Orange complaint

Lancalot

Hi

I wonder if someone can give me some advice. My husband has been with Orange for many years on contract. Our son joined orange and is linked to my husband’s contract. My son was given Samsung phone originally, but in December he had a Blackberry 9900. I spoke to Orange who said that we had to unblock the phone which we did. Everything has been going ok since and payments are being taken out by Direct Debit. Unfortunate my son’s phone was stolen on the weekend; we had a crime number from the police. We had insurance with orange and duly rang them and they put a block on the phone, but when I mentioned claiming on the insurance they said we could not because the insurance we are paying monthly to them does not cover the Blackberry. I did point out that we were never told by orange that the cover was not sufficient. A lady said that the people that deal with the change over of phones are not trained to discuss the insurance. The only thing they can do is give us refund on the insurance dating back to December. Which would work out at £54.00, if my husband wishes to get out of his contract and go to another provider we would have to pay £75 each for him and our son. Either way we lose.

Anything we can do?

grumbler

It's not what you want to hear, but no, you cannot do anything and this is fair. You can use whatever handsets you want with your Orange sim, you can switch the sim from one phone to another, but you cannot have them all covered by a single insurance that is handset-specific.

That said, if the value of the new BB was comparable to the value of the original Samsung you can try appealing to the insurer's goodwill. However, the main business of all insurance companies is to find and use every possible excuse for not paying. Even the refund was a gesture of goodwill as they didn't have any obligations to do this.

diamonds

If the Blackberry was issued by Orange you are covered, if Orange staff failed to process and update your Orange Care insurance, Orange not Orange Care insurance (outsourced underwriter) are liable to ensure the replacement.

Orange Care only covers mobiles replaced/upgraded with Orange consent/approval direct or through a approved reseller, at this time with Orange Care on your account the approving person of the upgrade/replacement handset at Orange should have update the policy with the new handset.

If the Blackberry was not Orange approved upgrade/replacement your out of luck.

^Assumes your insurance provider is Orange Care & not a third party insurance company through a retailer.

Guys_Dad

Would not wish to disagree with Diamonds as I have never had Orange Care, but I do think you should take a little of the blame on your own collective shoulders.

My local Volvo dealer has a scheme where, if you don't like the car you can, within 1 month or 1000 miles, exchange it for another one. Now if I did that, I would naturally have to tell my insurers that the vehicle I had was different from the one I insured, even if the only difference was the colour. You can see that, obviously.

Exactly the same would apply to any Gap insurance I had too.

If the insurers don't know what handset they are insuring, then you could claim for any old handset that you said was damaged.

So, I would tend to be on their side there.

diamonds

Hi Guys Dad,

You would be correct on all the above but Orange Care policy on a Orange account or new policies with new accounts/replacements/upgrades are meant to be updated by Orange at the time. Assume staff error if its not automated by the system as they forgot to update such & thus it is a error & Allianz (Orange Care underwriter) or Orange & either/both will need to swallow the cost of the error as the policyholder did not make the error invalidating the policy & thus the blame falls with the network &/or its authorised third party Orange Care provider - Orange can enforce Allianz to pay out as the policy was breached by the network through imcompetence, Allianz can refuse as it breaches the terms & conditions of both Orange & Orange Care contracts with Orange and the policyholder, in this situation it is completely reasonable Orange admit, correct & compensate for thier error, directly or through allianz (who would be mad to refuse and may then risk the Orange Care contract for a few hundred pounds).

Orange breached the policy terms on behalf of the policyholder unknown to the policyholder and this came to light when a policyholder came to make a claim under the policy, that claim was not valid through allianz terms & conditions through no fault of the policyholders, but through Orange's.

Silk

diamonds wrote: »

Hi Guys Dad,

You would be correct on all the above but Orange Care policy on a Orange account or new policies with new accounts/replacements/upgrades are meant to be updated by Orange at the time. Assume staff error if its not automated by the system as they forgot to update such & thus it is a error & Allianz (Orange Care underwriter) or Orange will need to swallow the cost of thier error.

Also true but that would depend whether the BB was sourced from Orange direct but as it had to be unlocked I assume it was bought elsewhere.

All that said though my feeling is that if they pay to insure a phone against theft which was stolen then they should pay out for the value insured ie in this case a Samsung.

Guys_Dad

Silk wrote: »

Also true but that would depend whether the BB was sourced from Orange direct but as it had to be unlocked I assume it was bought elsewhere.

All that said though my feeling is that if they pay to insure a phone against theft which was stolen then they should pay out for the value insured ie in this case a Samsung.

Very willing to accept both Diamonds and your views on this as I don't use phone insurance. (If I lose it, then I take it as a sign from above that I am meant to get a new handset!)

It's just that every other insurance I have had has relied upon the insurer knowing what the item insured was and automatically if I changed an insured item, I would notify the insurers. Can't see it doing any harm.

Silk

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Very willing to accept both Diamonds and your views on this as I don't use phone insurance. (If I lose it, then I take it as a sign from above that I am meant to get a new handset!)

It's just that every other insurance I have had has relied upon the insurer knowing what the item insured was and automatically if I changed an insured item, I would notify the insurers. Can't see it doing any harm.

Mine are insured via my bank ...up to 4 handsets including water damage and fraudulant calls etc etc ....but no need to tell them which ones just have to provide purchase details etc

If memory serves me correct I think there is a replacement cap of £600

diamonds

Guys_Dad wrote: »

I would notify the insurers. Can't see it doing any harm.

Indeed i would usually aswell but Orange choose to do Orange Care this way directly, which is meant to be a benefit to customers in this case it wasnt - BUT thats if the OP got the Blackberry Orange approved supplied though.

diamonds

Silk wrote: »

Mine are insured via my bank ...up to 4 handsets including water damage and fraudulant calls etc etc ....but no need to tell them which ones just have to provide purchase details etc

If memory serves me correct I think there is a replacement cap of £600

I cancelled Orange Care on my fathers number as after years of paying for it it was never going to cover for a basic UMA (Orange Signal Boost) direct from Orange with a keypad as all UMA newer handsets were Blackberries or touchscreen which an older man has no interest in, 18 months into my contract (his had expired and now month to month waiting on UMA with a keypad to upgrade since Feb 2011) he broke his and I gave him my Blackberry 9105 as the idiot had not read the policy as per most people and not registered his IMEI and model number with his Royal Stank of Americanos debt Royalties account....DOH !

Orange wanted £150 upgrade fee for a new Blackberry 9105 a couple of months ago on a £15 a month contract for a old model :eek: needless to say I gave him mine as Orange & T-Mobile reception is shocking at home for him on the edge of a major city.

So now I am UMA-less, but due my upgrade soon but thats another battle with Orange (too long and complicated to go into) due to loyalty dept's error in Feb 2011.

So anyone with bank mobile insurance READ your policy THROUGHLY !

Lancalot

Hi Everyone

Thanks to everyone who replied I will take on board all the comments made and have a think about what direct to take next.

Lancalot