4 Months - no Broadband!
Over 37 hours of phone calls to 6 seperate departments!
The constant feeling of being trapped..
The constant feeling of being shafted!
The pressure has been so bad my girlfriend has been in tears on the phone on more than 4 occasions!
I have wanted to * myself on the phone on more than 5 occasions!
I have wanted to * a technical support advisor on more than 1000 occasions
I'm free...
Yesterday evening at 6.45 my girlfriend answered the phone to Orange Broadband. For the last 2 weeks we have made no calls, written no letters and finally given up on ever having internet access again. No longer would she sell her crafts on ebay, no longer would i sell my programs online. mIRC and bit-torrent a thing of the past. Learning Javascript will forever remain a pipe dream.
'Hello Miss. Jones', said the voice, 'It's Sarah from Wanadoo Broadband'
The words cut me through me and my girlfriend like a knife and silence descended. The anticipation could have been bottled and sold to riot police. Inside, my mind began a tormented screaming, tearing apart bloody pieces of my brain, whilst on the outside i sat still and silent.
'Ungh...' managed my girlfriend,
'I was just wondering if you would be interested in upgrading your broadband service?' the voice innocently requested...
To cut short a long and rapidly becoming ridiculous story we were transferred (internally) to Technical support by the sales agent. She must have had a word with the Techy on our behalf because when we got on to Danny in Tech Support he said 'Hold the line while i speak to my manager'. We held for 20 minutes until he confirmed that we now had permission to be let out of the contract. He then passed us (internally again - after being told for 4 months that calls could not be transferred internally) to Billing who refunded (Yes Refunded) the last 4 months and confirmed that the contract was cancelled.
I have been perusing broadband sites all morning in a sort of dreamy trance like state.... I slept better than i ever have last night. I feel good. I feel invincable. I'm thinking of BT broadband or Eclipse Broadband but would be interested in any comments - good or bad for either.
So what have i learned from my Orange Broadband - the futures s**t* the futures Orange - experience?
Most importantly - when given good news over the phone (yes we will refund this, yes we will let you out of that, we'll take care of that and call you back etc.) don't believe it. This will stop you actually wanting to die when you find out you've been lied to again. Ask for it confirmed in writing - it will give you more ammunition when you finally have to threaten them with court action.
Make sure you take names, times, dates and outcome (and call centre if they'll tell you - but take it from me, don't threaten to 'come down to Rotherham and kick their ass') of everyone you speak to. At the beginning of each call ask the advisor to read the notes and to tell you the last note on your account. At the end of every call ask the advisor to add notes detailing your conversation to the account - even if he is duplicating the other 30 hours of phone calls. The more notes you have the better chance someone will take notice of you the next time you call.
When you go through to Tech Support you need to
1). Have them run a test on the line
1a). They can do this while you wait. This is the first step in a long line of fun
2). Have them book for another team to run a test on the line
2a). This can take a few days but they won't get back to you. You need to call back 3 working days later to let them know you are still there
3). Have them book that BT will test the line
3a). I actually phoned BT and got them to do the tests seperately but Orange were having none of this. Again they wont call you so call back in a few days
4). Now get an engineer out. You need to fight like a rabid monkey for this one. Ask Technical support to go through to the 'Escalations' department. They are not allowed to deny you this.
5). Engineer never came?? Shocker. Get another one.
6). Next step is you need to get a Supervisor from Technical Support to aurthorise that you be let out of your contract.
6a). Fighting like a rabid monkey might not even help you here. Supervisor's won't talk to you on the phone. The ordinary techy support guys wont talk to their supervisor. Catch-22. Good luck. Once you have finally got a supervisor to authorise you being let out, MAKE SURE you get them to add notes. You'll then be put through (or have to ring another number because they cant transfer calls) to billing to finalise the end of the contract. At this point Billing will tell you that they can see the contract has had an "attempted cancellation" by a tech supervisor but Billing have rejected this. Apparently you have to get the contract an 'Attempted Cancellation' 2 or 3 times before it will actually go through.
7). Repeat step 6
. Repeat step 6
9). Just phone tech support and plead that they help you in any way possible. End Of Tether. Pure and simple. Didnt know which way to turn. At this point, however, they gave me dial-up until my broadband was working. Dial-up which should run at the same speed. Why wait until 3 months down the line to offer me this?????
9a). Have to go through to dial-up cust serv to get this implemented. At this point i was informed i was still going to get charged for it! Argued at this stage and in the end they gave it to me for free
10). Dial-up modem arrives
10a). Dial-up modem doesnt work. Spend an hour on the £1 a minute phone number as they attempt simple ways to get the modem working - all of which you have already tried.
11). Phone up dial-up billing to ask them to put notes on the account to just state that the dial-up didnt work.
12). My advice here would be to repeat all steps but if you still have the drive to do it at this point you are stronger than me. Good luck.
I'm still attempting to claim compensation for time and refund of phone calls from Orange and i would still like to pass a more detailed version of me story onto watchdog etc. I'll let you know if i get anywhere...
CONGRATULATIONS !!! Sugarflux.... well done and i hope you get back online soon.
I actually decided fairly quickly that the "fruit pickers" could not solve my connection problems and cancelled my contract although they have billed me for the "privelage".... im looking forward to giving them LOTS of publicity if they pursue this payment believe me!
They cannot solve ANYONES problems ... never have ....never will.... so i say again to all those who have either lost their connection ( like me) or received the "downgrade" to LLU .... GET OUT NOW !!! otherwise your only wasting your own time ... and your own money.. while these IDIOTS scratch each others heads to try to find a way of getting their service to work.
I think i've decided on my new ISP - eclipse seem to be dominating my attention offering 8mbps with unlimited (Fair usage states up to 50GB a month between the hours of 6pm and 11pm Monday to Friday - much better than any other company i've found); a whole host of extras, free wireless router, free 4 static IPs, free webspace, free phonecalls etc.
They are currently asking £29.99 a month which is a little steeper than most other services on the market. However they've recently won an award for customer service, have only UK call centres and also insist on a fair contention ratio which i think will mean faster speeds than most others can offer. They also have only a 1 month tie in period so the contract can be cancelled free of charge with 30 days notice if they do turn out to be as bad as Orange. Goodbye 12 month contracts.
Having suffered with Orange i'm happy to pay the extra money for the customer service promise alone but all the rest of the benefits are bonuses.
They also suggest that they will take over your broadband for you from your current supplier without you having to get involved - i wish i had found them Three months ago! It might be worth a few of you on here giving it a try?
Apparently you just need to obtain your MAC ID from wanadoo/orange and pass this on to the sales team at Eclipse.
Alternatively, these companies will also take your broadband for you if yyou give them your MAC ID:
www.bethere.co.uk are offering a very reasonable 24mbps service @ £24.99 although i can not vouch for the customer service (they strike me as a bulldogbroadband replica who were as bad as Orange)
www.madasafish.co.uk also have some attractive offers and reviews suggest that problems are rare
http://www.directsavetelecom.co.uk have some incredibly good deals on but once again i can't vouch for the service. They also offer the 1 month tie in period which has got to be worthwhile
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. Repeat step 6
