Poor Service From Orange

18.3

Hello,

I am a Pay As You Go customer.

I checked my email (headers only) using my Orange phone this morning.
It cost me 8 pence, which, at the advertised £4 per Megabyte, implies that the 20KBytes were downloaded.

I felt that was excessive for nine email headers, so I examined the headers, and include them below.

They amount to 11,060 characters, which, at 1024 characters a Kilobyte, comes to 10.8KiloBytes.

I realise that there may be some additional communications overhead, but this does not account for the near doubling of data volume I'm seeing.

So, please let me know why the cost for this network transaction was nearly twice what I calculate it ought to be.

Many thanks & Best Wishes,
Chris Wesley <phone numbers provided here>

This drew an automated acknowledgement, which I've included below.

All I really need is "Thanks, we got your email, and we'll get back to you soon".

But - like most large companies, trying to impress without actually doing anything impressive - they can't resist the opportunity to pack these auto-generated emails with corporate crap.

Of particular note in this one:

1. It's HUGE! All the stuff in red is surplus to requirements.

2. They tell you how good they are - likeI'll believe them in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. "Orange are really great. No, honestly, we really are.". Oh, please - give it up.

3. Setting expectations by lieing. Like Barclaycard and many others, they allude to "unusually high demand" and try to give the impression that the low level of service you receive this time is somehow the exception rather than the rule. It's far more likely that they staff their service centres so that these poor service levels are entirely the norm. Why? Well because they already have your money, and you're calling to take more of their time without paying for it. That's why. Invariably, sales centresare staffed for immediate response, because they don't yet have your money - and they want it. Whereas support centres are staffed poorly.

4. They refer me to a alternative way of receiving service - which costs me 50p per minute. That's a tough choice, but... I'm going to decline on this ocassion.

Now we're into the arse-covering:

5. The confidentiality clause. Why is it there? Why can't I share what they wrote to me with whoever I choose? Perhaps to stop articles like this one from being written?

6. The opinions in this email are not necessarily those of Orange?! How unfortunate. I sort of expected that 0 by calling Orange for help - I'd get some Orange opinions. Bummer.

7. We scan for viruses but so should you. Well, you know - if I hadn't have read that, I might not have know. Orange constantly just adding value to the service they provide.

8. Orange is a subsidiary.. yada yaya. Who cares?!?!?!

18.3

Orange strive to supply customers with the highest level of service and we would therefore like to advise that this is an automated response.

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your mail.

We have received your mail and will respond as soon as we can however, we have received a high volume of emails recently which may delay our response. Account specific mails or mails relating to lost, stolen, damaged or faulty phones cannot be answered by email and will not therefore receive a reply. Please call Orange Customer Services on 150 (07973100150 from a landline) for pay monthly or 450 (07973100450) for pay as you go or you may be able to find the answer to your query by going to www.orange.co.uk/helpandsupport.

If you have an Orange phone and you are experiencing difficulties with your online account, you can contact our technical helpdesk by dialling 439 from your Orange phone or 07973100439 from a landline. Please note that callers must be over 18 and calls are charged at 50 pence per minute at all times. For any other queries, our customer services helpdesk will be pleased to assist and can be contacted by calling 450 from a pay as you go phone, or 07973100450 from a landline, or 150 from a pay monthly phone (07973100150 from a landline).

As this is an automated response, do not reply as we are not able to answer replies sent from this acknowledgement.

Kind regards

Orange Customer Services

********************************************************************
Important.
Confidentiality: This communication is intended for the above-named
person(s) and may be confidential and/or legally privileged.
Any opinions expressed in this communication are not necessarily
those of the company. If it has come to you in error you must
take no action based on it, nor must you copy or show it to anyone;
please delete/destroy and inform the sender immediately.

Monitoring/Viruses.
Orange may monitor all incoming and outgoing emails in line with
current legislation. Although we have taken steps to ensure that
this email and attachments are free from any virus, we advise that
in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure
they are actually virus free.

Orange Personal Communications Services Limited is a subsidiary of
Orange SA and is registered in England No 2178917,
with its address at St James Court, Great Park Road,
Almondsbury Park, Bradley Stoke, Bristol BS32 4QJ.

Orange Retail Limited is a subsidiary of Orange SA and is registered
in England No 2439104, with its address at St James Court,
Great Park Road, Almondsbury Park, Bradley Stoke, Bristol BS32 4QJ.
********************************************************************

19.3

Dear Chris

Thank you for your mail

I can confirm that there are several components which make up the charging of GPRS in relation to sending and receiving email.

Firstly there is the initial GPRS connection to the network, after this data will be transferred due to the fact that your personal details and handset connect to remote servers. At this point the headers will be retrieved, in doing this data will be both sent and received.

This therefore accounts for the accumulation of data charges you have encountered.

I trust this information is of use and resolves your query.

Kind regards

Charlie
Orange Customer Services

Charlie's response is one day after my enquiry, which is OK.

I don't like the recent trend towards using "I can confirm". Cahoot do it. WHY? It's bizarrely un-natural.

And I don't like the huge corporate crap overhead which came with it. I deleted it this time round.

Anyway, it's an acceptable response for a first crack of the whip. However, it doesn't completely resolve my query. See below.

20.3

Hello Charlie and thanks for your prompt and informative response.

Your literature talks about £4 per Megabyte but I can't find any mention of GPRS connection charges.

Please let me know where they are referred to.

Quite separately, please tell me what they are - presumably, the overhead is identical for each connection made.

I would be extremely surprised if they account for the missing data volume we're looking at here.

Many thanks & Best Wishes,
Chris

21.3

Subject: RE: Case 4919384 Data Costs >=>MNC.ORANGE

********************************************************************
Important.
Confidentiality: This communication is intended for the above-name ...
Standard crap removed.

21.3

Hello,

I think you may have made a mistake.
You sent me the email below, but it has no real content - only your standard blurbs.
Please confirm.

Regards,
Chris

24.3

Please address this for me.

Thanks

[copy of earlier email]

30.3

Please respond to this.

[copy of earlier emails]

Nothing for a further five days. So ...

3.4

Hello.

I didn't see a reply to my email below. Please update me on progress.

Thanks & Regards,
Chris

[Copy of original email]

3.4

Dear Chris

Thank you for your mail.

I'm sorry to learn that you have received an email that contains no content. Unfortunately I am unaware as to why this may be. I apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Kind regards

Rob
Orange Customer Services.

Oh thanks Rob! I waited 14 days and sent FOUR REMINDERS to receive this response from Rob, which is useless.

It's useless in a very interesting way, though. It responds not to the email I most recently sent, but to the blank email issue which I alluded to earlier in the dialogue.

This tells me that Rob has the entire dialogue available to him, and is CHOOSING not to address the main issue.

What a nice man Rob is.

What excellent standards of personal and professional integrity Orange cultivate.

Perhaps the future is bright and orange afterall.

5.4

Are we having fun yet?

I have sent you SIX emails on this topic, starting 18th March, to get an answer to two simple questions. Those questions are these:

1. Please tell me what the GPRS connection overhead is, and confirm that it is fixed for each connection. Specifically, tell me how many bites are transferred and what the consequential cost to me is.

2. Please tell me where Orange documents this charge. For example, the URL of the webpage, or a page number and document title.

Please reply, being sure to completely address both of these issues so that we don't have to discuss it again.

Now I have a third issue I would like resolving:

3. Please tell me why you have done such an appalling job of fielding this support request. Specifically, why did you point blank ignore 4 emails, and why did you side-step the main issue in your last two responses?

So - please ensure that your single response includes answers to all three of these issues.

Thanks,
Chris

8.4

Dear Mr Wesley

Thank you for your mail.

Please accept my apologies that you feel the experience you have had with Customer Services recently has not been to the standard which you have come to expect from Orange.

The GPRS bundles which are available to our customers are set to cover the majority, if not all the data transfer needed to perform relevant tasks which require the GPRS network.

With regards to the breakdown of the charges incurred when using GPRS, we cannot confirm exactly how many bytes are transferred at any one time. This is due to a number of factors:

1. The amount of bytes needed to transfer the data across the network. For example, when sending an email.

2. The size of the data (E.g email) which is being requested.

I regret to inform you that there is no literature available detailing the breakdown of GPRS charges, however it is through feedback such as yours that we are able to assess the effectiveness of our service.

I understand this has caused you great inconvenience and apologise for this. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to write to us and inform you that all points raised by your email have been noted.

I trust this is of assistance.

Kind regards

Nathalie
Orange Customer Services

8.4

Nathalie,

I am very frustrated to see that - yet again - you have not answered my questions.

Please therefore escalate this to your customer services manager, and tell me who that is, and how I may contact them.

I know full well that the charges are based on the amount of data transferred. Of course. That's obvious.
But your own support people have told me that the data transferred is made up of two components:

1. The amount of user data transferred
2. The GPRS connection overhead

I have asked you - several times - to tell me what size (and what cost) number 2 is. The GPRS connection overhead.
This will be clearly and completely understood by one of your technical experts. This information IS available and I want It, please.
You are obliged to tell your customers how much you charge them, and yet you seem to be deliberately concealing one component of your charges from me and all your customers.

I'm not going to go away no matter how long you stonewall, and you can be sure that I will be publishing the appalling level of service you have provided so far,
along with the final answer when I get it from you.

So please tell me what that is now. And please remember also to escalate this to your customer services manager, and to tell me who that is, and how I can contact them.

Thank you.

IMPORTANT:
My disclaimer trumps yours. I will do whatever I want with this dialogue including posting it on the web as an example of what a great job Orange does for its customers.

12.4

Dear Mr Wesley

Thank you for your mail.

I can confirm that the charges for the transfer of data over the GPRS network are set as £3 per Mb for pay monthly customers and £4 per Mb for pay as you go customers. There is no additional charge applied other than for the amount of data transferred.

There are also bundles available which, depending on your usage, can significantly reduce the cost of data transfer. Please find below details of GPRS charges.

Pay as you use data charges are:

for the first 3 Mb - £3 per Mb,
3-15 Mb - £2 per Mb
15+ Mb - £1 per Mb.

Available bundles

Orange World Access 1 - 1MB for £2
Orange World Access 4 - 4MB for £4
Orange World Access 10 - 10MB for £8
Orange World Access 25 - 25MB for £16
Orange World Access 80 - 80MB for £41.13
Orange World Access 400 - 400 MB for £52.88
Mobile Office Max 05 Fair use (1000MB) for £52.88

If you are a Pay as you go customer GPRS data is charged at £4 per Mb. There is also a 'Browse all day for £1' option available on the Orange World homepage.

I hope this information has clarified the situation.

If you wish to speak to a Supervisor regarding this matter, please could you call our Wirefree Data Services Department on 156 direct from your Orange phone (07973 100156 from any other phone) if you are a pay monthly customer or 450 (07973 100450) if you are a pay as you go customer, where a representative will be pleased to assist you in this matter. Your call can then be escalatedthrough the propper channels.

Kind regards

David
Orange Customer Services

12.4

David,

For maybe the 4th or 5th time you (Orange) have ignored my question.
I can only assume you are doing so deliberately.

Please therefore escalate this to your customer services manager and have them contact me.

Thanks

14.4

Dear Mr Wesley

Thank you for your mail.

I can confirm that the GPRS charges incurred when connecting to your email server include charges for all data transferred.

This includes the data transferred for the verification process which confirms that you have access to the requested mail box. The charge is also dependent on the format of the text downloaded. A complex text format will contain more data than others, therefore data transfer increases. Bad "packets" of data transferred via the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) network would mean that they will need to be downloaded again for you to receive all of the information requested.

I hope this information has clarified the situation further.

Kind regards

David
Orange Customer Services

This does not resolve the problem.
Because you have not done a thorough job, you force me to waste even further time on this. I believe this will be the 6th or 7th turn of the handle on what ought to be a very simple query.

Please refer back to my original enquiry.

I downloaded the headers on some emails and counted the characters which were downloaded. They accounted for about half of the cost - based on credit calls before and after I downloaded them.

You people said that the extra cost was down to "GPRS connection overhead".
I doubted that - and asked for a clear statement of the volume (# bytes) & cost (pence) of this overhead.

Finally, you are addressing this - but you say that - effectively - there is NO GPRS connection overhead. If you is correct, then your colleague is wrong, and we are still missing 50% of the cost. If you are wrong, which seems far more likely, then this is HUGELY depressing.

I also note that you have ignored my request to have your customer services manager call me. Unless you are the customer services manager - which - frankly - might explain why the service is so incredibly poor.

So, for the Nth time - please sort this out and please ask your customer services manager to contact me.

Thank you.

PS: As usual, my disclaimer trumps yours. I'll do whatever I like with this dialogue.

19.4

Dear Mr Wesley

Thank you for your mail.

After reading through the previous emails, I find that this is a query concerning GPRS charging.

Therefore, as I am unable to involve any access to your account, this matter must be addressed to our Customer Services on 450 for payg Customers.

The customer is billed per event, i.e every time you access a new WAP or internet page you are billed for the volume of data that is downloaded on to your handset/Laptop/PDA device.

PAYG GPRS is charged at £4 per megabyte

1 Megabyte = 1024kilobytes = £4

1 Kilobyte = 1024 bytes = 0.39p

1 Byte = 8 bits
The following information gives an approximate example of costs to provide to the customer:
1 Page word document = 20-30 kb's = 7.8p - 11.7p

1 WAP Page = 600-900 bytes = 0.23p -0.34p

1 average website homepage = 34kb = 13.26p

I trust this information clarifies the situation for you.

Kind regards

Su
Orange Customer Services

Isn't this astonishing?! Isn't it unbelievably stupidly, inanely dreadfully bad?????

Who is the Orange customer services manager? How much does that person earn? How much does that person know about providing good customer service? Who are they sleeping with to hold down their job, given performance of this dismal quality? Who in Orange - ANYWHERE - is monitoring service quality?

I can say very dlearly indeed as an ex-manager of service organisations, that this person needs to be fired, because they have demonstrated beyond any doubt that they are a cretin. And - judging by the front-line people I've spoken to at Orange, most fo them should go as well - they appear not to be remotely interested in helping customers with their Orange-induced problems, and many can't apparently read.

Anyway, just before this email arrived, I was phoned up by Orange technical expert, Chris Harrison. He confirmed that the actual cost of transferring data via Orange's GPRS mobile network is about twice the rate they advertise. The cost to you is not the £4 per megabyte they advertise - it's nearer to £8, because of losses and overheads in the network we Orange customers are charged for - but secretly.

So, I looked Orange up at Companies House, and found that Orange is registered in Bristol. So I sent the email below to Bristol Trading Standards.

19.4

Hello,

I have conducted a lengthy and painful dialogue with Orange - the mobile phone people - during which they tried to avoid talking to me on a touchy subject.

They advertise data costs for pay as you go customers as £4 per megabyte.
But in fact, empirical evidence shows that the real cost is about twice that price.

After being indecently insistent, I finally spoke to their technical expert, Chris Harrison, who confirms that this is the case because, in addition to the customer's data transfer, the following additional (and un-advertised) factors are also paid for by the customer:

1. Negotiation with intermediate servers on the internet
2. GPRS connection overhead
3. Recovery of data lost in the Orange network
4. Protocol overhead associated with managing transmission power

I feel that Orange should not be charging their customers for these internal factors,
and I most certainly feel that Orange should not be allowed to advertise their data charges at about half or what they really are as they currently do.

Orange are registered in Bristol, so I am sending this to you folks, in the hope that you can help me to right this wrong.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks & Best Wishes,
Chris Wesley

With Sky broadband now much happier will never eva have orange again!! awful company.

Looks like you should get the Advertising Standards Authority
involved. Advertising one price when in reality it's actually twice the price!. I say boycott Orange.

I did. They were useless. In my extensive experience, if you try to use the instruments of the state to address issues, you find those instruments are just as flawed as the body you started out complaining about. ANd if you go right up to your MP - still no dice. In short, as a tax-paying citizen of one of the world's leading democracies - you're stuffed, and there's NOTHING you can do about it. In the end, even I get tired and fed up. Without running for prime minister, it's all pointless.

PS They also grossly overcharged me on my mobile account!

I intend to leave as soon as my contract expires.

Be / O2 and others run ADSL2 broadband service on the BT phone lines which for most people is quicker than ADSL, ADSL being the system used by most providers. I said i wasnt happy with the speeds we were getting and wanted to try someone else, they then said the speed was entirely limited by various things such as distance from the exchange etc, yes this is true but i understand (and hoped they would) that ADSL2 is quicker up to a certain distance from the exchange.

I am only 500 metres direct and 2km from the exchange which is relatively good. Be / 02 still said i could expect 12mb from their 24mb service, double what Orange told me i was getting and at least 4 times what most online tests were telling me. Clearly i was speaking to a sales person and they would know its faster than whatever i'm getting at the moment, and they also have to provide more clarity than in the past over speeds, but telling me i'm getting only half the advertised speed before signing up isn't normally the best sales tactic, so i'm still going to switch.

At the time of transfer, they managed to shut down my emails account on Orange.net Under normal circumstances, I would not be too worried, but at the time I was going through divorce and there were a number of important emails on the account between me and my solicitor!!! (More fool me for keeping them on a 3rd party system)

After about 2 months of being palmed-off (we'll sort in within 24 hours, 48 hours, by the weekend, don't know how long it will take we need to recover the server backup), I was informed that the data could be lost when transfering form payg to pay monthly. Great! However, if I'd known that when I was being sold the phone, I wouldn't have bought it!

Anyway, I am now 6 months down the line, Orange have still not managed to recover the email data (they can if a judge tells tehm!), and they refuse to answer my emails. After all, why should I pay 50p a minute to access their technical help line? I have also requested that they send me a reference number/packaging so that I can return their phone - No response.

I have told them that I have stopped my direct debit agreement with the bank - No response.

I have informed them that I have terminated my contract with them, in accordance with their own terms and conditions, for failing to provide a reasonavble service. You guessed it - No response.

I went out and bought a pay and go phone from O2. Let's see where that gets me!!

Needless to say, Orange will never receive any of my business, now or in future.

Thank God I changed - and got a far cheaper package as well.

Orange Mobile customer NON service

I have an orange pay as you go mobile It's years old this week the speaker decided to start failing. As I have 23 still left on my phone (my new phone I had for Christmas isn't Orange) I rang customer services below is the scenario that followed

8.20pm Rang customer services asked for refund said they would get a superviser as they couldn't help - 5 minutes later I hung up

8.30pm rang again once again I was left on hold

8.45pm I rang a third time, I wish to stress I was not rude I just wanted a refund & someone to tell me how to get it.

Is was 9.10pm by now but this time I thought I was getting somewhere & they promised someone would call back.

You will not believe the next bit I didn't.

My Mobile rang it was orange customer services BUT they were'nt calling me they thought they were ringing someone else who lived close by. They asked if they could credit (a complete strangers phone) & could that stranger pop to my house up the road & give me my money in cash!!!!!!

My immidiate response was NO, I AM the person who wants the credit. I did raise my voice a few notches at that point I was so incredulous, but I stress, I was in no way rude. Next I asked the name of the Orange customer services adviser who then told me it was Mark but when I asked again he admited that wasn't his name & they are not to tell customers their names.

Next the advice was to go to an orange mobile shop where they would give me the refund of course I questioned if he was telling me the truth, after everything else how could I trust what I was being told (today I will find out). I tried to ring again so I could speak to a manager but no one would answer the phone.

I now believe I was being kept on hold because they thought I was ringing from my mobile & it would use up my credit so they wouldn't have to pay it back. I was lwas left angry & upset that no one could help me with such a simple question.

Every time I emailed them through their contact address I got a response saying they couldn't respond because it was an account specific query.

a) No, it wasn't. It was a general complaint / point of information about their non functional account section on their website.

b) Account specific queries are mostly what I would WANT to email them about. Clearly they prefer to force customers to talk to the idiots they employ to answer their phones.

I was forced to ring their customer "services" if I wanted to keep my existing number, so I gave it a try. It took over two minutes to get past their "Okay.." robot, then two or three minutes on hold, then I spent a total of two minutes talking to a very polite total moron, followed by 20 minutes on hold, listening to their mind numbingly tedious choice of hold music. I pleaded with him to at least spare me that, but apparently it was beyond his power to do so.

Result? I paid 3.01 (just checked my phone bill) to be pissed about, before I finally hung up.

I now have a differnt phone number.

However this was not the end. they continued to bill me for my contract for an additional two months after the date and then refused to credit my account back with the money till the 17th September and gave the reasons as the system wont let us.

A multi - million pound company that are quick to take money out of your account but slow to pay it back! i will never use Orange again and would encourage others to so the same.

I am just wring a letter to orange now.

I have no network coverage any where at home, no call register. i cannot send or recieve texts.

After stupidly signing up for a 18 month contact i have fullfilled this (£40.00 pm) after being advised that i pay off the 18 months if i didn't require the phone. This was because ACCORDING TO ORANGE the network was fine in my area. OK, come on round and see for yourself you assholes.

I have now asked for this phone to be cut off 3 times, I cannot get another phone as I am getting married in two weeks and cannot change my number at such a vital time so need a PAC code and diconnection.

If i cancel the DD i will end up with bad credit knowing Orange....what to do??!!

I am writing them a lenthy letter but am sure I wll get some automated letter along the lines of We are sorry to learn this....our customers are valued......blah blah!!

I am tempted to sue for stress.....which would be a totaly honest claim!!!

Hi,
Just thought I'd let you know that I've taken Orange to court twice this year and won on both occassions :-)

So far I've taken them for Breach of Contract and breach of the Protection from Harassment Act and won in excess of 2000 :-)

I'm setting up a new website telling my story and hope to help people like me take Orange and other big companies to court. Although my website is still under construction ( http://www.actionorange.co.uk), I will be adding to it regularly over the next month or two.

They said they could do it for 16 per month lol I basically laughted down the phone at them.
After that they then said they could discount the offer to 4 per month. So I said, ok I'll give it a go (big mistake)
Anyway after that I put the Orange sim card into my new Nokia N900 and fired up the web browser, 10 min's later a page loads up.
I try another website, same thing happens, so i try a speedtest.net. 45mins later speedtest completed lol. This confirms my internet access is not 3G. On top of that, I check my account online and it tells me that I bought 4mb's of internet access lol. This works out about 256 times less that what i got on the Three.co.uk network (three.co.uk usage is 1 Gig per month). And just accessing two websites and running a speed test nearly used my whole months allowance.

I was on the phone to them straight away, after a very long wait and after talking to 4 different people, I was finally told that they are going to refund my 4. They told me it would take 2 days for my account to be refunded.
After 5 days I checked my account expecting to see this money refunded. The money had not been credited so I phone them up again.
I was asked to explain what I had called about as they couldn't find any notes. After that they must of found some details and told
me that I was not going to be refunded as the package had been used. I expressed my anger and asked to speak to sombody else, unfortunatly they were just as unhelpful.
Anyway Im wrighting this to express my anger, and warn other people about Orange.co.uk and maybe stop a few people making the same mistake.
Luckly for me Im a pay as you go customer, and didn't sign up for a 24month contract oh and I used my remaining 1.00 credit on contacting customer services and causing them as much aggrovation as possible lol

One last thing if anybody else buys a Nokia N900 and wants to use Three.co.uk just run the Maemo update and Three.co.uk works like a treat. I also changed my number to three.co.uk and received 10.

Paul

I have had similar problems as the rest of you with so called Orange customer services which has effectively cost an arm and a leg in calls to their 450 number and in the end got nowhere. I am of the opinion, their customer service is useless and rather than give myself high blood pressure and worse - a heart attack, I am going to end my relationship with this disgraceful company as soon as my credit runs out.

Disgusted. John.

Orange are a nightmare to deal with. If you need your broadband for work, the kids school home work or anything else important then do not use them. If you need support try going to the disconection department who may help you and offer you the earth to stay.

If you are locked in to a contract then try this site :- http://www.orangeproblems.co.uk/phpBB2/ for support.

This site has 46,000 unhappy Orange customers registered, I wonder why?