Orange Price Hike - something fishy with the Ts & Cs?

DamePeggy

Sorry for the long post as this is a little involved, but I think there might be something fishy going on with the way Orange is handling it’s recently announced in-contract price-hikes.

Like a lot of Orange mobile phone customers, I have been very annoyed by their decision to raise their contract charges for customers in the middle of my contract. Having just been stung by Virgin Broadband in a similar way I decided to call Orange to tell them that I wanted to cancel my contract (Virgin had given us the option to cancel without penalty as they were raising the price).

I wasn’t massively surprised to find that Orange refused to cancel my contract without a fee – stating their rights to do so with reference to their Terms and Conditions.
A bit of a Googling around found that some people had been able to cancel their contracts with Orange when they tried this stunt previously as Orange’s escape clause in their Ts&Cs (4.3.1) stated that they could increase
“the Charges by an amount equal to or less than the percentage increase in the All Items Index of Retail Prices published by the Central Statistical Office in the Monthly Digest of Statistics in any 12 month period; "
Which seems clear enough, but the trouble for Orange was that the Central Statistical Office was closed in 1996. Consequently a number of people had managed to cancel their contracts by taking Orange to the small claims court as they could not reasonably be expected to have their payments altered on the basis of the output of a non-existent government agency.

So I went to the Orange website to confirm precisely what Terms and Conditions I’d signed up for and found that they’ve got two sets of Ts&Cs in their current Pay Monthly list – one for customers who signed up between February 2011 and 31st October 2012 (which includes me) and one for customers who signed up afterwards.
Both of these documents have the same clause 4.3.1. as follows:

“4.3.1 we give you written notice to increase the Charges (as a percentage) by an amount
equal to or less than the percentage increase in the All Items Index of Retail Prices or
any other statistical measure of inflation published by any government body
authorised to publish measures of inflation from time to time , and published on a date
as close as reasonably possi ble before the date on which we send you written notice;”

Which now looks like it gets Orange off the hook as at it’s very likely that such a government agency will exist at the moment.
Strangely, however, despite supposedly being for customers signing up at different times, both documents have the same version number shown in the footers (Version 15) and are both dated October 2012 – did Orange know that the Ts&Cs they were producing in February 2011 were going to expire in October 2012? Equally strange, is the fact that the file properties for the PDF file for the pre-October 2012 Ts&Cs show that the document was produced in February 2013.

There are currently no links to the February 2011 to October 2012 Ts&Cs on Orange’s site – but I now have a copy dated from from February 2011 – which includes the original clause referring to the non-existant government agency.

I phoned Orange to tell them that there appeared to be something wrong with their linked Ts&Cs on their website, but the woman with whom I spoke did not seem to be interested in the problem and could not tell me when the clauses had been changed or why I had no record of being informed that my Terms and Conditions had changed. I asked that she provide me with evidence that they had done so, but she just said that I would have been informed, but would not specify how or when.

I further told her that it appears that the links on their site look like they link to two different versions of the same document and that this should be looked into urgently to make sure that people are not being misled.
It seems to me that anyone who signed up to Orange before October 2012 could well have a case against Orange if their Ts&Cs were changed without being informed.

Does anyone have any comments about this?

Thanks to Tom Forth for highlighting how people had success previously. If companies are going to rely on Terms and Conditions to hike prices in contracts (against Offcom guidelines) then they’d better make sure that the Ts&Cs are correct.

chanz4

they do inform via letter

DamePeggy

If they do inform by letter, then I'd expect that they would have some record of when these were sent - they were unable to provide me with any details of these when I asked them.

I was also told yesterday on the phone that should I wish to complain i should email customer.services at orange - which I duly did - again asking for some clarification on when the T&Cs changed, why the two documents are dated as they are and when and how was I informed.

I received this reply:

"Please accept our apologies, we are in the process of improving our e-mail service, and cannot deal with your e-mail enquiry at this time."


Which was followed by advice to call the people I've been speaking to already - who clearly don't know anything about this (rather timely on Orange's behalf) email issue.

So I've written a letter to them today and will be continuing with my processof taking them to the small claims court while I wait for their reply.

ZhugeEX

You're not going to get anywhere with customer service on the phone, they know nothing about this stuff and couldn't give a crap. Contact head office directly. Not their customer service team.

gjchester

DamePeggy wrote: »

If they do inform by letter, then I'd expect that they would have some record of when these were sent - they were unable to provide me with any details of these when I asked them.

Have you checked your bills, it could have been written on them. If they put something like

Oranges terms and conditions are changing, please see the web site https://www.......

or sent you a text with the same in it then continued use of the phone would be seen as acceptance pof the new T&C.

I know it's not customer friendly but it's legally acceptable.

DamePeggy wrote: »

So I've written a letter to them today and will be continuing with my processof taking them to the small claims court while I wait for their reply.

The small claims court will more than likely put it on hold until you've at least tried to contact Orange and got a reply eitherway.

I'm not sure what you are looking to claim for, you'd normally have to cancel, get charged a fee and then sue for the fee back. As I understand it you can't take them to court because they may charge a fee if you choose to leave.

The Central Statistical Office merged into what is the Office of National Statisitics, rather than be closed down as such, You may find that the fact they merged means the ONS took on the roles and responsibilities of the CSO rather then ceasing to exist.

Final point is OfCom has proposals out to stop price rises mid contract, but they are only proposals, and not requrements yet so have no status.

DamePeggy

Thanks for the comments - I'll continue chasing Orange for a definitive statement of when and how they informed me.

For such a potentially major change, you'd have thought they might have this information to hand.

As for the Central Statistical Office merging, then I think they may have had to include some kind of wording to accept they would refer to its successors. This get-out clause would, in any event, have been written long after that office became part of the ONS.

As for Offcom - I'm not holding my breath - they have a habit of backing the providers (see their failure to act on unrealistic broadband speed claims).

oopsadaisydoddle

gjchester wrote: »

Have you checked your bills, it could have been written on them. If they put something like

Oranges terms and conditions are changing, please see the web site https://www.......

or sent you a text with the same in it then continued use of the phone would be seen as acceptance pof the new T&C.

I know it's not customer friendly but it's legally acceptable.




The small claims court will more than likely put it on hold until you've at least tried to contact Orange and got a reply eitherway.

I'm not sure what you are looking to claim for, you'd normally have to cancel, get charged a fee and then sue for the fee back. As I understand it you can't take them to court because they may charge a fee if you choose to leave.

The Central Statistical Office merged into what is the Office of National Statisitics, rather than be closed down as such, You may find that the fact they merged means the ONS took on the roles and responsibilities of the CSO rather then ceasing to exist.

Final point is OfCom has proposals out to stop price rises mid contract, but they are only proposals, and not requrements yet so have no status.

This is the case.

I'm sorry OP, but I got a bit confused with your first post.

Are you disputing that Orange sent you details of a change of T&C's?

oopsadaisydoddle

And if so, which T&C's do you think they have changed?

DamePeggy

Yes I do think that they've changed my Ts&Cs - specifically the wording of the clause that they're routinely quoting to stop people cancelling their contracts due to their mid-contract price-hike. (4.3.1). My copy from 2011 refers to the long-defunct 'Centre' rather than any government agency that actually existed at the time.

I just called Orange and asked specifically if they sent me any details of a change in my Ts&Cs since I took out the contract (in August 2011) and they stated categorically that they have not done so. If this is true, then I can't see that there are any more than these options;

1. The Ts&Cs linked to on their site are linked to in error - in which case they should sort it out asap (I've asked them to check this twice now).
2. It's not an error and they've changed the wording of my Ts&Cs without telling me.


If the original reference to the long-dead/merged statistical office wording was not problematic then why couldn't they just change it and let everyone know?

simax

I think you are clutching at straws....

DamePeggy

Maybe I am clutching at straws, but I'll plod on nevertheless as I'd rather that companies weren't allowed to change their Ts&Cs surreptitiously - especially when they then rely on them to increase prices in this manner.