No they can't but they have a full history of getting away with this sort of thing through incompetence.

Write a letter to their executive office, specifically Tom Alexander the CEO. Mention his plan for moving Orange from bottom of the customer service table to the top and ask whether he feels this incident is a good indicator for the rest of their approach. Copy in your local trading standards department and make it clear that you have done so.

Be polite, as brief as possible and as specific as possible giving dates, times and names where you have them. Avoid making value judgements. If you want to make a point like xyz dept isn't doing their job properly, ask questions, like "do staff make records of what they agree to do for customers?" "should the treatment you get depend on which member of staff you speak to?", "are staff authorised to go back on contractual deals?" and "can you please explain how these actions will make you the leading telecoms provider from a customer service perspective?"

Hope this helps.

my orange contract recently ended and i rang orange as i wanted to switch...

i got put through to retentions who offered me this that and the rest of it to stay with them and i ended up signin upto to another 18 mnth contract. I was offered unlimited data usage which i was weary of but the agent told me not to worry it is unlimited and there will be no charge, she did not say anythin as to how long it was valid for.

i was still a bit weary so before i went onto the internet on my mobile i rang orange jus to make sure, again i was told there would be no charge.... i rang another couple of times and was told the same thing.

after browsin the net a few days, i rang again. i was told by the agent that data usage is NOT free and i had been charged for it. I wasnt happy of course and said to her what i'd been told. then i was put through to billing an was told that the agent did offer unlimited data usage bundle but didnt put it on my account. i was told that since it was there error they'd send my bill to be recalculated and have the charges removed and the bundle is now on.

i was told that once the bill had been recalculated my account would be credited with the extra charges.

About 3 weeks later i had a message left on my phone sayin that there has been a reply from the "recalc" departmnt. i rang and was told by a different agent to the one who left the message (he'd finished for the day) that my account will not be credited and i would have to pay any charge accrued from the data usage.

i reiterated everythin i'd been told and the fact that i didnt want the bundle in the first place and was basically told tough. i said to the agent i agreed to the new contract with the bundle otherwise i wanted to leave orange, so if i dont have the bundle then i'd like to canx my contract and she said the 14 day cooling off period has expired and if i wanted to cancel now i'd have to pay £401.01.... i said that i shouldnt have to because the contract was offered to me on false pretences so it cant stand. the agent then said that she'd send it off for another recalculation and see what happens but no guarantees and they may say the same thing - o and it could take another 3 weeks!

they cant do this can they????????