Misled by Phones4U or Orange. What's my next step??

DieselDiva

I recently spoke to Phones4U about upgrading my current Orange phone to a new HTC One. They told me that I could have the phone for free & the contract would £31 a month but that the first month would be at a cost of £36 on my usual payment day. I agreed after they said I would have to pay the remainder of my current contract ( £93.01 ). He put me through to Orange, I gave them my details & paid it. I've just checked my banking online & they took out the £93.01 on 16/01 & then £94.94 on the 30th ( usual payment date ) Not the £36 as was told to me. Fuming would be an understatement.
So I contacted Orange to ask them !!!!!! & the guy said it was an early upgrade fee of £77?????? I explained I was never told anything about an early upgrade fee on top of my paying off my contract, as there's no way I would have done it otherwise. I'd have just waited the 4 months til the end of my contract. I know, I know, should have just done that anyway!!! I then told him I wanted to make a complaint. He then said, 'What phone did u have before & what phone did u get?' I told him & THEN he said the £77 was because it was a HTC One. BS!!! ( Oh so not an early upgrade fee now?? ). I said I was told the phone was FREE. I repeated that I wanted to make a complaint. He kept me on hold, came back on & said that he will make it an 'Urgent' complaint & the person would sold me the phone would contact me & I will be compensated for my trouble. I smelt a fob off, so I asked when I would be hearing from them & he said sometime in the next SEVEN days.


Can anyone tell me what the best option is? Has anyone else fell victim to this??

mobilejunkie

Always put complaints in writing and follow up with a legal threat if you have a case you can prove should the complaint be ignored. Dealing over the phone with most companies nowadays is often a complete waste of time and leaves you without proof of anything.

Anoneemoose

Have you checked your account balance with Orange because it sounds like their system hasn't picked up the card payment you made before the bill was produced. And so it seems it has taken this in error. (Meaning your account will now be in credit).

The £93.01 is a charge because you upgraded early and if you were charged for the phone, it would have been phones 4 u who would have taken that money seeing they supplied you with the phone.

Can you post a screen shot of your latest bill (without personal detials of course)?

If not, can you tell me the BILL date (not the date it comes out of the bank),

the balance brought forward, payments received, balance due. And the bit underneath that says about being debited from your bank.

Also, can you then list the charges on the bill (not the itemised bit) - just the talkplan and other extras like the early termination fee.

I should be able to decipher that!

Anoneemoose

I also suspect this £77.00 is not an additional charge but the ealey termination fee because £77.00 plus vat is roughly the £93 you paid. And they always break it down without the vat ...although I always thought they didn't charge vat on early terms but I could be wrong!

grumbler

I think that if the upgrade was done via p4u, then Orange have nothing to do with the phone. Their only concern is the ETC and the cost of new contract.

DieselDiva

Anoneemoose wrote: »

Have you checked your account balance with Orange because it sounds like their system hasn't picked up the card payment you made before the bill was produced. And so it seems it has taken this in error. (Meaning your account will now be in credit).

The £93.01 is a charge because you upgraded early and if you were charged for the phone, it would have been phones 4 u who would have taken that money seeing they supplied you with the phone.

Can you post a screen shot of your latest bill (without personal detials of course)?

If not, can you tell me the BILL date (not the date it comes out of the bank),

the balance brought forward, payments received, balance due. And the bit underneath that says about being debited from your bank.

Also, can you then list the charges on the bill (not the itemised bit) - just the talkplan and other extras like the early termination fee.

I should be able to decipher that!

I unfortunately can't see ANY bills as I haven't been able to log into my Orange account since they changed to EE & trying to get them to help is useless. The only way I can log in is through the app but that is useless really as it doesn't show u bills just data usage & that's not even correct.


My bill date is the 15th of every month ( comes out the bank around the 30th ). I told gave them my card details on the night of the 14th to take out the remaining contract money. The next day they take out the £93.01 it has a few letters then says Orange under the transaction & the £94.94 on the 30th just says Orange. The fact that the guy from Orange kept giving me different reasons for the money being taken out makes me think it's not correct.

Anoneemoose

DieselDiva wrote: »

I unfortunately can't see ANY bills as I haven't been able to log into my Orange account since they changed to EE & trying to get them to help is useless. The only way I can log in is through the app but that is useless really as it doesn't show u bills just data usage & that's not even correct.


My bill date is the 15th of every month ( comes out the bank around the 30th ). I told gave them my card details on the night of the 14th to take out the remaining contract money. The next day they take out the £93.01 it has a few letters then says Orange under the transaction & the £94.94 on the 30th just says Orange. The fact that the guy from Orange kept giving me different reasons for the money being taken out makes me think it's not correct.

I think I would say that as the card payment was so close to the billing date, it hasn't caught up in time for the day after when the bill was produced. This means that the bill has been produced with the early termination fee on it but has not updated with the card payment meaning the direct debit has come out for the full amount. I would bet money on the fact that if you phoned Orange now, they would tell you that your account is in credit by the £93 ish.

Can you login on the app?

DieselDiva

Anoneemoose wrote: »

I think I would say that as the card payment was so close to the billing date, it hasn't caught up in time for the day after when the bill was produced. This means that the bill has been produced with the early termination fee on it but has not updated with the card payment meaning the direct debit has come out for the full amount. I would bet money on the fact that if you phoned Orange now, they would tell you that your account is in credit by the £93 ish.

Can you login on the app?

Yes I can. It's pretty useless really. It still has my old contract usuage on it 750mb instead of my new 1GB but it does say one more thing -£93.01. Is that what you thought, that I'm in credit? That guy from Orange never mentioned that at all. Is it worth me asking for it back or should I just leave it there?

Anoneemoose

DieselDiva wrote: »

Yes I can. It's pretty useless really. It still has my old contract usuage on it 750mb instead of my new 1GB but it does say one more thing -£93.01. Is that what you thought, that I'm in credit? That guy from Orange never mentioned that at all. Is it worth me asking for it back or should I just leave it there?

Yeah that's exactly what I thought! You could ask for a refund or you could just leave it if it's not too detrimental to you to do that. If you leave it, the credit will just carry forward for future bills. That would be much easier to be honest because a refund can take up to 14 days anyway.

Sounds like the man you spoke to just looked at the early term fee and not the account balance as a whole.

If you upgraded close to your bill date which it sounds like you did, then your new plan may not have been updated in time to be reflected on that bill cycle. It will probs take effect on 15 Feb.

I just realised you posted last night (on the 15th) that it's still showing 750mb instead of 1gb - that's probs because it's so close to your bill date - sometimes it takes up to 72 hours to reflect any changes on the plan although you will still have your allowance from 15th. If it doesn't show your new allowances within a couple of days, I would phone and query it.

DieselDiva

Anoneemoose wrote: »

Yeah that's exactly what I thought! You could ask for a refund or you could just leave it if it's not too detrimental to you to do that. If you leave it, the credit will just carry forward for future bills. That would be much easier to be honest because a refund can take up to 14 days anyway.

Sounds like the man you spoke to just looked at the early term fee and not the account balance as a whole.

If you upgraded close to your bill date which it sounds like you did, then your new plan may not have been updated in time to be reflected on that bill cycle. It will probs take effect on 15 Feb.

I just realised you posted last night (on the 15th) that it's still showing 750mb instead of 1gb - that's probs because it's so close to your bill date - sometimes it takes up to 72 hours to reflect any changes on the plan although you will still have your allowance from 15th. If it doesn't show your new allowances within a couple of days, I would phone and query it.

Thanks for all your help. Only just checked the Orange App again & they still haven't changed my usage to 1GB from 750mb but the more puzzling thing is the -£93.01 has turned into -£21.78. So they are telling me I've spent £72 in the last few days. Not to mention there's a strange removal of £20 on my bank statement from a Sochitel UK Ltd which on investigation (google) is some cell company. I think I'm starting to lose my mind. I'm gonna phone them tomorrow & see what the deal is.

Anoneemoose

DieselDiva wrote: »

Thanks for all your help. Only just checked the Orange App again & they still haven't changed my usage to 1GB from 750mb but the more puzzling thing is the -£93.01 has turned into -£21.78. So they are telling me I've spent £72 in the last few days. Not to mention there's a strange removal of £20 on my bank statement from a Sochitel UK Ltd which on investigation (google) is some cell company. I think I'm starting to lose my mind. I'm gonna phone them tomorrow & see what the deal is.

Ooh I have to say I am confused now! Unless they have charged you £72 for some reason for febs bill. If you can't log in online, ask them to send you free paper bills until they sort your online account. If they refuse to do this, ask to speak to a Team. Leader.

If I could see your bills, I could tell you straight away but I realise not being able to see them is part of the problem!!