Orange - wife mis sold policy - where do i stand?

mortonn

Hi,
just thought I would contact you on behalf of my wife to ask where we stand on our current situation.

My wife has been an Orange customer for approx 20 years until recently changing to Vodafone to get the IPhone 5s on the best deal.

Our 2 children [13yr old girl with Aspergers [Disability] , 11yr old girl] both came off Orange PAYG and onto a Orange new contract with limitations on the amount of texts , calls etc. At the time my wife spoke to the call handler about her reservations that the children would 'go over' their allowance only to be told that they [or she] would receive text alerts to warn her/them about this situation. She reluctantly agreed trusting the guy on the end of the phone.

When my wife was recently negotiating her IPhone deal with Orange she asked about the children's use only to be told that they had gone way over and instead of a £50 bill for the month we were looking at £150 with subsequent bills over Christmas of £200 and £250. She is absolutely distraught and upset because we have not received any text alerts or notification of the extra charges. The call handler [Indian guy] stated that we would have had text alerts warning us of the situation, even to the point that my wife grilled the children harshly accusing them of lying and deleting the text messages. It turns out as far as I can tell that Orange have no such facility for texting alerts to people so somebody is telling lies or just does not know what they are telling customers.

We have spoken to 3 Orange operatives so far who just keep trotting out the Company line which is 'It's your phone and it's your responsibility to check' - At the moment we are looking for a sensible solution but Orange are just not interested. A bit sad when one of our daughters has got a disability only to be told they cannot do anything at all.

I am currently awaiting a call from a more senior Manager [within the next 72hrs] but they do not even register that we have been 'mis sold' something [like the banks and PPI] and that is what is quite galling because for a few pounds more we could have had unlimited text, increased minute deals and not got into this situation.

Any help gratefully appreciated,

Neil & Marcia Morton.

Bradden

Do you have any proof that they told you about these warning messages?

Emails etc?

mortonn

Bradden,
No we do not have any proof of what my wife was told on the phone on two separate occasions [Indian Call Centres??].

I have asked Orange to find the latest conversation with my wife [approx 2-3 weeks ago].

I know it's a long shot but it just seems so unfair that they will not even consider that they are at fault. After 20 years custom without trouble it seems that they do not care, that basically my wife has dreamt this situation up.

Regards,

Neil.

pepdavies

Same story nearly every day here. Contract phone given to children. Massive bill. Learn your lesson and put them back on payg. It's completely irrelevant, and mildly offensive, that you mention the call centre guy was Indian.

macman

mortonn wrote: »

Hi,
just thought I would contact you on behalf of my wife to ask where we stand on our current situation.

My wife has been an Orange customer for approx 20 years until recently changing to Vodafone to get the IPhone 5s on the best deal.

Our 2 children [13yr old girl with Aspergers [Disability] , 11yr old girl] both came off Orange PAYG and onto a Orange new contract with limitations on the amount of texts , calls etc. At the time my wife spoke to the call handler about her reservations that the children would 'go over' their allowance only to be told that they [or she] would receive text alerts to warn her/them about this situation. She reluctantly agreed trusting the guy on the end of the phone.

When my wife was recently negotiating her IPhone deal with Orange she asked about the children's use only to be told that they had gone way over and instead of a £50 bill for the month we were looking at £150 with subsequent bills over Christmas of £200 and £250. She is absolutely distraught and upset because we have not received any text alerts or notification of the extra charges. The call handler [Indian guy] stated that we would have had text alerts warning us of the situation, even to the point that my wife grilled the children harshly accusing them of lying and deleting the text messages. It turns out as far as I can tell that Orange have no such facility for texting alerts to people so somebody is telling lies or just does not know what they are telling customers.

We have spoken to 3 Orange operatives so far who just keep trotting out the Company line which is 'It's your phone and it's your responsibility to check' - At the moment we are looking for a sensible solution but Orange are just not interested. A bit sad when one of our daughters has got a disability only to be told they cannot do anything at all.

I am currently awaiting a call from a more senior Manager [within the next 72hrs] but they do not even register that we have been 'mis sold' something [like the banks and PPI] and that is what is quite galling because for a few pounds more we could have had unlimited text, increased minute deals and not got into this situation.

Any help gratefully appreciated,

Neil & Marcia Morton.

No they didn't. 11 and 13 year olds can't take out mobile contracts, so the contract is in your or your wife's name, and the debt is yours. You chose to allow them to use the phones without supervision, relying on a text service to warn of them of going over the limit.
The only 'safe' contracts for teenagers are those with a cap in place (Tesco). Otherwise use PAYG.

matelodave

You have to take responsibility for giving contract phones to youngsters. They can't take out contracts so you have to bear the costs as you are the contract holders.
The only sensible option is PayGo so they learn that when they've used it they don't get any more until more money is paid - up front. How do you teach kids the value of money and sensible use of the phone when you don't monitor what they do and limit what they can use.

As said on similar posts would you give them your credit card and let them get on with it, probably not but there are some really stupid people out there who do and then get upset when they get ginormous bills.

It could have cost you a lot more so let it be a lesson to use more sense in the future. Giving contract phones to people with disabilities is not a relevant to the service provider, it's your responsibility and you can't use it as an excuse for something going wrong

NFH

There are reasons why the networks don't give contracts to children. You should have avoided giving them contracts for the same reasons. Why couldn't they be on prepaid like Giffgaff or Three?

mortonn

Hi people,
thankyou for your replies.

Not a lot of positives from them which I expected.

The reason I mentioned the guy was Indian was because it might be an overseas call centre and as i have holidayed in India for the last 4 years was not meant to be offensive or racist. Just saying that the guidance given to people negotiating over the phone might be lost from the UK to India. After all they are trying to win as much business as possible. The Indian guy my wife spoke to 2 weeks ago stated that we should have had these text alerts sent to us / the kids when negotiating for a new phone deal.

Bottom line is my wife was told that we would get text alerts when approaching limits which did not happen and will never happen as Orange have told us now.

We would never have taken this type of contract if we were not told that text alerts would not be sent to monitor our children's usage.

My wife was pestered into taking a contract from Orange being called up to 4 times a day and she only accepted it after being promised that it would be monitored and alerted when approaching the maximum allowances or we would have stayed on PAYG.

This did not occur and that is what we are not happy with Orange and we would like to find a reasonable solution.

Sensible responses please which are helpful - I do not need more people telling me my wife should have checked the usage as explained above.

Regards,
Neil.

Anoneemoose

mortonn wrote: »

Hi people,
thankyou for your replies.

Not a lot of positives from them which I expected.

The reason I mentioned the guy was Indian was because it might be an overseas call centre and as i have holidayed in India for the last 4 years was not meant to be offensive or racist. Just saying that the guidance given to people negotiating over the phone might be lost from the UK to India. After all they are trying to win as much business as possible. The Indian guy my wife spoke to 2 weeks ago stated that we should have had these text alerts sent to us / the kids when negotiating for a new phone deal.

Bottom line is my wife was told that we would get text alerts when approaching limits which did not happen and will never happen as Orange have told us now.

We would never have taken this type of contract if we were not told that text alerts would not be sent to monitor our children's usage.

My wife was pestered into taking a contract from Orange being called up to 4 times a day and she only accepted it after being promised that it would be monitored and alerted when approaching the maximum allowances or we would have stayed on PAYG.

This did not occur and that is what we are not happy with Orange and we would like to find a reasonable solution.

Sensible responses please which are helpful - I do not need more people telling me my wife should have checked the usage as explained above.

Regards,
Neil.

I'm not saying your wife is wrong but I am baffled. Orange has never sent text alerts for usage unless roaming so I cannot understand why 2 people have told you that. One person, I could understand but 2? In addition, the sales teams are not based in the offshore call centre.

Was it definitely Orange that sent her them and not some third party company?

mortonn

I was never sent anything I was told when being pestered to buy a phone and contract that I would have an alert when my children's tariff was getting near going over. I was clear in expressing that I was worried that they may go over it and needed confirmation that it wouldn't as I would have a text to make sure it wouldn't go over! I was very clear of saying I can't afford any more than I was paying monthly for three phone contracts and they reassured me that I would be warned if they were near there limit so put my trust in them after being with them for over fifteen years. They are now trying to blame me for not checking my bills! But why would I if I had never had an alert always asked my children regularly if they had a text to say they were near there limit and they never had one so had no reason to check my bill. Do they really think I wouldn't of checked if I knew they could go over there limit ! This is my argument!

Thanks,
Marcia.

gjchester

mortonn wrote: »

But why would I if I had never had an alert always asked my children regularly if they had a text to say they were near there limit and they never had one so had no reason to check my bill. Do they really think I wouldn't of checked if I knew they could go over there limit ! This is my argument!

Thanks,
Marcia.

Orange have never offered this service as far as I know, only Tmobile old Ufix and Tesco's capped contracts have any form of capped that works as to cut the user off as you expected (and of course PAYG).


Do you have a case, probably, if you can prove what was said, verbal contracts carry the same weight as written ones, the problem is proving it.