Can Orange legally rip you off?

SmartPhoneUser

I was using an Orange pay as you go sim on an Orange phone. The package was Dolphin, so if it was topped up by £10 you would get £10 credit and 100MB of data for 30 days.

One month I didn't top up since I had plenty of credit left, within a few days all that credit had disappeared, I rang up and was told to turn of Data Roaming to stop it from happening again, so I did. A few months later it happened again, upon contacting them, through the course of two and a half hours worth of calls, I was repetitively told that I had obviously been using the phone myself. On the one occasion I was put through to the technical department I was told that this was clearly something automated since in the logs it was all 9KB and 18KB transfers almost hourly, 24 hours a day... until my credit ran out (basically £1 a day (even though it is a minimum of 65p for any data usage)).

This is an operating system customised by Orange on an Orange own brand phone. In it's default setting as sold by Orange this will happen, whether you are pay as you go or contract.

I got so offended by being told that I had been using the phone and that it wasn't one of the default installed daemon services that I asked for a PAC so I could transfer my number to a different network. I have since been told by their legal department that at that point all my call logs and data were deleted so they have no records what so ever to confirm or deny the usage, but I am supposedly still in the wrong even though they have deleted all evidence.

I have since transferred to Tesco Mobile which is not only much much cheaper, but they have the option of capping your phone so that if your credit on one area runs out it will not consume all it can.

Can anyone provide me with any legal advice on this or similar matters, or details / stories of other grievance's with Orange?

This is just the start of what looks to be a legal quagmire, soon i'll be arranging a petition and liaising with various regulatory bodies and the BBC's Watchdog program, so if you want to be kept informed or correspond confidentially then you can PM us here...

Buzby

Sorry, it's your phone, and the way you set it up or use it will dictate how much network data it will use. Phones are not customised by tariff, and will be optimised to use whatever data is required by the applications on the handset. If you are on PAYG, you need to turn data off to prevent the phone making those connections.

This isn;t Orange 'ripping you off' but you letting the handset do exactly what it wants. Like spoilt children, it will cost you dearly down the line unless you rein them in.

The legal advice is simple - your purchase brings with it responsibilities, and as you did not control your phone's usage, you got charged the market rate for the calls. As for liaising with 'various regulatory bodies', please - you screwed up, and now you expect people to support your (misguided) cause?

There is no quagmire - you used the data, you pay for it.

All this shows is irresponsible phone usage, and trying to shift the blame on to anyone else but the person responsible.

thegoodman

It's same for minutes if you use more you pay for it.
If you use more then 100mb you pay for it.
If you use more then inclusive text messages you pay for it.

C_Mababejive

I used to be on Orange PAYG and after being ripped off a few times,i had had enough of them. They are spivs,the website is carp. They continually ripped me off with their dubious magic numbers allowance. I am now with O2 who have very good CS and the website works very well and is crystal clear. Ditch them.

SmartPhoneUser

Buzby wrote: »

Sorry, it's your phone, and the way you set it up or use it will dictate how much network data it will use. Phones are not customised by tariff, and will be optimised to use whatever data is required by the applications on the handset. If you are on PAYG, you need to turn data off to prevent the phone making those connections.

This isn;t Orange 'ripping you off' but you letting the handset do exactly what it wants. Like spoilt children, it will cost you dearly down the line unless you rein them in.

The legal advice is simple - your purchase brings with it responsibilities, and as you did not control your phone's usage, you got charged the market rate for the calls. As for liaising with 'various regulatory bodies', please - you screwed up, and now you expect people to support your (misguided) cause?

There is no quagmire - you used the data, you pay for it.

All this shows is irresponsible phone usage, and trying to shift the blame on to anyone else but the person responsible.

I didn't use the data. Full stop!

They set the phone up. Non of my apps had been running, never mind set up as services.

Also I had received advice (from them) on how to stop it from happening after the first time it happened, so I had taken reasonable steps to prevent it from happening, so how did I "screw up".

Are you seriously saying that it's right that you can't run a phone made by them and expect to keep / use the credit added, just because I bought the phone which was set up to do exactly this? Are you biased?

SmartPhoneUser

thegoodman wrote: »

It's same for minutes if you use more you pay for it.
If you use more then 100mb you pay for it.
If you use more then inclusive text messages you pay for it.

I didn't though, the services they set up on the phone did. I took advice from them on how to stop it too, but they misinformed me and it happened again.

wantmemoney

Buzby wrote:

This isn;t Orange 'ripping you off' but you letting the handset do exactly what it wants. Like spoilt children, it will cost you dearly down the line unless you rein them in.

The handset did what Orange had intended it to do - the OP never intended the phone to do this.

and how this is like 'spoilt children' costing the OP dearly is completely baffling.

Buzby wrote:

The legal advice is simple-

people on this forum should not offer 'legal advice' unless they are prepared to link to where that legal advice comes from.

Buzby wrote:

All this shows is irresponsible phone usage, and trying to shift the blame on to anyone else but the person responsible.

SmartPhoneUser 'Are you biased?'
@SmartPhoneUser
these are the exact same arguments he used to blame the victims of who discovered premium rate phone charges that had been run up by criminals who had hi-jacked computers with rogue diallers.

grumbler

SmartPhoneUser wrote: »

...I rang up and was told to turn of Data Roaming to stop it from happening again, so I did. ...

I am pretty sure you were told to turn the mobile data off, not data roaming. And you could have done this without calling them and simply RTFM instead.

SmartPhoneUser wrote: »

I didn't use the data. Full stop!
...Non of my apps had been running

It's not full stop. You possibly don't use the data, but your phone does without asking you - like all smartphones do if mobile data is on. And this happens regardless of the apps running.

Guys_Dad

Data roaming does not equal data usage, so I agree with Buzby.

I am assuming that you have an Android handset. Correct? Some apps have automatic updates. Email uses data as well - I take it that you don't use email on the phone?

I had a similar problem with Vodafone on a basic Nokia which seemed to hit me with 50p per day for no explicable reason.

I know it's annoying, but weigh up your time fretting over the amount you reckon you have lost and decide if the hourly rate is worth it. :beer:

prowla

So, essentially the handset is supplied with a default config that will use the data allocation without the user intending or knowing about it.

Guys_Dad

Well, what's the poit of a Smartphone if all you need is a Nokia basic for calls and texts? (Again, assuming it's an Android).

And if it is, then you will be aware that Android demands that you have a Google Account set up on the handset.

And how do you set up a Google account? Might that not require Internet connection to be set up as a default?

If the handset wasn't set up with a default dat connection, then inexperienced people would be flooding this forum complaining about not being able to set up the handset and isn't it stupid that the handset wasn't set up with data as default so that they could set it up properly.

Damned if they do - damned if they don't.