I bought it online... and i'm in the second year of the contract at the moment, which is up in June. I meant to mention it when I was sorting out an upgrade/more minutes etc in June, but I forgot. The guy I spoke to on the phone when I was trying to get it added said 'It's just to get people through the door - even retentions aren't allowed to offer it to keep customers', which I thought was refreshingly honest.Dolph said:
Orange Upgrades, stupid!
- Thread starter lozza
- Start date
Haly said:You sure I didn't serve you earlier?Had someone in work today with the exact same predicament. I suggested if their number wasn't a big deal to get a new contract.
Yes it's silly I know :/ I had the same problem when it came to renewing. Worked out a lot cheaper to just get a new contract than stick with the same company.
You may well have done, spoke to three women today, one about changing my service plan after i got a letter saying
But thats not strictly true lol, i wanted to loose 1500 texts to gain some anytime Xnetwork minutes, but they wouldn't allow it nor would they allow my unused texts to roll over.
She passed me onto another in upgrade and then i spoke to someone in retentions.
Dolph, never thought about it that way - makes sense!
I had the same kind of issue with Orange late last year which resulted in my changing telco for the first time for ages.
At the end of the day I accept that I'm not a good customer to have.
I'll happily use my included minutes and texts (or quite often not) but that is about it.
I might use a little not included data which nets the telco a little cash, but generally speaking they don't get much out of me.
Over the year (after a new phone) they may break even with me, they may not.
So I am not the kind of customer that a telco will fight to keep (would have been different if I was on O2 at the time as when the take-over talks were going on I could have asked for anything and I'd have probably got it).
I wanted to upgrade to the W800i and they were selling it for £50 on a new contract.
Upgrades wanted to charge me £129 and even when I rang up and spoke to retensions the best we got was £100.
Even when I explained that I could simply cancel my contract and get another one the next day the answer was unfortunately "That would be your choice".
Now I was banking on the fact I've been with Orange for about ten years - loyalty and all that, I was no way under any illusion I was good for the network, but alas they wouldn't move.
I use Orange Wednesday's a lot and as that saves me around £12 per month (as my and my fiancee go to the cinema at least every other week on a Wednesday) I almost stayed.
However in the end I got a PAYG Orange SIM which still gives me my Orange Wednesday's tickets.
I then paid O2 £5 for the W800i am on their lowest £19 per month tariff however still have 50 minutes, x number of texts/picture messaging and get 1mb of data traffic too.
What did I lose?
My number.
Well although as you can imagine I'd rather memorised it over the 10 years I'd had it there was no big issue.
I simply sent a text to everyone I knew informing them of my new number and that is memorised now.
(I could have kept my old number as I moved from Orange to O2 however a ****-up resulted in me not getting a PAC code and simply closing my Orange account and thus losing the old number).
Ask yourself "How valuable am I to the network?" and then honestly anwer yourself.
If after the honest answer you get to "Not very" then really don't expect too much when it comes up upgrade time.
At the end of the day I accept that I'm not a good customer to have.
I'll happily use my included minutes and texts (or quite often not) but that is about it.
I might use a little not included data which nets the telco a little cash, but generally speaking they don't get much out of me.
Over the year (after a new phone) they may break even with me, they may not.
So I am not the kind of customer that a telco will fight to keep (would have been different if I was on O2 at the time as when the take-over talks were going on I could have asked for anything and I'd have probably got it).
I wanted to upgrade to the W800i and they were selling it for £50 on a new contract.
Upgrades wanted to charge me £129 and even when I rang up and spoke to retensions the best we got was £100.
Even when I explained that I could simply cancel my contract and get another one the next day the answer was unfortunately "That would be your choice".
Now I was banking on the fact I've been with Orange for about ten years - loyalty and all that, I was no way under any illusion I was good for the network, but alas they wouldn't move.
I use Orange Wednesday's a lot and as that saves me around £12 per month (as my and my fiancee go to the cinema at least every other week on a Wednesday) I almost stayed.
However in the end I got a PAYG Orange SIM which still gives me my Orange Wednesday's tickets.
I then paid O2 £5 for the W800i am on their lowest £19 per month tariff however still have 50 minutes, x number of texts/picture messaging and get 1mb of data traffic too.
What did I lose?
My number.
Well although as you can imagine I'd rather memorised it over the 10 years I'd had it there was no big issue.
I simply sent a text to everyone I knew informing them of my new number and that is memorised now.
(I could have kept my old number as I moved from Orange to O2 however a ****-up resulted in me not getting a PAC code and simply closing my Orange account and thus losing the old number).
Ask yourself "How valuable am I to the network?" and then honestly anwer yourself.
If after the honest answer you get to "Not very" then really don't expect too much when it comes up upgrade time.
Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Oct 2003
- Posts
- 13,608
- Location
- Back with a Vengeance.
@ Dolph.
while i agree with all your points,it still doesn't justify giving a new customer a better deal than an existing one IMHO.
we,as consumers,are becoming FAR more discerning.years ago the average member of the public just rolled over and took what was offered to them..and i'm not just talking about mobile phones.people would blindly keep the same bank account,car insurance broker etc etc.
thankfully things are different now and people here are not frightened to either haggle or change their services to get a better deal.
i can understand a profitable customer getting a better deal than a non-profitable one....that's just good business sense,but to give a noticeably better deal to joe nobody is a bit much as far as i'm concerned.it creates animosity and may prevent that customer returning.after all as i stated earlier the phone market is pretty much at saturation point and the lions share of the business is upgrades not new contracts....well at least it is when you factor in people cancelling and taking new contracts out to get a better deal.
while i agree with all your points,it still doesn't justify giving a new customer a better deal than an existing one IMHO.
we,as consumers,are becoming FAR more discerning.years ago the average member of the public just rolled over and took what was offered to them..and i'm not just talking about mobile phones.people would blindly keep the same bank account,car insurance broker etc etc.
thankfully things are different now and people here are not frightened to either haggle or change their services to get a better deal.
i can understand a profitable customer getting a better deal than a non-profitable one....that's just good business sense,but to give a noticeably better deal to joe nobody is a bit much as far as i'm concerned.it creates animosity and may prevent that customer returning.after all as i stated earlier the phone market is pretty much at saturation point and the lions share of the business is upgrades not new contracts....well at least it is when you factor in people cancelling and taking new contracts out to get a better deal.
Associate
- Joined
- 19 Mar 2005
- Posts
- 569
6thElement said:
Just wondering if anybody has done this and what the cost/timescale is of this process.
I am currently 11 months into my 2nd Orange contract and want to keep my number as have had it for 6 years but take advantage of their new customer deals to get a Nokia N70 for free on the Orange student deal of 120 mins and 1000 texts for £25.00 a month.
I am currently on orange student deal 120 mins and 1000 texts. My av bill is about £40.
Basically want to port my number to a payg and cancel orange contract. The take out a new orange contract a week or two later and port my number back to orange, not too fussed about waiting a couple of weeks for transfer to take place.
What is the best way to go about this?
The_Dark_Side said:
One of the reasons that they do is that with an existing customer they have a record of your spending pattern, I know that with Voda their upgrades are based on your past 3 months. So in general they are pretty much able to predict your usage for the coming year and therefore whether they are going to be able to recoup their money and make a decent profint with you..
However, if you are a new customer they have nothing to base their predictions on and offer good deals to get people on board, in the hope that they can make more money off them.
leonarmston said:
Yes this process does work. I do it every year. Easiest way is to grab a virgin SIM, port over (call orange, they will text you your PAC code), then port back to Orange. You then keep your number and get the same deal a new customer gets.
Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Oct 2003
- Posts
- 13,608
- Location
- Back with a Vengeance.
i know how the system works,i just think that now it needs some reform as more and more people are willing to ditch their contracts and take out a new one for a better deal.Brum Man said:
it's a bit silly IMHO.
The_Dark_Side said:
But the only way to reform the system is to increase the cost of new connections, and no one company can take that step without getting crucified by their opposition. The companies can't make a joint agreement to do that without being accused of running a cartel....
As long as one network offers substantial subsidies for new connections, the current system will carry on.
Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Oct 2003
- Posts
- 13,608
- Location
- Back with a Vengeance.
oh i agree,damned if you do damned if you don'tDolph said:
it's just daft that you can get a better deal by going round the doors so to speak,rather than just get an upgrade.
Associate
- Joined
- 19 Mar 2005
- Posts
- 569
Duradrum said:
How long is the timescale normally of this and are there any costs involved? I have some free virgin payg sim cards already that i sent off for.
I'm on vodafone, and I hardly call myself a big spender (£15 a month previously, 100xmin 50txts) - phoned up in about October time to upgrade to a W800i - £300 or something like that.....
Phoned up cancellations, demanded my PAC code to move to O2 - W800i £20 and upgraded contract (£18, 125xmin, 250txts)
Phoned up cancellations, demanded my PAC code to move to O2 - W800i £20 and upgraded contract (£18, 125xmin, 250txts)
Harib0 said:
Well I wanted to upgrade my phone on contact without starting an 18 month one and they wanted to charge me £100 for the phone, so I rang my local Orange shop and it cost me £50
so ring your local shop and see what they can do.