I have been without broadband for 4 weeks, though I can use the web at work. In desperation I have reverted to a dial-up modem to view my emails and find this site.
I have a long tale of woe. I was a happy Freeserve broadband user who migrated to Wanadoo Wireless & Talk. Everything worked fine; I even doubled my connection speed. Then last June the credit card I used to pay the bills was hijacked as I bought some ink cartridges over the phone. The bank told me it was blocked the very day my Orange payment was due!
Orange customer services advised me that I would have to pay a fee for the declined payment, and a £5 per month credit card surcharge for the new card. I was furious and asked to leave. The person I was passed to refunded the fee and said she would move me to a tariff that didn’t include overseas calls, but would be £5 per month cheaper, to compensate for the surcharge. So I stayed.
In September my internet phone stopped working. Various bits were replaced, filter, adaptor, even the box itself, but still the phone light on the box would not light. After a month of this I again asked to leave. Straight away a technician in the UK was able to fix it, at the Orange end. He told me none of the previous ‘cures’ were appropriate for my symptoms, and gave me a £30 credit to cover the cost of the calls that had to be made via the BT phone.
At this point let me explain that for 11 years I have been with Orange Mobile. However I was unable to get free calls to Orange numbers via the live box because my phone tariff is so old the systems could not recognise me as a single customer.
Imagine my surprise then, when on 5th December I got a letter saying because I’m with Orange Mobile I could switch to Home Max Broadband for £15 per month with no BT line rental. I immediately phoned 150 from my mobile to find out if I really qualified, as I was already with Orange Broadband.
Indeed it could, so I agreed to it over the phone. I was told my new Broadband package would start right away, using my existing equipment. The handover from Orange to BT would take a bit longer, but the changes would not affect my use. I went to bed very pleased with myself.
The next morning I noticed there was no broadband service (ppp server down). That night I called technical support, the first of many fruitless calls. After the ritual factory resets I was told a number of lies, including ‘you must wait until the line moves from BT to Orange’ and ‘I will escalate this call – somebody will call you within 5 working days’ and ‘an engineer is visiting the exchange tomorrow to fix your line’. I was told there was a problem with my account that prevented them from ordering a line test, so I had to ring Customer Support. They then told me I had to ring Technical Support, who told me there was still a problem with my account…
To be without the internet before Christmas was a nuisance, especially in our house, where 4 PC use the broadband connection. As an IT professional it has been very traumatic. One of the clients I work for is Orange, but I’m afraid this irony is lost on the people who answer my calls.
The person in Technical Support I spoke to last week claimed to be a supervisor. He agreed there should have been no break in service, that I had been very ‘unlucky’. He said the fault was now with the Special Provisions Department, who would fix it ‘within 5 working days’.
As you can guess I considered leaving, as this had got a result twice before. When I requested to leave I was informed that because I ‘agreed’ a new contract on 5th of December I am obliged to pay for the full 18 months to leave early. I said there was no service, so the contract was void. He explained the 30 day rule, and said I couldn’t stop them taking the money as they had my card details. He hung up on me.
This week I tried again, as the 30 days are nearly up. I was told my (12) calls to Technical Support were not frequent enough to constitute ‘no service’, so the contract charges would still apply. At this point I had a Meldrew moment and told her I’d ring back on Day 30.
I’m sure this is a trivial problem – the wrong button has been clicked somewhere. But I don’t believe Orange is clever enough to sort it out. I think I’m stuffed because now they are also my telephone line provider.
This rant has been cathartic – thanks for reading. Any advice will be welcome.
Vernon.
After having similar problems recently I spoke to a guy called Peter Sykes in the Escalations Dept who seemed more helpful than the rest. Ask for ext 2175. Hope you get it sorted quickly.
I feel your pain, I have started having PPP server dropouts, with the usual no help from Orange support.. etc and being a Network engineer too I know how insulting all that feels!
I also get regular line drops, and so far Oranges reply to that was to send a new power supply, and even after arguing twice with them, they insisted that would fix the problem!! (it has not, but I do not have a chance to chase them on a daily basis).
To offer some help with the PPP connection issues, if you have another router at home (hopefully one that can do an auto detect). try setting that up instead on the line. I found this on one / some other posts on the forums here, and I have found that the older router can connect (I have a standard netgear DG834G) and then plugging the live box back in it is fine again, well until it drops out about a week or two later... (note I have to run through the auto configure each time to get it to reconnect, so it suggests to me that there is something not resetting on the Orange end)
Hope this helps, though it is not a full fix, Orange actually trying to offer a proper service would be a much better thing! I cannot see how they can get away with it, and if I get many more issues I am going to threaten them with court action if they suggest they will not release me from contract, as you mentioned, they are not delivering what they have implied they are selling…
Today’s call to Technical Support has shed some light on my predicament. I thought I would get some facts before ringing Peter Sykes or raising a complaint with the ISPA.
I asked the support person when my call was first escalated, and what the call reference was. She said 11th December, and they don’t use reference numbers.
She said because the people dealing with the escalation had been unable to fix the fault it had been further escalated to the Fault Management team on 30th December - again no reference number to quote.
Then the penny dropped. The fault we are talking about here is nothing to do with me not having broadband. This is the fault on the Orange IT system that says my account is not set up correctly, that is preventing them arranging a line test. So after 4 weeks MY problem hasn’t even been looked at.
She did suggest I call customer support to arrange a refund on my bill. What I really want is my broadband back.
What is my position regards ending my broadband contract when Orange is also my phone line service provider? Can I keep Orange for my phone line but move to, say, BT for my broadband?
As an aside, my Orange phone line came with 1571 switched on, sending unanswered and engaged calls to an answering service. I didn’t want this, so I phoned Customer Support. After 3 more calls I was eventually transferred to – BT! – who assure me it will be done by Monday.
Tomorrow will be 30 days with no service, and I will be requesting a MAC. Thanks for reading,
Vernon.
As I said Vernon, Peter Sykes is the guy you need to speak to. We had problems with our PP server being down for over 2 weeks. I nearly went mad with frustration and being told the same old things over and over again from people that couldn't even speak English properly. We spent a small fortune on using our old ISP on dial up. To cut a long story short and even after having received the MAC code Peter was genuinely sympathetic, got us reconnected, refunded £70 towards our dial up costs and has given us 6 months free service. We were still only on half a meg when we should have been on at least 4 - again Peter said he would sort this out and now we're on 6 meg so I only have credit for this guy. He's not in the office today but I would definitely give him a call on Monday.
Good luck and let us know how you get on!
After 30 days I asked for my MAC. This time there were no threats, they were very helpful, almost keen to get me off their back.
I don't think the customer service guy understood that the problem was the Orange IT system.
The MAC came on the 9th January and I immediately applied on-line for BT total broadband option 3 - something like the Orange package but much more expensive, and no free calls to Orange mobiles.
Two days later an email advised me that I would be connected on the 18th,
and the eqipment would arrive by 6:00 pm. No sign of it yet!
But the best bit - guess what - at about 18:45 today, 17th January, my live box suddenly sprang to life. Everything is working, fast.
6 weeks of hell - I just hope the BT service works.
Vernon.
March 12th come home from work - no connection - router says PPP Server Down
Before phoning the Orange India I call my mate who works for BT (I have my line with them). She checks the exchange while I am on the phone to her and it seems Orange have taken my BB line over that very afternoon (she even gave me the job number!).
PPP Server down is when your line test fine all the way to the exchange but is not connected to the ISP's Server at said exchange. I call Orange India - This is where your blood pressure doubles, they read from a script and tell you to restart the Live Box 10 times. I tell them all that needs to happen is connect me at the exchange but they don't get this as they have not been trained on this issue. Next day I call back same script different person (50p a min from my mobile) they tell me next day at 5pm. Its not. I call back. 10pm tomorrow. Its not. I call back shouting make a girl cry and get through to her 'manager' he understands the problem (Finally) and assures me back on next day and to refund all my call charges. F**k me it was on the next day! and is twice the speed for free! I have reported them to the ISPA http://www.ispa.org.uk/ explaining all the above - they say you will recieve a response from your ISP within 5 days and if not complain again. my 5 days have expired and no response (surprise) so I have reported them again. Now my complaint is to be handled by an independant adudicator........Await further post All the best fellow suffers - Bloopster
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