I'm not a valued Orange customer

FunkyT · 5 Apr 2006 at 11:06

I've been on contract with them since 1997 and my monthly bill is usually £30-£40.

Anyway, I'm currently being charged 19p for every international text I send (doesn't come out of bundle) and they don't offer a package with international texts included.

I rang them up to ask to go onto PAYG and they didn't bat an eyelid, no persuasion or anything - maybe I should have asked for my PAC code?

dboundy · 5 Apr 2006 at 11:23

Well you are still going to be with them arn't you and still spending money with them, most likely a little more now being on PAYG as minutes are not X-Network so they cost more.

I take it you are going PAYG so that these Texts can be taken out of your credit ?

FunkyT · 5 Apr 2006 at 11:55

dboundy said:
Well you are still going to be with them arn't you and still spending money with them, most likely a little more now being on PAYG as minutes are not X-Network so they cost more.

I take it you are going PAYG so that these Texts can be taken out of your credit ?

Yeah, I'd rather start from scratch and see how things go. I don't really need the cross network minutes I'm currently getting...

CaDLoN · 5 Apr 2006 at 13:14

I've just requested a PAC no. from carphone warehouse after 6 years, theyre are without doubt the most annoyingly incompetent bunch i've ever had the displeasure of doing buiness with.

There's not really any customer loyalty worht a no swearing, they try and sweeten you up after 12~18 months then dont bother.

I do belive that applies to the whole bunch of em.

Much like car insurance, it's worth shopping around when your contracts up. every one does better deals for new customers

Kappa · 5 Apr 2006 at 22:15

^^^ In regards to tariff's etc, yes you're right, but when it comes to things like upgrades and the company's willing to give you extra service or cheaper tariffs in retention, it depends on how much you are worth to the company.

Like some people on here who complain when they're on a £20 a month tariff, and want an N70 for free on upgrade at the end.....put it this way, the phone itself costs £400, and you're only paying £240 in a year??

Airax · 5 Apr 2006 at 22:42

Xpander said:
The networks wouldn't buy the phones at face value prices though would they? I'd imagine they'd buy them in bulk direct from the manufacturers at the lowest prices going?

They also use distrubters too. The thing is, the physical cost of a phone is actually low. What bumps up the cost is the R&D behind the phone. Networks don't get the discounts you think they do. Between the network buying a phone, and the price you pay, varies from £10-£70 odd depending on the handset. Its not as cheap as you think.

"andy" · 5 Apr 2006 at 23:10

they did a similar thing to my mum , shed been with orange for 7 years too and had only ever had one upgrade(wich she paid a silly amount for), her phone was faulty so she wanted an upgrade.

orange wanted ~£130 qfor the new £200 phone even though she could have theoretically cancelled that orange contract and started a new cheaper orange contract and recieved the £200 phone free

we threatened to cancel the contract and they didnt care

asked for the PAC code and they happily put us through to someone.

cancelled contract and ordered the PAC code and they didnt care

rang up to recieve the pac code after already starting a new contract with someone else and "we are very sorry about what has happened to you and is there anyway we could get you too stay with us" :rolleyes:

was very confused at the time as previously they had been very helpful

Kappa · 5 Apr 2006 at 23:24

Xpander said:
The networks wouldn't buy the phones at face value prices though would they? I'd imagine they'd buy them in bulk direct from the manufacturers at the lowest prices going?

was a bit of an exaggeration I did, sorry. The hardware loss for an N70 is somewhere around £220-£240 at Vodafone at the moment

Airax · 6 Apr 2006 at 00:01

Xpander said:
Makes you wonder how networks make their money doesn't it? The only other thing left is the actual calls themselves. They've obviously got to be making a mint off those?!

Call charges hardly cost them anything. Vodafone & O2 have a gentlemens agreement not to charge each other for calls to each other, as the amount of traffic is roughly the same!

A call costs them virtually nothing, and SMS, do you really thing it costs 10p to send a 1-2kb peice of data? Seriously.

How they make their money is from the line rental, from people over spending. Over simplfying, but the more you spend, the more they make of you, regardless of how many minutes you actually get for the money you pay

. They work on averages, whilst some people upgrade every year and spend as little as they have to, people on the whole are bad with their tariffs, and generally are on the wrong one, and upgrade late.

I'm averaging 18-24 months between upgrades, spend circa £80-£130 a month on my mobile. My mate used to spend £30 a month, in recent months its shot up to £180+. Friend 2, spend £10 on PAYG. But between the 3 of us, we spend £93 odd a month. Its an average thing.

But sometimes I do feel networks are so short sighted though, but hey, I know nothing about the multibillion pound business they run.

Oliver · 6 Apr 2006 at 01:59

They make a lot from international roaming too.

gib786 · 6 Apr 2006 at 08:51

i started an orange contract not realising international txts are 19p, before i was on o2 payg with the international option addded for a one off £5 fee and texts were only 10p for me, first months bill was suprisingly high as well as i sent quite a lot of text to relatives in pak but now ive found a way of sending texts for free to pak on the net so its all good