Problems with Orange

[manveruppd]

I know this might be more suited to the Mobile Phones forum but most of the consumer rights-savvy people hang around in here. I've been dissatisfied with Orange for a while now, basically I've been living near the centre of Leeds just off a very main road for the past 2 years, but nevertheless reception in and outside my house is quite bad, hardly ever have more than 2 bars on my phone. Nevertheless, due to the fact that coverage everywhere else was fine and their customer service was (back then) top-notch, I renewed the contract and got a new phone, an SPV M5000. That's where the problems began, as, in addition to the bad reception which persisted, I now had calls dropped: phone was on, had full reception, but nevertheless people calling me got diverted to voicemail and I got a missed call notification text. According to people on Smartphone forums that is a fault with the 3G reception on the M5000, and not a fault either with Orange or with my particular phone, and you can get around it by forcing it to only use the 2G network, which I did, though I wasn't happy with having to do it.

As of yesterday, though, I've started having more serious problems: yesterday, I got a voicemail message which was apparently sent to me on Friday. Today, I got two more which were dated February 22nd! One was regarding a house offer and it may have resulted in me missing out on a good house deal. In addition, in half the phone calls I made today people were having serious trouble hearing me, even though I'm in a very central location with excellent coverage (4 bars on my phone). Even the customer services guy I called to complain to at Orange couldn't hear me, and I had him call me on a friend's (non-Orange) phone.

So, here's the first part of my question: the guy diagnosed the problem as a fault with my handset. He says Orange don't offer support for my handset after the first 28 days, and gave me the number for the manufacturers so I could call them. According to consumer law, since I actually bought the phone from them as an upgrade so they're effectively the retailer, are they not responsible if it develops any fault within the first 12 months of purchase?

The second part of my question is also consumer-rights related: I don't think it's a problem with my phone. A phone fault might explain the trouble people have been having hearing me today, but it would make more sense if EVERYONE I talked to today had the same problem, whereas it's only been about 75% of the calls I made. The customer support guy I talked to refused to acknowledge this, saying it was the only feasible explanation. Also, I don't think it explains the delayed reception of those voicemail messages, although the guy claimed that it could. What I think will happen is I will send my phone off for repair, possibly pay a hefty fee, spend a week without a phone only to get it back and continue having the same problems. I think their network is overloaded and breaking down and they're no longer as good as they were back when I renewed my contract, and I want out. Unfortunately, it doesn't expire until May, and I don't want to keep paying for such awful service. How can I get out of my contract before it expires? Presumably I need to prove that they've been providing a substandard service, but how can I prove it when the problems are occasional and intermittent, although frequent enough for me to be dissatisfied considering I'm on an expensive tariff?

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[Ukadder]

Sounds like the phone more than orange tbh, I've had a few of the same problems with my Nokia N80 but my brother whos on the same network as me often has better reception and the phone calls seem of a better quality.

Bit of a kick in the teeth as his phone is 3-4 years old yet the battery lasts longer (I've also forced my phone to use 2G network) and hes reception is better.

 

[Jonny69]

Bah leave Orange ASAP is all the advice I can give. I've seen their customer care and loyalty slip down to an all time low when it used to be immaculate. Plenty of people are saying the same and leaving them in large numbers. Icing on the cake is when Orange announced it was looking for better quality customers who would give them better profits. Well **** them I'll shop elsewhere.

 

[manveruppd]

But how do I get out NOW? I'm effectively without a phone atm, and I'm sure I'll continue to be so if the manufacturers say they'll charge me to repair my handset. Even if they don't I'm looking at having to put up with their dodgy reception for another 2 months before my contract expires! It's a worse quagmire than Iraq and I need an exit strategy ASAP!

 

[DavidQ]

My sister had the exact same problem with Vodafone, however she had 4 months left on her contract. She ended up paying the rest of her contract off and migrated her number over to O2 who have been superb for her and gave her a fantastic deal on a new handset and contract with a very attractive ammount of free minutes and text messages.

 

[manveruppd]

Oh I knew for a fact that I could get a better deal with T-Mobile last year when I renewed this contract, but I opted to stay with Orange because, up till then, they had excellent coverage everwhere, great customer service, and were the epitome of professionalism. As soon as I renewed, boom.

 

[Gilly]

But how do I get out NOW? I'm effectively without a phone atm, and I'm sure I'll continue to be so if the manufacturers say they'll charge me to repair my handset. Even if they don't I'm looking at having to put up with their dodgy reception for another 2 months before my contract expires! It's a worse quagmire than Iraq and I need an exit strategy ASAP!

Pay up the rest of your contract and go elsewhere Immediate result.

 

[Jimbeam3678]

here was I thinking about going with orange. Is it me or have contracts got worse recently , you have to take out a 18 month contract to get what I got on 12 month contract 10 months ago.

Maybe its just me ..........

 

[stoofa]

here was I thinking about going with orange. Is it me or have contracts got worse recently , you have to take out a 18 month contract to get what I got on 12 month contract 10 months ago.

Maybe its just me ..........

This is going to start being the case accross the board.
This is the networks first "fight-back" against those people who sign-up for extremely cheap contracts or get near free upgrades and simply sell the phones on EBay and the like.

People don't seem to understand the real value of handsets - these £20 - £40 handsets people see have a real value running into hundreds.
Next we'll start seeing the end of the really cheap phones (even for new customers only wanting cheap monthly contracts).
Once again it's a situation where we will all lose out because of a selfish few.

 

[manveruppd]

True, but they more than make up for it by the disproportionate cost of the phones. I also thought of selling my upgrade phone on ebay, but tbh I wouldn't make up half of what I spend in a year on calls! The mobile phone operators in this country are greed personified.

Nobody answered the first part of my question btw: isn't Orange by law responsible for honouring the warranty on my phone within the first 12 months, since they're the retailer, or are they right in claiming that I have to contact the manufacturer?

 

[jhmaeng]

Nobody answered the first part of my question btw: isn't Orange by law responsible for honouring the warranty on my phone within the first 12 months, since they're the retailer, or are they right in claiming that I have to contact the manufacturer?

I'm inclined to say that in principle, Orange would be responsible either way, because it's an Orange badged phone, not HTC (who is the actual manufacturer). Just as you'd have to take an O2 XDA phone back to O2, not HTC, since it's O2 badged.

It's possible that Orange have contracted out repair works of SPV phones to an outside company, but it's still within Orange's realms, not the actual manufacturer in this case, which is HTC.

I can't see why they are being so difficult about it - What company is the number that they actually gave you to call? Is it another department within Orange, or some other company?

 

[Dolph]

Nobody answered the first part of my question btw: isn't Orange by law responsible for honouring the warranty on my phone within the first 12 months, since they're the retailer, or are they right in claiming that I have to contact the manufacturer?

To answer your question, no they aren't. While there are responsibilities under the SOGA, these vary depending on what the fault is, how long you've had it (the onus for demonstrating a product is inherantly faulty shifts after the first 6 months), and so on.

If you got the phone direct from Orange (ie over the phone) as an upgrade, then it should be replaced if it develops a fault within the first 6 months, (because during this time a fault is assumed to be inherant) and after that you would be referred back to the phone manufacturer (HTC, branding does not change the manufacturer). If you got the phone from a store (orange or not), then any liability would lie with them to assist you in getting the phone repaired.

With regards to your second question, I'll refer you to the network Terms and conditions

http://www1.orange.co.uk/mobileterms/#2

Section 3, which covers provision of service. Unfortunately, you don't have a right to cancel if you're not happy with the service in your area, as signal problems are covered under these clauses.

Hope that helps some, even if it's not what you wanted to hear.

 

[manveruppd]

Yep, not what I wanted to hear, but thanks for the info anyway. Fortunately (or not), I confirmed that despite what the Orange customer support guy told me over the phone, there isn't a problem with my handset, because today and yesterday everyone I talked to could hear me just fine. That means that both the 3 delayed voicemail messages and the fact that nobody could hear my voice on Wednesday in spite of my having good reception were network problems.

I suspected that it wouldn't be easy to get out of my contract tbh, which sucks, because the only reason I stayed with Orange was for the excellent service and coverage. Now that they're on a par if not lower than the other networks I really shouldn't have to. I'll look through my contract terms and conditions - maybe I can downgrade to the cheapest tariff so I can afford to move to another network before my contract expires. I think I'll wait a couple more weeks because according to people I know in the industry, there's a fair few new phones being released in March and the networks are bound to come up with attractive new contract offers to go with them.

Ironically, I got 3 calls from customer reps at Orange trying to get me to renew my contract over the past 4 days. The latest one was today, and I completely blew my top and possibly scarred the poor woman for life, telling her (interjected with various bannable epithets that I won't repeat here) that if she and all the other layabouts who kept harassing me to renew my contract were working at customer support instead, then maybe I wouldn't have had to wait 20' to talk to somebody on Wednesday and I'd be more inclined to renew, but as it stands I am no longer interested.

 

[jhmaeng]

If it's not the phone, perhaps you can sell the phone and buy out the rest of the contract (assuming there's not that many months left). Though unfortunately, Orange will now only allow you to step down one price level per month, so if you're on a high tariff it will take ages to go down to a low priced one. (e.g. £45->£40->£35->£30 and so on) - you'll have to check whether your contract is affected under this rule. If you can downgrade straight away, I'd personally just stick it down to the £20 per month one, sell the phone and buy out the remaining months...

As an aside, how come you're getting calls to renew your contract if you're not at the end of it? Or is it from companies claiming to be Orange and not actually Orange? Or are they calling to get you to slap on an extra 12 months on top of your contract?

 

[manveruppd]

As an aside, how come you're getting calls to renew your contract if you're not at the end of it? Or is it from companies claiming to be Orange and not actually Orange? Or are they calling to get you to slap on an extra 12 months on top of your contract?

The latter I believe: a guy I know who works in a phone shop said that most networks roll out their price reviews and new offers in March, to coincide with the new handset models the manufacturers release. So presumably they were trying to get me to renew before I noticed that I could get a better deal. Another one called later on that day btw :/

 

[SB118]

While there are responsibilities under the SOGA, these vary depending on what the fault is, how long you've had it (the onus for demonstrating a product is inherantly faulty shifts after the first 6 months), and so on.

If you got the phone direct from Orange (ie over the phone) as an upgrade, then it should be replaced if it develops a fault within the first 6 months, (because during this time a fault is assumed to be inherant) and after that you would be referred back to the phone manufacturer (HTC, branding does not change the manufacturer).

If you got the phone from a store (orange or not), then any liability would lie with them to assist you in getting the phone repaired.

OT Dolph, does the middle section (my spacings) mean that Orange ignore the SOGA after the first 6 months or do they just have their own understanding of it? (query as i had hassle with Orange many moons ago trying to get a duff phone sorted)

 

[Dolph]

OT Dolph, does the middle section (my spacings) mean that Orange ignore the SOGA after the first 6 months or do they just have their own understanding of it? (query as i had hassle with Orange many moons ago trying to get a duff phone sorted)

No, becaus the way the SOGA is written, after the first six month the onus is on the purchaser to prove that the goods are inherantly faulty, rather than the seller to prove that they aren't. Given the treatment of your average mobile phone, that's rather difficult to do.

 

[SB118]

No, becaus the way the SOGA is written, after the first six month the onus is on the purchaser to prove that the goods are inherantly faulty, rather than the seller to prove that they aren't. Given the treatment of your average mobile phone, that's rather difficult to do.

Never knew that, always thought that if somethings dies on you inside it's first 12 months it was upto the supplier to sort things out. Live and learn.