Urgent - Orange taking me to court

Minerva69

I used to be with Orange broadband but left in early December last year when I migrated to Zen. In early January I had an email from Orange and 2 phone calls confirming my account had been closed. I have a copy of the email confirming account closure but no details of the phone calls as my other half has tidied all the info away into the bin :mad:

Today I have had a letter from Orange saying the following:

"Unfortunately we haven't received any payment from you so we've had to stop your broadband service and close your account. You still need to pay your outstanding balance of £22.99 by 11th April 2007 or we'll have to take legal action".

This is the first correspondence I have had from Orange about this. I only have until next Weds to pay the money otherwise they will take me to court.

There is no email address on the letter, just an address in Rotherham. I would ring them but it's an 0870 number and I know I'll just get some numpty in their call centre who won't have a clue.

What should I do? I'm thinking I should just pay up even though I don't owe them any money. If I decide to pay I'll have to send it in the post today otherwise it will get delayed in the Easter post and won't get there in time.

mrJ_5

phone them, it's better to try and get this sorted asap - it is most likely an error, since you have proof your account was cancelled (by them confirming it), then there shouldn't be any problems

penrhyn

Good advise, phone them, the cancellations dept is UK based. You could also email their customer services, there is a link on the Orange site.
Just a thought, could it be that you cancelled your direct debit still owing them for a months payment?

Orange customer services: customer-service@uk.orange.com

Minerva69

Thanks for the replies, I think I've got it sorted out in the end. As predicted I did get a numpty at the call centre who said that I had to pay up. I asked why it had taken them 4 months to contact me about this and why hadn't they asked me for the money when I left them in December. They claimed they had a record of one phone call made to me in December but I didn't remember getting it, so they said I must have been out when they rang. I asked why they hadn't left a message on my answerphone and all they said was "we don't leave messages".

The call centre operative said I should have received emails from them asking me for the outstanding amount prior to getting the letter. I hadn't received any at all. I was getting nowhere so I asked to speak to a supervisor, who came on the phone and admitted that I should never have received the letter this week at all, she would reset my account to zero (what account?! I left them in December, why are they still keeping my account open?). Hopefully I won't get taken to court now. I'm expecting the summons next week

Anyone who is thinking of joining Orange broadband - don't do it unless you plan to never leave them. I had to report them to ISPA just to get a MAC code last year, and now I've had this letter out of the blue even though I haven't been a customer of theirs for over 4 months. The future's bright, the future's Orangeless (hopefully).