Praise/Vent at the same time! EE/Orange

aileth

Hi all, this is going to be a long one I'm afraid, I'll try and make it as interesting as possible.

So thought I'd share my rather interesting evening last night. I noticed Orange/EE had taken £90 from my account for my bill last month. I've had the phone 18 months and was with Orange two years prior, so all in all I've been with them approx three and a half years. In all this time, I've been charged £40-45 a month, varying depending on how many picture messages I send my sister (Not very MSE I know), maybe going a few meg over the data limit but nothing more than £5-6 extra, so as you can imagine in a month when I've done absolutely nothing different and haven't altered my data habits, this is somewhat of a shock.

I checked on my online account and apparently I had used DOUBLE my normal data. I'm connected to WiFi for 99% of the day, at home and at work, parent's house, friend's house, etc, so I was a little bewildered how I could use 2GB. However, if I really had made a mistake I was perfectly amicable to paying for what I had used.

So I decided to call Orange/EE to see if I could get some information, for example where the data usage spikes were, and maybe I could connect the dots so I don't get another whopper this month.

Got through to them after only 9 minutes (Good in my experience with them). Started to explain my concerns to the fella on the phone. He persistently tried to interrupt me while I was explaining why I had called. I've worked in call centres, I know what the mute button sounds like, the signifying 'click' and then total silence. I assumed he was looking at my account.

I waited 3-4 minutes and then enquired whether he was still there, "Yes, I'm still here, but you wouldn't let me talk, you were just going off on one." Well, forgive me, but I figure it's best for a customer to set out their enquiry first.

He then proceeded to insinuate that I'm an idiot, I had no idea what I was talking about, that my previous 3.5 years of almost equal data usage each month meant absolutely nothing, that I must effectively have been stupid and not noticed that I wasn't connected to WiFi. I told him that I'm fairly tech savvy, I know when my phone is connected to WiFi and when it loses the connection. He kept audibly sighing, laughing, saying such things as, "Well, I have a mobile phone too you know, and -I- can see when it's connected." I told him all I wanted to know was when the extra data had been used and his answer was, "Well, we don't have that information", which I find pretty hard to believe.

After a few minutes, I got really fed up with his attitude and pretty much being treated like a stupid little girl who has used lots of data and wants to get money back. So I thought, well, I'm not getting any further with this fella, so I requested to speak to a Manager, someone who wouldn't interrupt me every two seconds and speak to me like a petulant child.

He laughed at me and asked why, I responded because of his attitude and he's being incredibly rude. He burst into laughter again and asked, "How am -I- being rude?" I explained that his tone of voice, his interruptions and the constant patronising attitude was how he was being rude, and that it wasn't really great customer service. He sighed audibly and then muted me. I asked if he had muted me again and then he hung up on me, "Welcome to EE. I'm sorry, we're unable to process your call. Goodbye."

Well, I decided to call back as really I had just rung up for a simple enquiry and was flabberghasted at how I'd been spoke to. I got a lovely woman, whose name unfortunately I didn't take as I was a little shocked at the time. She apologised for her colleague, said she would try and trace who it was through the account footprint (Although I told her I had great doubts the fella had even been into my account, as he was unable to tell me anything about my account).

She gave me all the information I needed, and also spoke to her Supervisor and got me a £40 credit, which I was not expecting at all.

So, Praise/Vent for EE. Here's to hoping they employ people more like the latter lady than her colleague!

DoaM

That's a sexist post ... it's insinuating that male call centre workers are bad, and female call centre workers are good. :mad:























Fizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............BOOOOOM!

daytona0

Sounds like a bad egg on the line, you get them occasionally. No big deal really, the GOOD thing is that it usually equates to a bit of "compensation" and a warning/sacking.

I think people should take your post with a pinch of salt though, because we don't have the other side of the coin. The fact that you got a goodwill gesture suggests that he was in the wrong big time. It is important to realise, though, that you may not have been entitled to that 40 quid in which case you would have got lucky in this instance. There may have been an element of truth to what the male colleague said, but it was probably said in the completely wrong way (and you may not have been trying to get compensation, which is unusual but possible).

aileth

I can assure you I certainly wasn't seeking 'compensation.' I called back hoping to get someone else who could actually help me. I seriously thought the enquiry would take five minutes tops. The only thing I said about the previous call was that, "Your colleague sighed and hung up on me", and then re-stated what I wanted to know.

pollypenny

Why suggest aileth was looking for compensation?

All she wanted was a correct bill, as we all would!

No need for snide comments.

DoaM

(I hope it's obvious that post #2 was purely in jest?)

bluenoseam

Can't say a good word about them after my experience I'm afraid, just had a member of customer relations tell me there's nowt they can do to stop bombarding me with texts and tell me I can go elsewhere. (74 text messages since 19th January, all the exact same content I kid you not)

Needless to say not very impressed with their complaints resolutions department.

aileth

bluenoseam wrote: »

Can't say a good word about them after my experience I'm afraid, just had a member of customer relations tell me there's nowt they can do to stop bombarding me with texts and tell me I can go elsewhere. (74 text messages since 19th January, all the exact same content I kid you not)

Needless to say not very impressed with their complaints resolutions department.

Are they the texts they send about tickets and all this sort of rubbish? I can't count how many times I've texted STOP to the appropriate number.

Needless to say, despite how lovely the second employee was and how generous they were, I'm still not taking my upgrade with them. Unfortunately, the bad experiences far outweigh the good.

daytona0

pollypenny wrote: »

Why suggest aileth was looking for compensation?

All she wanted was a correct bill, as we all would!

No need for snide comments.

Nothing snide about it, so please don't insult me.

There are two possible scenarios:

1. Error in being charged

2. Error in how much data OP used

Option 1, unless you're crazy, would result in OP wanting compensation and so they would be ringing up with that goal in mind.

Option 2, along with the fact that OP is initially adamant about lack of data usage, is LIKELY to generate an initially angry/unhappy OP and many (but not all, as I stated in my initial post) customers would want some money back especially if the call turns sour in any way.

Given OP was mad, we can't take their complete word for it but on the same token I agreed with the principle of what OP, you, and everyone else thought - that it was out of order to an extent.

As a side note, if they weren't entitled to it then it was lucky that they got compensation by virtue of how it played out.

MamaMoo_2

Option 1 & 2 wouldn't necessarily suggest seeking compensation, merely putting back into the position they would have originally been in, not betterment.
Getting money back when you have been charged it in error is a refund, not compensation.

pollypenny

Daytona, aileth was surprised to be given a credit.

All she wanted was her bill clarified as and to check where the data spikes were.