Orange customer services?

James_Lahey

Hi all,

after not having a mobile phone for many year I have recently adopted my daughters old nokia (she has now got a smartphone.)

I remember years ago I was a happy customer with orange and considered them and giffgaff as potential new providers for my payg needs.

I activated the orange card and added £10 as the leaflet that comes with it tells me I'll get a free £5 when adding £10 and also I can choose an animal package which will give me 400 free texts for the first month (dolphin iirc.)

Anyway I've registered online and notice that I have not been credited the "free" £5 plus I've been charged for the few text messages that I've sent (after opting for the free text package)

Admittedly I've not been through the terms with a fine tooth comb so maybe I'm missing something - tried to email at customer.services@orange.co.uk but that bounced back with a "we do not respond to emails" message and told me to phone 150.

Called the 150 line only to be told it now costs 25p to speak to an advisor!

At the moment I'm thinking of using the credit I have, then switching to giffgaff (which is still in the post.) They are cheaper for texts and calls and I couldn't imagine any harder to get a reply from?

Any suggestions or recommendations out there please?

Merry Christmas all!

Jon_01

The £5 isn't instant, there's a system lag while it updates.
But it has to be said that since the T mobile merger (EE) their systems have gone down hill as have their CS (mainly due to them 'letting go' a shed load of staff to pay for the merger).
If the £5 isn't there in a day of so, you will need to call CS... But as its Christmas you'll have the dual problems of there being almost no staff in and the one's that are there will be swamped with calls from people that have had new phones and want to activate them or need help getting them going (and, of course, all the drunks that have have lost their phones after parties needing them blocked)...
Its a nightmare in the call centers this time of year!!!

James_Lahey

Thanks Jon, I guessed it'd be a bad time for them which is why I preferred to send an email which can answer at their leisure.

Pity they have let staff go, I remember them be very on the ball back when I was a customer.

Cornucopia

By coincidence, I reactivated an old phone onto Orange PAYG, today, too.

I went to the EE shop, and the woman who served me was very polite, helpful and knowledgeable. She gave me a new free SIM on Monkey tariff with a £5 top-up, and warned me that the tariff and number would not be active until I had received confirmatory text messages. She said that would be overnight, but they had started arriving by about 6pm.

reehsetin

Key phrase with activation is -up to 24 hours, although usually within a couple.

Wait until you get text messages confirming everything is on before using it

C_Mababejive

Orange are rubbish. I ditched them a year or so ago and would rather use two baked bean tins and a bit of string if they were the only mobile provider.

James_Lahey

Hi guys thanks for the input - I did wait for the confirmation message before texting, however did receive another 2 identical ones afterwards. Either way not worried about ~50p spent on texts.

On the subject whilst setting up DDs new Galaxy Ace II last week (also on orange.) I did call through to a guy in India who was most helpful and very friendly. I'm not really put off by overseas call centres providing you can understand each other (this works both ways as I'm from Zumerzet,) this experience was a particularly good one.

If CS is still good then I'd be happy to pay a little more for the privilege, would like to see the email customer service up and running again (the reply I got said they were working on it.)

reehsetin

I wouldn't expect good CS for a while now which is a shame...

diamonds

£5 free offered ended years ago, see page 20 http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=%C2%A35+free+%C2%A310+top+up+orange&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CEgQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fstudio.orange.co.uk%2Fservice_plans%2Fdownloads%2FPAYG-PG-20120716.pdf&ei=chDZUMb1IIOShgecnYCgBw&usg=AFQjCNH57otUsRfBd35JkGNFTzvKZ0s3FQ&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.ZG4

James_Lahey

diamonds wrote: »

£5 free offered ended years ago, see page 20[/url]

The envelope they sent me last week containing the SIM would suggest it's still on -

James_Lahey

Update - I can confirm the free £5 offer is still valid and have just had it credited to my phone after contacting them on twitter.

I think above posters were right and animal pack still not activated (had so many introductory texts from them that I didn't notice/read them all.)

Speedy response from the twitter team - seems like social media is the new way of getting fast free CS (which is all I ever use it for - due to having no friends)