Take care when switching contracts - a cautionary tale

philandstuff

Hello moneysavers,

For those that want the short version of this post, here it is: MAKE SURE YOU ASK WHEN YOUR NEW CONTRACT STARTS! When you get a new contract, your old contract will remain in effect for up to a month - so your phone usage should take this into consideration.

I followed MSE's advice last month and had a look at my mobile phone contract and whether it was best for my usage. The answer came a resounding NO! My contract provided 750 free minutes, but they could only be used evening (after 7pm) and weekend to landlines and Orange phones; so I found myself paying up to 50p/min for those all-important daytime calls.

I had a look around and found the best contract for my needs would be 3's Mix & Match 300. I phoned Orange up to tell them I was jumping ship, and they very quickly made me a better offer!

So I'm still on Orange, and I've got a new, cheaper contract with oodles of free minutes and texts, and more importantly, the free minutes are any time, cross network. Brilliant!

And I thought that would be the end of the story. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Next month I got a bill through the post for over £50! How can this be? I have a cheap contract, I couldn't possibly have used more than my free minute allowance - where have the charges come in?

The answer is that the new contract doesn't come into effect until the next billing date - which for me, meant I had spent three weeks using my old contract as if it were my new, and paying 50p/min for daytime cross-network calls which I thought were free!

Now I can try to blame Orange for not making it clear enough when my new contract started: no mention was made of this during the phone call, and I got my upgraded handset within days, so I assumed this meant the whole upgrade had gone through. But in the end it is my responsibility to understand any contract I enter into, so really it's my own fault and Orange has no legal requirement to refund a penny.

This story does have a happy ending, however. I phoned Orange and explained my situation assertively (but not rudely) - and they have agreed, as a goodwill gesture, to refund my call charges. This is more than I could have hoped for. So three cheers for Orange!

Just to repeat the message: make sure you know when your new contract starts! You can easily avoid the awkward situation I ended up in!

MrRincewind

Any changes made to the tariff only ever take effect on the next billing period, you could be lucky and have it happen a couple of days after the request or as the OP take a few weeks, It really does depend what billing cycle you are on,

If you were`nt informed of the change date then i would call orange back up and advise them you were not told of the date they the new tariff would take effect and you would like some recompense towards the bill as you would have tailored your use untill your new tariff took effect, They have to tell you of the dates that changes take effect