orange blatently stealing from customers

timg2012

I know this has been mentioned before ... but i'm just too angry!
they replied with a link to a load of pdfs!

Subject: Traffic tv and your customer service

Hello there

Let me start by saying how I've been an orange customer for about 10
years, and on the whole, fairly pleased with your level of customer
service in the past. More recently though, it appears things have gone
downhill in a very serious way.

I'm sure you are aware of the little 'traffic tv' scam you have been
running these last few years. I'm sorry if your definition of scam is
different to mine, but you have either done this knowingly, or it is an
admin error you have chosen to ignore. Either way, you have been
stealing from your customers.


You have been taking £3.33 from me every month for the last 2 years for
a service I have never subscribed to or knew about.

I lead a busy life and don't have time to thoroughly scrutinize my bill
every month unfortunately. Today I did, and i noticed this £3.33 charge
on my bill. On ringing 150 to discuss, I was met by a very rude customer
service employee called Sam Dennis. He casually told me (whilst
practically chuckling to himself) that it was probably "something in the
background" that I was subscribed to, called Traffic TV. I told him i
had never subscribed to anything like that and wanted a refund for how
ever long this had been going on. He told me he would refund me 3 months
worth but managed to avoid the question on how long i had been
"subscribed" for .

I said i wanted a full refund for the whole time i had been falsely
charged for this "service". He said 3 months was the most i was getting.
I said this would do for now but I would be disputing it and taking
things further.

"Why?" he said
"Because if you have been taking money from me for a long time for
something i wasn't aware of and didn't sign up to i want that money back
at the very least" i said
"well that's your fault for not checking sooner. You won't get anything
else back"

I kid yee not! Not really a nice way to be spoken to AND an admission of
guilt!

I'm sorry to have to tell this but theft is theft! If i robbed a bank 2
years ago, but only got caught for it yesterday, i wouldn't really
expect this kind of remark to get me off the hook!

Sam went on to admit that it would be impossible for me actually use
this service on my iphone, but offered no sympathy whatsoever and i was
told that it was just my own fault.

i ended the conversation and did some internet research to discover that
many others have been scammed in the same way. i dialed 150 again and
fortunately got through to someone a bit friendlier. He told me i had
been subscribed since june 2010 and offered me half money back. I was
told i couldn't get a full refund because "that's just going back too
far" ???!


I have accepted this but it's completely outrageous. The fact i've had
to argue this much just to get half a refund is a joke. A 3rd employee i
spoke to just wasn't interested and completely fobbed me off.


Hard to believe this is a multimillion pound corporation I've been
dealing with. You should spend at least SOME money on staff training.
2 out of the 3 members of staff I spoke to today were essentially
children. Quite different to how I remember your workforce to be when i
first became an orange customer some 10 years ago.

I will be leaving orange as soon as possible and writing to as many
consumer watchdog organisations as I have time to.

I NEVER SUBSCRIBED TO "TRAFFIC TV"! I have been told that in order to do
this i would have to go on the orange world website and select this
manually. I HAVE DEFINITELY NEVER DONE THIS!

I am concerned as to what i will be "subscribed" to next


yours sincerely

Tim Gray

grumbler

I don't understand why you blame the "members of staff".
They are trained and they act exactly as they were trained. It's Orange's way of doing their business, not a fault of some members of the CS.

meer53

Most people lead busy lives, i'm a single parent with 2 children and a job, but i always check my bills every month. If people are taking my money, i want to know that they're taking the right amount. How many other bills have you not checked (not just Orange) that may have been wrong ?

I can't see how you can blame Orange for this really.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

And in other news...
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1363761
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3484255
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1495007

wantmemoney

meer53 wrote:

I can't see how you can blame Orange for this really.

Orange has been taking £3.33/m for two years from a customers without that customers permission.

The OP isn't blaming Orange for the OP not noticing the unauthorised debits. I think the OP now realizes they have been more than a little naive to have trusted a company like Orange (and the other Networks).

Who exactly do you think is to blame for this staff rudeness and 'theft' from account?

timg2012

I'm not blaming the staff for the problem, simply highlighting their rudeness which was completely unreasonable


It doesn't matter than I didn't notice it on my bill sooner
I didn't subscribe to it in the first place! It is theft!
The onus isn't on me to check that my phone company is acting within the law at all times. They know what they are doing. Many people haven't noticed this on their bill. Orange are knowingly making a profit out of this because they know a significant number of people won't notice for a good while.

It is sneaky , devious and downright dirty.

I do not regard orange as a professional company

diamonds

France Telecom after buying Orange put in a system that automatically applies charges....that came from a long term served staff member.....

drbesty

Did you send that letter into the complaints department? The tone of it isn't good, do you actually want something doing or do you just want to moan? And posting the full name of the employee you spoke to on a public forum ain't cool

grumbler

diamonds wrote: »

France Telecom after buying Orange put in a system that automatically applies charges....that came from a long term served staff member.....

If this is correct, then these French culprits are incapable of doing anything professionally. I am in the second half of three 24-months contracts at the moment and had several other contracts with Orange since 2000, but has never been affected by this vicious 'system'.

diamonds

grumbler wrote: »

If this is correct, then these French culprits are incapable of doing anything professionally. I am in the second half of three 24-months contracts at the moment and had several other contracts with Orange since 2000, but has never been affected by this vicious 'system'.

I'm on Your Group..meant to be FULL bill FREE and no D/D charges.....yeah the computer at Orange applies it as soon as it notices staff take the charge off manually on a overnight sweep of accounts....shocking really, no permanent over ride.