Orange help!

BV88

Hello,

I was hoping to get some advice. I have an orange panther 36 contract that I took out in Nov 11, at £28 per month.

To cut I long story short, I had absolutely no problems until last week. I called up Orange to remove a temporary £5 add on for extra internet, which they complied with, and then proceeded to tell me that as I was a 'loyal customer', they would, free of charge, increase my minutes to unlimited. So I doubled checked with the lady on the phone that there would be no other changes to my contract (e.g. price, length, additional extras etc) to which she said no. So I agreed.

The next morning I received a text saying 'thank you for upgrading your tariff, your swapables have now been removed'. For those who do not know what swapables are, they are free subscriptions to third party services, I use the times and deezer music, I use both these everyday and were the main reason I took this contract over other providers.

I immediately phoned back up, quite upset, and said that I absolutely did not want my swapables cancelled, and had my contract reverted back to the original (without the extra minutes).

However the cancellation of my swapables was put through by orange, and now they claim they 'can't' restore them because of a 'technical' issue. I personally believe this is an underhand tactic they are using to get rid of their liability to the third party providers of these services. They have worked perfectly since they contract started back in Nov 2011!

I have spent almost 5 hours on the phone to customer services in both India and the UK in the last 5 days, each time I request a call-back, I am told that I will get one, but it never comes!

Now they have come back with an offer to me. They will reduce my bill by £10 per month, if I get the subscriptions myself directly with those service providers. I asked if that was the cost of those two services, and was told that yes, that was the cost. £10 per month for both deezer and the times.

However, upon investigation, I have found that the times for smartphones is £4 per week on a minimum 12 month contract (my orange contract ends in Nov 2013), and deezer is £9.99 per month. Making the total cost of those subscriptions £26 per month! This is of course unacceptable to me.

So my question is where do I go from here? I believe that this so called 'technical' issue is never going to get resolved as it is an underhand tactic by orange to get existing customers of the swapables package. However I am not willing to pay for a service that is not delivering on my original contract.

I am considering cancelling my direct debit and refusing to pay my bill until the issue is resolved. However I have a very good credit rating that I do not want to tarnish.

Any advice on where I should go from here?

grumbler

BV88 wrote: »

...
I am considering cancelling my direct debit and refusing to pay my bill until the issue is resolved. However I have a very good credit rating that I do not want to tarnish.

Well, if you don't want to, then don't do this.

Any advice on where I should go from here?

Follow their formal complaint procedure. Demand either everything restored to the original state or £4*12+£9.99*7 total discount. It's not that big money for them to pay for their !!!!-up.

Tony5101

Which tariff have the moved you to? If you're still paying £36, then it sounds to me that you've been moved off "Panther 36" onto "The Works 36".
"The Works 36" does actually include 1 swapable (rather than the Panther36's 2swapables)
Moving people onto this tariff was a tactic used by their c/s recently, as Panther36 was liable to the most recent price rises, whereas TheWorks36 isn't.
I would get them to tell you what you've been moved onto.
I know it doesn't solve the issue, but if you at least get one swapable, you could use this for the most expensive app that you use, and use their credit for the cheaper one?

BV88

Tony5101 wrote: »

Which tariff have the moved you to? If you're still paying £36, then it sounds to me that you've been moved off "Panther 36" onto "The Works 36".
"The Works 36" does actually include 1 swapable (rather than the Panther36's 2swapables)
Moving people onto this tariff was a tactic used by their c/s recently, as Panther36 was liable to the most recent price rises, whereas TheWorks36 isn't.
I would get them to tell you what you've been moved onto.
I know it doesn't solve the issue, but if you at least get one swapable, you could use this for the most expensive app that you use, and use their credit for the cheaper one?

Hi Tony,

Thanks for your reply. You are correct I was moved to 'the works 36', but subsequently I have been moved back to 'panther 36', after I said I wanted to keep my swapables. This is the tariff that is shown on 'my orange', however when I attempt to re-select my swapable, I am told 'you must be a panther or works customer to have this feature', giving me no access to any of the selectable swapables. Again the only thing Orange is doing about this is giving an excuse that it is a 'technical' issue. Upon moving back to panther 36 my swapables were removed instantly, rather than the next bill period as I understand in common procedure.

Tony5101

I could be wrong...but you might find that they're back and available for you at the start of the next billing period.
I remember when I last changed my contract, and even though I was technically paying for P36, the swapables weren't available to me until the next full billing period started.
Customer services really are totally clueless about swapables though - so I'm not surprised that you're not getting much sense out of them.