Hi,

Please can you help me on what can do regarding my mobile phone account. I have 5 Mobile's with Orange which are all in my name, two of them have been returned to be disconnected due to problems with the handset's within the first 28 days, Team leaders have authorised this as well. The other three are active and just have bills to be paid when the direct debits go out as normal. Last week I received a letter from a debt agency trying to recover an amount for Orange of about £600, at first I didn't understand what this was so i rang the company who told me that I haven't paid my bills with Orange and that a default had been placed on my credit file, so immediately i rang Orange and spoke to a Team Leader and told him everything. He found the accounts which should have been disconnected, one which was sent back two months ago the other 5 weeks ago, both handset I have received billing reminders for these, but because the handset were being returned i was told to just wait until they had been cancelled and i would receive a final bill with nothing to pay. Well they were still active and I had bills of about £300 to pay, so the guy immediately cancelled the one and raised credits for it as per notes on my account, the other i waited almost a week for him to track down which the result was the phone has been lost, but due to me having a tracking number as i sent it back by special delivery he then cancelled that one to. Now I still have a default on my account unlawfully put on there by orange due to incompetent staff and team leaders at orange, what can i do and can i gain any sort of compensation back from orange for this error of theirs and I'm pretty sure that I may be even able to cancel my contracts with them due to this, am I right in saying this? I am actually in the process of writing a strong letter to Orange's Executive Office for them to look at. Can anyone help me and let me know where I stand.

Regards

jonnyb1103

Years ago, I had a similar problem with Orange and have never dealt with them since. They are notorious for this kind of thing.

A letter to the executive office worked wonders for me.

If there are clear reasons which they accept (and it sounds as if this is the case) for the problems then the default shouldn't stand. Insist that they remove the default and provide evidence (experian and equifax checks) to prove that your credit rating has been returned to its rightful place. This shouldn't be a problem for them as it is quite reasonable given their behaviour.

If they then don't cooperate, go straight to Ofcom, plus write to experian and equifax at the earliest opportunity to explain the situation, providing copy correspondence. IIf needs be, make a subject access request to Orange (under data protection, requires them to show all information about you, including call records etc) and pass that to the ratings agencies.

And then for goodness sake, move to a reputable network!

Hi Mr Tom,

Did you manage to get any sort of compensation from their error? Do you think I have grounds to cancel my contract's early because of this?

Regards

Jonnyb1103

Yep.

Essentially my problem was that I bought a phone in 2000 when WAP was the rage (basic mobile internet) as I didn't have web at home at the time having just finished uni and I wanted to check email etc.

I bought 2 tariffs (they were pushing this at the time), the one with lots of free minutes was to fund the web access. This all came from the Orange shop. To cut a long story short, it didn't work the way they said it would and I was stuck paying for a contract that didn't deliver, plus paying through the nose for my mobile usage.

They kept cancelling and refunding bills. Went on for about 6 months with increasing acrimony. Eventually they blacklisted me despite a complaint being in with them and having been told by a team leader not to pay. I complained to the executive office and asked what the hell was going on. It got immediately sorted (and they apologised profusely for the blacklisting which they "undid") and again, money was refunded.

Since their systems were unable to support the arrangement they sold me and it was always going to be a nightmare, they agreed to cancel the contract with immediate effect (6 months into a 12 month contract or something like that).

Ultimately, therefore I paid almost nothing for 6 months' usage, got a free phone and went to another company.

It wasn't what I intended and frankly it was never worth the aggro they caused me so I don't recommend it as a course of action, but yes in the end, where I was able to show costs etc they were fine - essentially cancelling or refunding bills is something they can do easily, actually paying "compensation" takes more effort.

You should have a case for compensation because of the default.

Hope this helps.

mr tom.

Hi,

Thankyou for the information, I hope I can get somewhere. I sent a letter to their Excetutive Office thr other day hopefully i will have llok from them, as the cusomter service dept are a waste of time!

Jon