Need to get out of phone contract - leaving the country

andreajones

I am going to be emigrating to Australia next week. I've tried to get out of my 18 month contract with Orange, but even though I've explained to them that I'm not going to be able to pay for the phone as I won't be in the country, they are having none of it, and have said they will take me to court if I don't see the contract through.

Obviously at the time of taking the contract out, I didn't know I would be going to live in Australia. I have read some of the previous threads and know that I can reduce the payments down, but do you have any other suggestions on how I could possibly get out of this contract? It's going to be costing me a fortune when paying Australian dollars, and I've only seen through 8 months of the contract so far.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

DocHants

lol.. just go and dont tell them, if you aint coming back!!!

Can you not pass the contract on to a friend or relative, who would be trustworthy to continue paying till finished???

GreedIsGood

I've heard this type of thing before. My friend is having a similar problem, but its just that he's moved South and his new village does not have coverage. Even he is struggling despite the fact that they cannot provide what he is paying for....
Anyway,
I'd try writing to Orange, email their executive office. It could be tricky if you are going next week.
If you do have to pay (and I suspect you will), then as you say, down grade the tariff to the lowest.
Maybe see if you have a friend or colleague who could buy / use the phone till it's contract is up.
If not, sell the phone now, to offset the charges.
If you can, put enough cash in a UK bank to cover the remaining line rental direct debits and avoid the Australian dollar issue.
Finally, and maybe we need some input from any solicitors on here, if you are never coming back, maybe you could just run off. I doubt that they would go all the way to Oz for a couple of hundred quid. When you default they will sell the debt to a collection agency.
It would hammer your credit rating but who cares if you are not coming back.
I'd thoroughly check this out though as debt collection agencies levy charges for non payment, then interest charges on top. So if you came back to the UK in say 10 years you may owe thousands!
Probably better just to bite the bullet and pay.

Quentin

No way to get out of it.

Reduce the tariff to the lowest you can, then give them notice to cancel now.

They will charge you the remaining line rental due, but you can pay it off as a lump sum, and there won't be any on-going bills to pay.

gsmmad

reduce tariff and pay it off ...

orange want every month's fee to cancel and u gotta be with the contact at least 9 months before being able to lower your tariff