Orange Panther - charged for Photo Messaging

rca779

My Son has an HTC Sensation phone on the Orange Panther £20.50 deal. He gets 100 minutes, unlimited texts and 500mb of data. Great everything covered I thought.

Well not so, this month he got charged extra for Photo messaging. It turns out he was sending contact details via vcards to his friends and Orange class these as photo messaging.

Trying to find out more about photo messaging I looked at the Orange site and found this page: http://web.orange.co.uk/p/web_photography/photo_messaging - click on the costs tab

According to this, Photo messaging is free on the Panther deal.

I spoke to Orange and they said that because I bought the deal through a third party and Orange have to pay them commission, I can't expect to get everything I would get if I bought the deal directly through Orange. I disputed this as it simply doesn't sound correct and I pointed them at their own web site. They eventually agreed to refund the charges, but insist that photo messaging will attract additional costs.

Should/could I pursue this futher?

DUTR

rca779 wrote: »

My Son has an HTC Sensation phone on the Orange Panther £20.50 deal. He gets 100 minutes, unlimited texts and 500mb of data. Great everything covered I thought.

Well not so, this month he got charged extra for Photo messaging. It turns out he was sending contact details via vcards to his friends and Orange class these as photo messaging.

Trying to find out more about photo messaging I looked at the Orange site and found this page: http://web.orange.co.uk/p/web_photography/photo_messaging - click on the costs tab

According to this, Photo messaging is free on the Panther deal.

I spoke to Orange and they said that because I bought the deal through a third party and Orange have to pay them commission, I can't expect to get everything I would get if I bought the deal directly through Orange. I disputed this as it simply doesn't sound correct and I pointed them at their own web site. They eventually agreed to refund the charges, but insist that photo messaging will attract additional costs.

Should/could I pursue this futher?

I don't notice anything about inclusive mms on orange http://help.orange.co.uk/orangeuk/support/personal/671445/2 panther

cte1111

Inclusive photo messaging for £5 a month
Choose our new Panther plan to get inclusive photo messaging,
http://web.orange.co.uk/p/web_photography/photo_messaging

It looks black and white to me, I would carry on complaining about them charging you.

DUTR

cte1111 wrote: »

Inclusive photo messaging for £5 a month
Choose our new Panther plan to get inclusive photo messaging,
http://web.orange.co.uk/p/web_photography/photo_messaging

It looks black and white to me, I would carry on complaining about them charging you.

I cannot see where the OP has said he has paid £5 on top of his monthly tariff to buy an mms bundle, since Orange offer panther at both £15.50 and £20.50 http://shop.orange.co.uk/mobile-phones/price-plans/pay-monthly

grumbler

DUTR wrote: »

I cannot see where the OP has said he has paid £5 on top of his monthly tariff to buy an mms bundle,

Why should they if Orange clearly say "You can get photo messaging for just £5 a month, or free with our new Panther plan"

since Orange offer panther at both £15.50 and £20.50 http://shop.orange.co.uk/mobile-phones/price-plans/pay-monthly

I see 15.50, 20.50, 26.00, 31.00, 36.00, 41.00 and 46.00 and I think that they deliberately have designed their 'zoo' to confuse everybody. Also, they deliberately have hidden many of their charges. For example, pay monthly out of plan costs say nothing about MMS.
The above quotation from Orange doesn't say that it refers to some particular Panther.

DUTR

grumbler wrote: »

Why should they if Orange clearly say "You can get photo messaging for just £5 a month, or free with our new Panther plan"

I see 15.50, 20.50, 26.00, 31.00, 36.00, 41.00 and 46.00 and I think that they deliberately have designed their 'zoo' to confuse everybody. Also, they deliberately have hidden all their charges. For example, pay monthly out of plan costs say nothing about MMS.
The above quotation from Orange doesn't say that it refers to some particular Panther.

That's the part I no longer see, I know they used to offer inclusive mms (50 iirc) but it looks like it is an extra bundle now

grumbler

DUTR wrote: »

That's the part I no longer see,...

Even if you click the link posted by the OP?
The 'Costs' tab on the same page says it even more clearly:

Inclusive photo messaging for £5 a month
Choose our new Panther plan to get inclusive photo messaging, or add it to any existing Dolphin, Canary or Racoon plan for just £5 a month. If you're joining or upgrading any of these three plans you can try it FREE for one month before you decide whether to add it to your pay monthly plan.

rca779

cte1111 wrote: »

Inclusive photo messaging for £5 a month
Choose our new Panther plan to get inclusive photo messaging,
http://web.orange.co.uk/p/web_photography/photo_messaging

It looks black and white to me, I would carry on complaining about them charging you.

Thanks for the support, although I don't know where to turn to next. Spoken to staff in an Orange shop and a supervisor at Orange and both deny that photo messaging is included DESPITE it being in black & white on their site.

Told my Son not to send any more attachments - I am sure he must have an app for this, he appears to have one for just about everything else

grumbler

rca779 wrote: »

...I don't know where to turn to next.

Take the screenshots.
Tell Orange that you are going to complain to ASA.
Complain if they don't change their mind. Don't forget to mention that Orange say nothing about MMS on their pay monthly plans page and in their pay monthly out of plan costs


http://www.asa.org.uk/Complaints/How-to-complain.aspx

NFH

grumbler wrote: »

Take the screenshots.
Tell Orange that you are going to complain to ASA.

Or tell them that if they charge you in future, you will issue a claim against them under Regulation 5(4)(g) of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.