getting out of Orange contract?

LostHero

Hi,

I upgraded to a new contract with Orange back in February. I've recently become a debt free wannabe and need very much to be free of the cost of my mobile contract. I wondered what sort of options I have. I'm on the Raccoon 35 plan for 35/mo but I tend to exceed this with texts because my parents live abroad and I text them often but not to excess. Each of these texts costs 16.2p.

Before I ring Orange I wondered if anyone had experience or advice on either reducing your plan significantly or ending a contract with the least amount of debt.

Thanks for your help.

anonymousie

An no specialist, but I fear the answer will be a contract is a contract and you can only get out by paying the full blance to orange (this has been the response posted to other questions like this eg people relocating abroad etc).
Any family member or other reliable person willing to take it over from you? REmember though YOU are responsible to orange, so ir they don't pay you....

Woby_Tide

depending on whether it was 12 or 18 you'll possibly be able to downgarde to the cheapest contract but thats still £20 or so. Paying it off in one go ould get a 5% discount I guess

I'm assuming that your parents have a foreign mobile number given that you are getting charged for it. One option is you send them a UK SIM, they can then receive texts on that but they could then reply using their own local SIM card to keep their costs lower

llol_slim

im sorry i cant help with the contract, I just wanted to recommend Skpye.
I use this alot to speak to relatives instead of using my expensive contract.

Obviously it wont help with paying or cancelling your contract, but it will mean you wont go over your minutes or texts.

Incase you dont know, Skype (https://www.skype.com) allows you to talk and send messages over the internet for free. If you have a microphone you can talk, if you have a webcam you can see each other. If you have neither microphone or webcam then you can still type messages to each other.

proplusplus

I believe the migration policy at orange will allow you to drop one-price plan each month until the end of your contract.

This migration policy came into effect from Dec. '06 for new registrations, and was implemented sometime in march onwards for re-signing (upgrading) customers.

the current migration policy allows for 1 price drop for entire duration of contract at month 6 on a 12-month contract, month 9 on a 18/24month contract.


proplusplus

LostHero

I've rung Orange today and while bullishly helpful my contract is in month 7 of an 18month contract (stoopid me!) So, as a previous poster mentioned, I cannot drop down until month 9 or more specifically on 23rd Nov. I asked what my buy out today would be and it's £352.46. I'd also been paying for a £5 pound Orange bundle that was apparently free for 2 months. :mad: I don't remember signing up to that but it probably was mentioned when I signed the contract. Is there any way I might be cheeky and try and get a refund off them for the months I paid but never used the service as.. well.. I didn't really realize I had it and certainly didn't use it?? I also stopped the £1.50 itemised bill charge, which I've been paying since i took out the contract. Now I am good with math but when it comes to things like interest I'm not sure how they sort the costs out. My final question is would it be cheaper for me to just end things today for 352.46 (which I don't really have but would have to put on one of my credit cards or wait for 2 months.. drop the plan down.. then quit? my monthly bill charge is £35+VAT so that would be a minimum of lets say 80 pounds then I can drop to probably a £30 or £25 plan but I don't know what the pay off would be at that point.

Ps.. I'm likely to start a debtfree wannabe diary on this site soon, but I'm still gathering info for my SOA.

Thanks for your help

espresso

Sorry but I don't understand why you expect Orange or any other company for that matter to pay for your mistakes! You started this contract and it was up to you to understand what you were agreeing to. How can you need a £35 per month contract seven months ago and now suddenly not need it? Your best option would surely be to wait until you can change down to their lowest tariff at nine months.

LostHero

No need to beat me up. I'm already doing that well enough. Basically my circumstances have changed, i've experience my lightbulb moment and I'm now trying to do something about it. I'm not expecting Orange to pay for my mistakes, I just want to make my mistake cost as little as possible so that I can make progress on decreasing my debts. Was just looking for advice from anyone else who may have been in a similar situation.

espresso

But your thread title "getting out of Orange contract?" is simply not possible.