I phoned again and asked about the battery, the man I spoke to said he could send out a brand new handset complete with battery which I recieved soon after. When the battery, nor the handset wouldn’t work I phoned again and asked them about the options now because I wasn’t at fault. At first it seemed like I was getting somewhere but soon I encountered the full force of their disgraceful treatment of customers.

In two weeks, I hadn’t had a working phone yet they were making it out that I wanted a replacement for vanity reasons. They sent me a battery 2 weeks after I asked, but out of three batteries (one from an older phone, the brand new one and one I bought when I thought they weren’t going to send me a battery) none of them worked or charged. So I put it down to the phone being faulty.

Then I began to phone them near enough every day several times a day, it became a daily routine and not one person was helpful or even wanted to hear my experience with their customer services. Soon, they even refused to help me and hung up on me or left me on hold for more than 20 minutes only to cut the phone off. On the odd occassions I did get through, they told me that no such orders for replacements were put through yet other advisors said I had so many requests for replacements. When I tried to get through again only a couple of days ago, I encountered even worse treatment. When I asked about a replacement, the one that I had been assured was on its way in 2 working days, the advisor told me in no uncertain terms that they weren’t my ‘meal ticket’ and then hung up on me. My meal- ticket. That’s how Orange treat their business. With misleading information and advisors who refuse point blank to advise. How they haven’t been given a whole 1/2 hour on Watchdog is beyond me.

My advice would be don’t even think about going to Orange even if they are getting the iPhone, go to Vodafone or unlock it completely and go somewhere else. By far the worst customer service that any company has to offer and that includes the legend of BSkyB. Orange don’t care about their customers and neither did T-Mobile when I was with them, so their proposed merger will be welcomed with open arms by me when I terminate my account and move away from them.

The selection is awful, where do they get off charging hundreds of pounds for an upgraded phone? the free selection is woeful, all low quality iphone copies which I don’t want, a single decent Sony Ericsson and not a Nokia in sight. I know for a fact that if I walked into an Orange shop as a new customer I would be offered better phones for free on signing a contract, why do their existing customers who have paid THOUSANDS to them not get the same treatment?

I’m tempted to go with someone else, I just dread the inevitable hoops that I’ll be made to jump through in order to cancel my service and migrate my number. I’ve dealt with Orange Broadband before and they’re an absolute nightmare when it comes to customer service.

For the record, my contract expired, I rang Orange, they weren’t interested in matching an 02 SIM-only deal so I switched and ported my number across. It all went seamlessly, except Orange have cocked up the last bill.

I’ve still got the ancient phone I had to revert to after my newer one finally bought it. And I still think people should be able to put a status on their phones.

It is your god given legal right to be stupid.

Has the iphone taught you nothing at all? You don’t have any legal right to get unlocking codes in UK — whether iphone under contract or PAYG iphone, O2 ain’t giving the unlocking code to you.

I’m not contract. I’m pay as you go. I WAS with Vodafone. BRILLIANT service, no problems, good value for money, free texts evenings and weekends, you name it.

But I sooooooo longed for a qwerty phone, got myself a nice little LG KS360 – it came with Orange, but as I understood it, it is my god given legal RIGHT to unlock it to any network I want. I wanted to put my vodafone card in it.

I couldn’t. No place will do it, they wanted to keep it for days and then after days, tell me can’t be done. I contact orange. “Sorry, can’t be done, you need to stay contracted to us for 3 months” (I’m not ON a fucking contract?!) and pay us £20. (Fucking cheek, holding MY phone for hostage – I thought the point of being non-contract was that you weren’t HELD to any terms and conditions!?).

I tried to make the best of it, so I signed up to their “Dolphin” pay as you go plan which states you can pay £10 top up and get 300 free texts, plus free access to myspace, facebook and bebo. Brilliant I thought, it might not be so bad. Oh but it was. I topped up £10 around 3 days after I signed up on Orange for that plan. No free texts, no free facebook. NADA. Zilch. I logged their site to see that their unreliable error-loving site had reset ALL the details I had set it to including my plan. No free texts for me.

FINE, I thought. I gave it a few days, tried to get over it. I find there’s no FULL games on my phone so I go on Orange. They have games. I search for games SPECIFICALLY for the KS360 which is a qwerty sliding phone (slides out sideways). It gives me a list that “brain genius” is for my phone and highly compatible. I download it, am charged £5 for the privelage (even though their site claimed it was only £3), and THEN find out they’ve sent me the version of the phone NOT intended for a qwerty phone (so it’s around the wrong way and it CAN’T be played, it will load, but that’s about all, keys are all wrong, etc).

I’ve emailed them demanding money back or them to upload me the correct version.

What did I get?

Email back, “sorry you’re having problems with our service, Orange always strives to blah blah blah blah provide the best (laughable) service, etc”. And then, here’s the clincher, “Did you know you can get a free pizza if you buy a pizza at Pizza express if you’re with orange? You can also get two cinema tickets for the price of one with orange”…

AS IF THAT FUCKING COMPENSATES ANYTHING!?!?!?!?! “We’re SORRY we’ve conned you out of money, but if you’re buying something you don’t need anyway, you can have a DOUBLE helping. THAT MAKES THE WHOLE THING BETTER.”

I think Marilyn Manson should ass rape them with something spikey, personally…

Yes…

I had entered into an 18month contract (so I thought) which later they manipulated into a 24month contract. I obviously opened up a big can of email ‘whoopayass’ on them.

I have emailed them many times saying things like “Im going to report you to OFCOM for infringement of ‘Distance Selling’ Consumer Protection Regulations” (reg 8/2/e; conditions for exercising my contractual right to cancel the contract, where the contract is of an UNSPECIFIED duration or a duration exceeding one year). I also finished one email with “See you in COURT” lmao.

There are laws in this country that try to protect us from villains such as ORANGE. The only thing is, upon reading up on those laws and regulations you can see how they have ‘tried’ to cover all bases.

I know I have a right to pull out of a contract, if I feel the customer service is ’sub-standard’, the ‘helplines’ are akin to torture with excessive (probably rigged) hold/waiting times between transfers and you often feel like youve been passed over so many times you wish you hadn’t bothered.

Not to mention a contract that doesn’t physically exist (never signed anything) but, I did get something from a company called ‘MobilesNorthWest’ and it stated “from 18 months” as my contract outlay. When does that end you might ask yourself?

Well, with that rule they could have you on a contract ‘indefinately’.
Current legislation supports them (see afore mentioned regs) in this particularly ridiculous matter. To be able to detail a contract that technically doesnt exist, and of no fixed term or duration known to myself is a farce! I had to ask ‘them’ what contract I was on.

Well, I think that the length of our posts says it all. ORANGE are the worst ppl I have ever had the misfortune to deal with.

AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE… before its too late (an extra hair folicle is ‘greying’ as I type) . DONT USE THEIR CUSTOMER HELPLINES! Email them instead and document/save a copy into your email folders. You now have dated evidence you attempted contact with them.

Now i’ve got to go through this again tomorrow and i’ll be asking for a replacment of a different phone that is the same spec, the OrangeCare policy states you can do this, however i just have a feeling they will down right refuse this and make up some excuse as to why they can’t do it, so i exect to be stuck with a new N73 that will no doubt break in a few months just becuse i tried to make a call, or take a picture or even just breathe on it.

Wish me luck!!!

ya see! finally, i find somebody who WILL express their view!

my phone got fucked up, im with orange…i really just wanna throw a lot of oranges AT them, but hey…its just recently on contract and i’m paying off quite a bit…more like their shoveling MY money away with fucking gleaming grins of satanism…
but still…thats not the hugely blow out part yet…
it broke- and yeah it might have hit some condensation…been in a few splashes with wet hands or in heat a bit, but things shouldnt just fuck up with it (btw the soft drink isnt your fault hun- apparently orange owns fate too…the twats) buttons suddenly don;t work, and it says system orange out of range…all the time and then continue playback- i cant even get onto texts, nevermind texting cos it pops up so fricin’ much, i go back to the store, “hey there, theres a problem with this phone…”
they smile, although grimly like i’ve just killed their mother, and take it away behind the counter in another room, they come back seems days later and say “we can’t do anything, it’s been damaged”
they show me on the side where its cracked- and yeah it took me days to get the back on cos its so complicated and the plastic cracked, im like… “how can that affect the phone…its on the side…before it even went on the phone”
they handed it back and the fucking smug “theres nothing we can do, how about another selection of phones” or ya know *give us more of your money to fuck with*
pisses me off
o2 are sooo much more loyal, i get rewarded for topping up, or getting a certain plan and the other day i just rang up their helpline and asked how the guy was…
nice chat, he’s irish
and i’m now un-single
whoo

i feel your pain hun, i think we should regroup and like…burn down orange, would be ironic…fire is orange