Orange leaves a bitter taste

Below is and email sent to Tom Alexander CEO of Orange regarding my mobile phone (cellphone) saga.


Dear Mr Alexander,

Whilst I enjoy some of the benefits of my orange account , such as Orange Wednesdays, this is far outweighed by the miserable level of in-store, technical & customer service I have received from your company this year.

I realise that you are a busy man, but you really ought to have a look at matters personally when they go on the manner I have been experiencing. Judging by the long delays and disconnections I have suffered when trying to speak to your call centre staff and the inability of those employees to resolve the problems, my experience cannot be an isolated one.

Problems started in April when I began to be billed £10 per month for mobile internet which my local Orange phone shop sold to me for £1 per month (obviously an irrestible bargain). I never used the service as the store didn’t have the dongle I needed in stock at the time and I never returned to collect it. Despiter my consumer rights, It took several months of complaining before Orange agreed to credit my account and cancel the mobile internet which was of no real interest or benefit to me. Initially you feebly denied responsiblity, claiming the store was an Orange franchise so nothing to do with Orange itself. In the meantime I received disconnection threats after I cancelled my direct debit and paid your company only for my phone use.

Then, two weeks ago, I mysteriously received a text message from Orange, stating that if I didn’t login to my account (online soon) I would need to re-register. So latter that day (22nd July) I attempted to do just that, and it wouldn’t let me in. I called and eventually got through to a Paula in Bristol, who told me the acocunt was barred and she didn’t know why. She said the matter would be investigated and I would be called back shortly.

I was never called back. Today I had another go at logging in, but the problem persists.

I dialled 439 after ½ hour of waiting and had the misfortune of speaking to an Alison. She told me the system was down as it had been for the last two days, and that she wouldn’t be able to resolve the problem there and then. I tried to express my dissatisfaction with Orange, but she took it personally and hung up on me. Whilst, rude call centre staff are an unacceptable bane of modern life, it is hard to believe that a supposedly high tech company like yours can be so technically incompenent.

I then dialled customer services to complain about Alison and to ask for a PAC code to enable me to move my account to a more competent mobile phone company, and in view of the problems I have been experiencing, to have any early termination (£380.65) penalty waived. Spoke to a Debbie who said she could not deal with the problem or my request and put me through to a manager, Margo. Margo wouldn’t waive the penalty but said she would transfer be back to the relevant department to have the logging on issue and compant against Alison looked at by a manager in the technical department. After hanging on for a further 39 minutes the call was cut off.

Please will you therefore use your personal time to resolve my complaints expedititiously.

The matter will be referred by me to Ofcom if Orange is unable to resolve thr technical and account issues within a reasonable time scale.

Paul