Orange don't care about customers on a low tariff

From Brighton, UK, 1 post

Argh. I am SO furious. A couple of weeks ago my phone broke, so I went back to the Orange shop where I'd bought it. The screen had developed a number of white lines over the top half of it. After a lot of kerfuffle (and I mean a lot, they sent me to two different branches, I was given conflicting information, and falsely told that I could upgrade to a new phone before they said, oops, sorry, not on that tariff you can't), they said, oh, you can send it direct to Sanyo and if it's still under warranty, they'll repair it for free. I bought it last November, so it is still under warranty, and I followed all the instructions and sent it off, and hadn't heard anything, so I gave the repair centre a call.



And was told that because of 'user damage' to the phone, repair would cost £79.00. User damage? It was the screen that was broken, nothing to do with me. But when they assessed it, they found that the charging pins were bent and would have to be repaired. The phone only cost £65 to start with! I say 'only' - it's one of those sums that seems a lot to shell out at the time but shrinks in comparison to the repair cost. How can it cost so much to repair one bent pin, anyway?



But, I digress. The phone was charging up fine when I sent it in. I sent it in for a completely different fault. But they won't repair the screen unless I pay the repair cost for the bent pins. I am FURIOUS. I raged on the phone first to the woman who'd answered, and then to her superior. I went red in the face and used words like 'grossly unreasonable' and the whole office applauded when I put the phone down. But I didn 't get any other result than to be given the number of Orange customer services and my heart sank at the very thought of getting sucked into that circle of hell.



Why me, oh why me?



Oh, and you know what makes me weariest of all? Whatever happened to, oh, we're sorry, we provided you with faulty goods, we're SORRY? We're sorry your phone lasted less than a year. From Orange? From Sanyo? No. Instead, it's here's some really hard, stressful work you can do talking to people in call centres, if you want to try to get back to the situation you thought you'd ensured by buying the damn thing in the first place.



Soooo, the next day, when I had got my strength back, I call the Orange customer helpline. The phone is answered; the line is crackly and the operator's voice has a thick Indian accent. Outsourced.



I begin to explain the subject, but before I can get very far, the operator interrupts me: can you receive calls on the phone? What exactly is the fault?



I tell her. She asks for my mobile number so that she can call me back. I explain as patiently as I can that she cannot call me on my mobile, because, as she'd know if she had been listening, it is sitting in a repair centre. She asks me to hold the line and I am eventually rediverted to an operator with a Newcastle accent.



Who listens to the problem and then says that, contrary to what I have been told by Sanyo, this is not Orange's responsibility. And that if I wanted better customer after-care, I should have taken out a different tariff. 'You've been on a no-frills tariff since 2002. We don't even offer that tariff any more'.



Hello? Yes, I picked the tariff that best suited my needs (as the current Orange advertising encourages us to do) and, because I was right, I stuck with it. 'Well that account is associated with a Nokia handset'.



Yes, which broke. So on the advice of the Orange shop assistants, I bought a new handset, which has also broken.



Now came a new angle: I had misunderstood the role of Orange. Orange don't sell phones (funny, that - I'm sure I had the experience of handing over money in an Orange outlet and receiving a handset in return). No, they sell airtime and sim cards. The phone is the customer's responsibility and it's up to me to liaise with Sanyo. This contradicts what I was told first by Orange sales assistants, and secondly by Sanyo.



Astonishingly, the operator was indignant at my gall in a) not having changed my tariff in four years and b) having followed the Orange shop assistants' advice and buying a new handset. She said she could do nothing for me, and when I said, that is the end of my relationship with Orange, I could almost hear her thinking, good riddance, we don't want your type here. And when I said I was going to contact everyone I knew about Orange failing me, she said, 'Please do. But make sure to mention you were on a no-frills tariff'. Which I now do, because I don't see that it should prevent Orange treating me as a human being.



Are any of you thinking, actually, I deserved that, because I was on a no-frills tariff?