So this is the scenario.
18 months ago, as a freebie, we got 18 months free mobile broadband.
We never wanted it or used it, but it was free. Orange said even though its free if you want to cancel it you have to pay their standard £240 termination charge + any months remaining, although this will be £0 as its free.
So we figured, since its free .. leave it and let it run its course.
So skip forward 18 months, we get a bill for 11p which supposedly is for usage outside of the contract duration, because we never gave 30 days notice of cancelation. Now we did cancel it as soon as the 18 months were up, and we gave more then 30 days notice but its only 11p so we chose to save our blood pressure and pay it.
Skip forward another month and we get a bill for £5.10 for "Mobile broadband for the period September 15 -> October 15"
Okay, clearly an error and since it was free there's no DD setup to pay it, so as with the 11p its off to an orange shop to sort it out.
What follows is almost word for word the exact conversation with the orange guy in store:
"Okay, here's the money then"
"OH but you can't pay us!"
"Why?"
"Because the account doesn't exist anymore, you cancelled it"
"Okay so i can't pay it then?"
"No"
"So what do i do?"
"Im not sure, but Orange now have a strict policy of referring any non payment onto debt collecting agencies within 18 days of non payment so you have to pay it, really"
"Riiiight, so again, how do i do this then?"
"I duno, try calling Customer services!"
So we call C/Services, and they tell us that since we have no DD setup, and it was a freebie , its not on their online system and we need to pay it in store.
Tell them we've been told we can't pay it because the account no longer exists.
He then tells us that well, thats a problem. And reminds us we need to come to a solution because of Oranges new debt policy.. yeah. thanks.
So currently waiting for a manager to call back, should have been 10 mins but now waiting 30.
Sigh. all this trouble for something we didn't even want.
18 months ago, as a freebie, we got 18 months free mobile broadband.
We never wanted it or used it, but it was free. Orange said even though its free if you want to cancel it you have to pay their standard £240 termination charge + any months remaining, although this will be £0 as its free.
So we figured, since its free .. leave it and let it run its course.
So skip forward 18 months, we get a bill for 11p which supposedly is for usage outside of the contract duration, because we never gave 30 days notice of cancelation. Now we did cancel it as soon as the 18 months were up, and we gave more then 30 days notice but its only 11p so we chose to save our blood pressure and pay it.
Skip forward another month and we get a bill for £5.10 for "Mobile broadband for the period September 15 -> October 15"
Okay, clearly an error and since it was free there's no DD setup to pay it, so as with the 11p its off to an orange shop to sort it out.
What follows is almost word for word the exact conversation with the orange guy in store:
"Okay, here's the money then"
"OH but you can't pay us!"
"Why?"
"Because the account doesn't exist anymore, you cancelled it"
"Okay so i can't pay it then?"
"No"
"So what do i do?"
"Im not sure, but Orange now have a strict policy of referring any non payment onto debt collecting agencies within 18 days of non payment so you have to pay it, really"
"Riiiight, so again, how do i do this then?"
"I duno, try calling Customer services!"
So we call C/Services, and they tell us that since we have no DD setup, and it was a freebie , its not on their online system and we need to pay it in store.
Tell them we've been told we can't pay it because the account no longer exists.
He then tells us that well, thats a problem. And reminds us we need to come to a solution because of Oranges new debt policy.. yeah. thanks.
So currently waiting for a manager to call back, should have been 10 mins but now waiting 30.
Sigh. all this trouble for something we didn't even want.
