Problems With My Orange Bill

amandaevans_2

I receieved a bill from Orange dated 19th May for me and my partners business account.
My part of the bill was £147:03 opposed to the usual £30!
When I looked into my bill I noticed I was being charged for calls that looked as though they were within my minute
allowance.
However when I contacted Orange they advised me they had a system error in the previous month on calls made to any
T-mobile numbers.
So they advised when I checked what minutes I had left from my handset it never deducted any of the minutes used to
make calls to any T-mobile numbers.
So invariably I was left thinking I had minutes left and then made calls outside of my minutes without being aware of it.
They were charged and added these calls to Mays invoice after there system error was corrected.
When I spoke to Orange and stated that this doesn't seem very fair that I am punished for Orange's system error,
I was then told that I would of been made aware that minutes info from my handset isn't intirely accurate.
They make customers aware of this occasional inaccurate information so therefore Orange holds no liability in this instance!
Then I was also advised that Orange has the right to correct errors with billing and add charges on to accounts anytime up to
3 months after the initial bill?
I have been told Orange will do nothing for me in this instance and I have to pay the bill but surely this can't be right, I am being punished for something that was intierly out of my control.
Now I owe a considerable amount of money to them due to their system fault, there must be something I can do about this?

peediedj

i have similar problems with orange they reckon i owe them £187 but i dont,although i have tried to sort it out orange are not intrested,i have had 1 reminder already ,so cant see it being long until they take court action agaisnt me to recover it,why should they be allwoed to bully people ,by ignroing them ,not taking action and forcing them to pay up cash they dont owe:mad:

Rebel

I hate to say this but did you actually make these calls? If you did then surely its only right you should pay for them.

Obviously if the bill has come as a shock then perhaps you could arrange to pay for the costs you have incurred over an extended period, but why should orange (or any other company) have to subsidise your calls?

amandaevans_2

I did make the calls but I made them after being told by the automated minutes service that I had the minutes left to cover my calls etc.
Had Orange of told me I didn't have the minutes then I would never of made the calls.
I abit annoyed also because some of the calls were just made to use up my minutes left aswell which is what sometimes I do when it comes to the end of a month and I have alot left.
It really seems unfair to me that I am being punished for being given the wrong information by Orange!
However if I had not checked my minutes or knowingly gone over and made the calls anyway then I would understand the charges and have no problem paying them.
This has also left me thinking when or how can I find out accurately what minutes I have left each month?
Orange advised me the automated service is the only way to check minutes unless I call them direct every other day, which in all fairness she didn't sound overly happy about.
But I am paying Orange for a service here and it seems quite apparent to me that I'm not getting what I am paying for each month.
On monthly tariffs you are issued an amount of minutes and texts, if I can never find out accurately what I have used or have left each month then it seem obvious people are going to go over their allocated allowance!

Cavey

My phone has software on it that counts the minutes and SMS that I use and I have it set to reset itself on my billing date.

Even my old motorola V500 has software for counting minutes, although it is not capable of resetting itself or understanding that certain calls don't count (like ringing voicemail etc...), but at least it errs on the side of caution.

This should be a better way of avoiding this problem in the future, even if it is a bit of a pain.

As for the problem of being over-charged, check your contract and the terms that state how up to date the automated information is. If it is not clearly stated that the information is liable to be wrong then you may have a case. If there is a clause which states Orange accepts no liability for any mistakes on its part, then I would guess that was an unfair term. However, this probably wont be met with much success as you really should be keeping track of your own usage.