|
If the future is bright, then, in my experience, the future is
unlikely to be Orange. Because these guys wouldn't know good customer
service if it came up impaled itself on their antenna masts. Their
website is often faulty, their customer service lines are inefficient
and expensive, and staffed - largely - by idiots who really rather
with you'd just go away and stop bothering them.
Here's a good example - one in a thousand such irritating, inefficient,
miserable contacts happening, I imagine, up and down our Great Land
every working day.
The dialogue speaks for itself, so let's get straight to it.
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 |
| Next day I got a blank email from Orange.
It contained the subject headers, and the corporate crap - but
no substantive content... |
| 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 |
| No reply for three days. So... |
24.3
Please address this for me.
Thanks
[copy of earlier email]
|
| Nothing for a further six days. So... |
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
|
| David,
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 |
I'll
keep you posted - stop back soon |
| Your Comments below: |
omg chris what a nightmare! I am on the verge
of exploding with frustration at oranges so called customer
service. I have 2 accounts with them, 1 is with three handsets
for my children, the other is my phone. Ineeded the direct debit
date changing as it was regularly going through before my salary
cleared thus bank ****charges +++ they couldnt change the date
so suggested I cancel dd and pay with my debit card on a monthly
basis. First ON the big account, (3 40/pm contracts)they charge
me 3 3 penalties for not paying by dd. Also this 40pm lark is
a lie cos even when the children do not exceed their minutes/txts
I have not had a bill for less than 150.Now on my phone I find
they have taken my payment twice.....more bank charges...I phone
them and the y say "oh yea, dont worry we'll refund you,
it will take 7-10 days" No I said I need that money back
in my account today. Approx 10min of miserable girl saying this
was simply impossible. I explained that I work in a sm!
all high street optician's practice, and if I, in error take
2 payments from somebodies card, I look them in the face aplologise
and do a debit card refund which is processed immediatly. Orange
cannot do this. No else available to speak to me and in any
event it would be pointless because thats just the way it is.
Nobody in payment processing today they said . I asked whether
they would be able to process a payment from my card today and
of course yes, had I wanted to pay them, that could be sorted
straight away. I am LIVID and feel so bloody exploited. Another
bill has been refused by bank because I thought I had 70 more
than I did. I have no money left and no food in the house. |
| Orange are awful I had all the same problems!
There so rude aswell.
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.
|
| Just to say I totally agree with your comments
about Orange. They are completely useless. I can't remember
the last time I managed to log on to email straight off. Every
time it goes through all the password stuff, only to get 'Proxy
Error'. Very irritating and only acceptable if you have nothing
else to do but wait for them to fix their site. The only saving
grace is a delightful man who runs the Farnham Orange shop.
He is always helpful, explains everything very clearly, acknowledges
that their phone customer support is hopeless and does his very
best (which is good) to make up for it. As far as I can tell
the whole of Farnham goes into the shop to speak to him when
they need something fixing. Very happy for this to go online,
complete with my name. Thanks for letting me get it off my chest.
Jenny Rivarola. My email address is rivarola@orange.net if you
are able to reply (but probably not for much longer)
PS They also grossly overcharged me on my mobile account! |
| I completely agree - Orange customer services
are useless, rude and incompetent.
I intend to leave as soon as my contract expires.
|
| Agreed - they arent the best! I just tried quitting
Orange for a faster service and, from my knowledge, they even
lied about me being able to get a faster service with a different
provider.
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.
|
| Orange are teh worse company I have ever dealt
with |
| I have had similar experiences with Orange. I
have been a payg customer for many years, but earlier this year,
was in a position to go pay monthly. Everything went smoothly
until Orange transfered my existing phone number from my payg
phone to my pay mionthly phone.
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. |
Nothing I read here about Orange surprises me.
they're obviously so big they think they can't be touched.
I've had my own bad experience with Orange despite having been
a loyal customer for approx 5 years.
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.
|
| I have been with Orange since they went digital
- that's a lot of years. Originally the service was 100% and
the best. It is now total crap - reception in my village is
bad, the web-site gives the wrong information, software errors
occur on-line and you can never find a human being to speak
to at night. Finally, nobody listens to any complaints as to
the bad service. I definitely would say to anyone thinking of
joining Orange - think twice! |
| I few weeks ago I decided to switch to ASDA PAYG,
from Orange PAYG because I couldn't top up on their website
any more. I'd tried telling them but they clearly weren't interested.
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.
|
| i had an 18 month contract with Orange on the
Racoon plan. All was well until the phone was locked (why i
dont know?) when i tried to get it unlocked they wanted to charge
20 for the luxury - needless to say i used another phone until
my contract ran out.
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.
|
Why does Orange sell phones to be used in areas
with no Orange GSM Coverage in the UK?
|
I called Orange to ask them if i could buy unlimited
monthly 3g internet access for my new nokia n900.
I told them previosly I had unlimited (1G) package with Three.co.uk
which was 5 per month.
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. |
| I just want Orange to say that Orange has the
worst customer care ever. Cancel your broadband with them and
they keep charging you for it. Get in touch with them and hey
it costs you afortune to try and get your money back. Do they
have a number for their customer care in the uk, no. You can
post to them but not speak to them. Just stay away from them.
I've tried to sort a problem for a month and half now, simply
trying to get back my own money but they just don't want to
know and every call just costs yet again |
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?
|
| add another unhappy costumer, new phone not arrived,given
many duff numbers then i was called luvy sweetie and chill by
soe idiot calling himself supervisor !!! oh another duff number
then phoned back and they cut me off |
Terminate your Contract if we vary its terms,
resulting in an excessive increase in the Charges or changes
that alter your rights under this Contract to your detriment.
In such cases you would need to give us at least 14 days written
notice prior to your Billing Date (and within one month of
us telling you about the changes).
However this option does not apply if:
4.3.1 we have increased the Charges by an amount equal to
or less than the percentage increase in the All Items Index
of Retail Prices published by the Central Statistical Office
in the Monthly Digest of Statistics in any 12 month period.
|
Do not touch Orange with a bargepole. Their customer
service is a myth, the frustration trying to converse with them
for the simplest of issues will make you ill.
|
| I actually used to work for orange, and always
gave excelent customer service, I worked on theyre blackberry
support and also mobile broadband. Although I agree the offshore
centres aren't great but i beleive the statement 'and staffed
- largely - by idiots who really rather with you'd just go away
and stop bothering them' is completely wrong, myself and all
colouges gave the best customer service we could provide and
also the full capacity of our knowlege to help our customers.
I therefore think the the above statement made by yourself to
be rude and personally offensive.
I respect your comments, but in future please take the fact
that a large amount customer service agents form orange and
other companies do provide the very best of customer service
and customers can be also be unhelpful and unwilling to be
helped.
John
Response: One Wwallow Doesn't make a Summer, John.
It's good to know that some of you tried hard to do a good
job, but really - look at the feedback above. The overwhelming
conclusion seems to be that the Orange Customer Service
organisation provides pretty consistently DREADFUL service
to its paying customers.
|
| Orange do have the worst customer service I've
ever experienced. I repeated my my email address slowly and
clearly 3 or 4 times and the guy still put it down as 'email'
instead of 'gmail'. The email was then failed delivery and they
didn't bother to check this.
I spoke to a supervisor who promised to call and check I
received the email in 2 days - no email, and of course, no
phone call from Sam the Supervisor.
I have now been waiting for something for 17 days which should
have been with me in 7-10 days.
How dare they open with the phrase ' we provide excellent
customer service '. |
| Well my fone has been barred! We have sum1 elses
no on our account-we were told to cancel the dd while it was
sorted/removed. Was told it would take a few days....a MONTH
later its still there!!! |
| Totally agree. Orange is utterly horrendous. Total
crooks. |
Orange.... Hah! Was on the phone for ages last
night trying to negotiate an early upgrade. I fanally asked
the woman at the 'are you thinking of leaving Orange' department
"Am I valued as an Orange customer" the reply "well,
no"
Is it any wonder that the customer services are so innefective
when the department supposed to be talking you out of leaving
will admit that customers are not valued - I should add that
our bills (mine and my wifes) are always paid and have never
been late - Will be off to O2 this weekend!
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