and above what they have to offer you. They don't have to offer anything even the credit back for PAYG phones, I'm not sure where you got the OFCOM bit from, credit refunds apply on contract but not PAYG. Oranges T&C state

3.6 No cash credits will be given for unused Top Ups.

You were not forced to do anything you choose to move, 4 days is not a long time to resolve an issue regardless of how frustrating it is to you.

The offer you have is a goodwill gesture, I'd suggest you take it before they withdraw the offer, your not likely to get much more, although it's your choice if you do or not.

lenorman wrote: »

They did nothing to resolve the issue and now arent accepting responsibility that they are liable for the loss of service.

You have no idea what was or was not done, for all you know it could have been working Friday, but by using a PAC code the account has been closed anyway. Once the account closed there was no point trying to resolve the fault.

If you read the Terms and Conditions (the relevent bit is there below) you'll see no network guarantess a signal at all time or all locations,


2.1 We will take all reasonable steps to make the Services available to you at all times. The Services are only available within the range of the base stations that make up the Network. We cannot guarantee a continuous fault free service.


There is nothing you can do about the loss of service, all complex systems have issues nowand again, unfortunalty it was on your account. Usually that clause is there to cover the fact radio networks don't cover everywhere, but it's equally valid in this context.



I'm sorry this is probably not what you want to hear, but you don't have much to go on, what Orange did is poor customer service however thats not much of a legal footing to claim compensation with.

lenorman

@GJChester - you make some valid points

However - i was told that i would receive my credit back by both the executive team and im sure ofcom confirmed. It was one my of hesitations in leaving orange.

You say 4 days is not enough - There was no progress made within the 4 days which calmed me down into thinking it would be resolved soon.
In the 4 days - there was ZERO progress. I was told the exact same thing on the Thursday @ 5.30pm as i was told by someone on Monday at 9am.
There was no ETA as to when or should i say "if" my services would come back.
I was never told or given a heartwarming response as to when my services would come back.
Ofcom did however tell me that should i receive a PAC code (of which i had the legal right to claim and not be denied) another network would generally have me fully operational within 24 hours.

My call with vodafone confirmed this.

so to clarify:
Orange after 4 days + all the hassle listed above. No guarantee/confirmation as to when/if my services would come back.
Vodafone - 24 hours would mean im fullly operational albeit on a different network.

How long should I have given them to sort this out? I understand there can be some complications but with a weekend fast approaching whereby Im sure there are a-skeleton staff b-easy excuses, who in the right mind would wait and allow Orange to rectify things?

There was nothing that led me to believe Orange would make me operational at any time soon. I was never given any call backs till after I spoke to the orange exec team after I provided them with the Ofcom reference number.

I had "NO" option but to move networks in order to have my service resumed.
At times my number wasnt in Orange's system. At times it was not accessible.

I dont believe this is the frst time that orange have had this problem - I do believe they have lacklustre support with inadequate training provided to supervisors to resolve the problem. The support was lacklustre from start to finish.

You also make a good point whereby you indicate that I did not know what Orange were doing or if everything would have been resolved on Friday - I was given no useful information, or anything positive, to indicate that anything was being done throughout the 4 days of hassle I had.

I also understand you are stuck on the 4 days. What you do not realise is:
a-It can be fixed in 30s. You can go into an orange store to convert a normal sim card into a micro sim card and the process takes 5 mins to complete. They can activate sim cards literally instantly. They didnt need my permission to resolve the situation - they had it. There was no red tape or security issues. It is solvable from the correct department who in 4 days didnt do anything. A simple phonecall with an update would have sufficed. Nothing was made, carried out or updated on my account. There were no notes or anything on my account.
b-They couldnt forward any incoming calls to a landline or orange PAYG number
c-Line was dead, at times it went to answerphone. It was damaged on their end.
d-Orange employees were clueless, as were the supervisors as to what had happened, how to resolve things, how to contact the "IT" team. There was no meaningful conversation in which I was told anything that indicated anything would be resolved soon.

I was stuck on square one after 4 days and 20+hours of absolute torture in speaking to Orange customer services. Are you seriously saying I didnt give them enough time?

Im not considering any "what if" scenarios. Im stating FACTS that did occur above.
We all dream but the truth is that they messed up, didnt resolve things, didnt keep me in the loop whatsoever, got a "get out of jail free" card when i left for vodafone and are absolutely robbing me blind by what they are offering for what I went through.

Also, you state that It doesnt matter how much I have spent but what i am spending - do you know alot of people who year by year have £30+ in phone fund credit (10% of what they topped up), and have ~£70 in credit? I think not. I might not be the highest user but I was a good enough customer who consistently topped up and used the services that were provided with Orange. We are not talking about a company that was made yesterday - we are talking about a company which "prides" itself on its customer service, infrastructure in providing state of the art telecoms service throughout the world yet they messed up and could not resolve what for me seems like an easily solvable problem.

silo24

I can appreciate the frustration. It does seem like it could have been resolved sooner, but I think the issue here is that the PAYG Database entry for your mobile had become corrupt.

In this instance, there would be no way for them to re-provision a new SIM card and get you working again. The only thing they could do at either the CS or Exec team level would be to escalate it to a 'data-fix' team to correct/rewrite the data before re-provisioning/re-activating your sim card.

Given that much of this 'fix' activity is based around offshore/outsourced IT teams or Mon-Fri/9-5 support at best, the time to fix is going to be longer. 4 days though without any status change is a bit excessive. It seems they DID manage to get the PAC code for you in the end, which probably means they had fixed the issue and could have re-prov'ed a new SIM at this stage too, but i'm guessing the temperature in communications was running pretty hot by this stage and they decided to acquiesce to your/OFCOM's PAC request without trying to hold on to you as a customer.

Must say, if you were a contract customer (even a 30 day rolling contract) you would have been in a much better position as 1) The infrastructure behind this is MUCH more flexible and redundant than the PAYG system and 2) they would need to get you back up and running quickly as (in general) you aren't paying when they can't provide a service in situations such as these.

In all honesty, you have got your number, they have refunded you your credit and given you some additional compensation which, whilst not sufficient is probably all you are going to get. Had you stayed with them, I suspect the situation would have been different, but they've lost you and can't give a toss now.

I would ask though as such a high user, why are you using PAYG as it most certainly isn't the most 'money saving' option available to you....30 day contract might be a good shout...

lenorman

silo24 wrote: »

I can appreciate the frustration. It does seem like it could have been resolved sooner, but I think the issue here is that the PAYG Database entry for your mobile had become corrupt.

In this instance, there would be no way for them to re-provision a new SIM card and get you working again. The only thing they could do at either the CS or Exec team level would be to escalate it to a 'data-fix' team to correct/rewrite the data before re-provisioning/re-activating your sim card.

Given that much of this 'fix' activity is based around offshore/outsourced IT teams or Mon-Fri/9-5 support at best, the time to fix is going to be longer. 4 days though without any status change is a bit excessive. It seems they DID manage to get the PAC code for you in the end, which probably means they had fixed the issue and could have re-prov'ed a new SIM at this stage too, but i'm guessing the temperature in communications was running pretty hot by this stage and they decided to acquiesce to your/OFCOM's PAC request without trying to hold on to you as a customer.

Must say, if you were a contract customer (even a 30 day rolling contract) you would have been in a much better position as 1) The infrastructure behind this is MUCH more flexible and redundant than the PAYG system and 2) they would need to get you back up and running quickly as (in general) you aren't paying when they can't provide a service in situations such as these.

In all honesty, you have got your number, they have refunded you your credit and given you some additional compensation which, whilst not sufficient is probably all you are going to get. Had you stayed with them, I suspect the situation would have been different, but they've lost you and can't give a toss now.

I would ask though as such a high user, why are you using PAYG as it most certainly isn't the most 'money saving' option available to you....30 day contract might be a good shout...

It was never heated. I never let it get heated. I was frustrated. I did lose faith in their ability/process.

Im led to believe it is a different system to the normal system when reauesting a PAC code. Even after receiving the PAC code nothing seemed ready. I was surprised myself when that call went through and I got the code as my details were inconsistent in the system.

I dont think it should matter whether or not i am a customer now. At no point in the communications has the executive team offered me a discounted contract or anything to entice me back to orange. They seem uninterested in all the facts and to be honest im sure even now they are unaware of all the facts and events which led ultimately to me leaving orange. I was a customer for 8 years that i can remember - Even when i left i left as i saw no other option.

They seem childish in their approach, unorganised, unaware of customer expectations and also seem clueless to the most part. Im still unsure what the difference between normal customer services and this so called executive team is at present as they both seem amateur in their approach.

As for the contract comment, surely it shouldnt make a difference if i was payg or contract. They should both be equal in terms of support. It might not be the case but ofcom didnt seem to care whether or not it was payg/contract and were more focussed in sorting the issue out.

Im still being bullied by orange though. This take it or leave it option should not be the resolution of this. They should atleast have the decency to apologise for the loss of service and not treat customers like a number!

silo24

Let's get something straight, you are not being bullied here.

Orange have given you a refund of your credit and a token gesture. Whilst this is not acceptable to you, it is not right to say you are being bullied.

My comments about Contract vs. PAYG rights may not in an ideal world be valid, but in reality, churn of a PAYG customer is not of great concern to an operator, whereas a contract customer they will go to of their way to keep, which is why they have retentions teams.

Good luck anyway, but time to cut your losses methinks....

G