Joined: 24 Aug 2007Posts: 18Location: Gateshead, Tyne & Wear
Apologies that the subject of PPP server down has been covered before, this is more a whinge about customer service. I've been keeping notes all week about the issues. We moved house in July and chose Orange above other ISPs in our area. In retrospect, a bad idea.
Thursday 16th August - Broadband is up and running. Wireless, through the desktop.
Friday 17th August - Broadband is up and running. Wireless, through the desktop.
Saturday 18th August - Broadband is up and running. Wireless, through the desktop. Broadband goes down, full system restore is carried out (on top of everything recommended in the Orange help), broadband is up and running agin.
Day 1 (first day down) - Sunday 19th August - Broadband is up and running. Wireless, through the desktop. Broadband collapses - PPP Server Down.
Day 2 - Monday 20th August - Mail sent to Orange, called on the evening, promised service by Tuesday.
Day 3 - Tuesday 21st August - Mail sent to Orange stating that I'm hoping everything will be OK by Tuesday evening. When I return home, Orange broadband is down. Make a call to tech, told it will definitely be fixed by Friday. Make call to customer service, asking about contract cancellation. They say I would have to pay £318, and advise me that the techs can make the call on whether I can get disconnected without having to pay up my contract. No mention is made of me being allowed to cancel as I'm within the 7 days!
Day 4 - Wednesday 22nd August - Advised by phone that there is a line fault (with BT). Ask how long, told 24-48 hours, which makes it Friday (24th August).
Day 5 - Thursday 23rd August - Advised by phone that there is going to be "at least Three working days" before this is fixed. Even though I have been told Friday twice. (and Tuesday once!). By my reckoning, Three full working days from now would take me to Tuesday evening (28th). I am advised that in order to "get out" without paying fees my broadband needs to down for 1 whole month!
Call is made to customer service who have advised me that I could cancel if I was still in my 7 days. I'm not. It's the 8th day. This is despite me specifically asking On Tuesday 21st August about cancelling. I even said this to the cancellation agaent, who was extremely smug saying "I don't know what you said to our agent on Tuesday".
Day 6 - Still down.
My main issue is the fact that I specifically asked about cancelling on the Tuesday (within the 7 days) and was not offered the chance to cancel. The other problem is that I have another 24 days to wait to get my line cancelled at no cost (provided it is actually down for 30 days) or pay £318! I wonder what the chances are of it coming back up on day 29.......
I neither have £318 to waste, nor another 24 days. I need my broadband connection for college work (home study) which I am already falling behind with.
Write a letter dated Tuesday 21 August referring to today's telephone conversation (which they have probably recorded) requesting cancellation and, as you are within the 7 day period, no cancellation charges are applicable.
_________________ An ex-Orange guinea pig
"The first third of our lives is ruined by our parents, the second third by 0range then along comes 02 and you die happy."
Joined: 24 Aug 2007Posts: 18Location: Gateshead, Tyne & Wear
nhyder wrote:
Write a letter dated Tuesday 21 August referring to today's telephone conversation (which they have probably recorded) requesting cancellation and, as you are within the 7 day period, no cancellation charges are applicable.
thanks, a delve around shows they have also broken their own code of practice in (at least) the following two ways:
• make sure that all our products and services keep to relevant laws and regulations;
• train all our staff and contact centre agents to follow this code at all times
I live in a shared house and our Orange braodband is in our Landlords name, so my male housemate has had to phone Orange pretending to be the landlord. we have had no internet for about a month as apparently the PPP server is down. my housemate has phoned Orange quite a few times now and was told something different every time, eventually we were told that the servers are down in the whole of London, Leeds and Liverpool. Surely not! I would have thought they would be a bit quicker about fixing it if that many people were without the internet. My housemate is moving out soon and my landlord doesnt want anything to do with it as he doesnt use it and it was our choice to get broadband. Can anybody tell me what the hell is going on or what we could argue to cancel the contract quickly?
ive not had broadband for 3 days now, the ppp server is down iam told it could take another 5 days to get it fixed.
tech surport are near usless and dont seem to know what to do ive called them four or five times with no help ive lost count how many times they have told me to unplug all th leads from th elive box and re-set it.
i live in the london area anyone else having these problems and has it been sorted yet.
we got a phonecall from Orange one day last week asking us if our internet was working yet. it wasnt. heard nothing since. my housemate gave them his mobile number because nobody is home during the day, but still they phoned our landline. big idiots.
I am not sure if it is a relief to find out that I am not alone with this problem but at least some of what I was told by Orange may have some merit (ie. "We're aware of a large increase in the volumes of broadband
customers receiving the 'PPP server down' error message. Our engineers
are currently working to fix this issue...")
20 days down today and I have lost track of how many times I have called Orange, not to mention how many times I have had to reboot, factory reset and check connection status!
Has anyone actually got any good news on this issue?
Has anyone managed to get back on line?
Any good news about compensation?
I have resolved to a free dial-up but that means that on top of paying my monthly broadband fees and the many calls to Orange, I am now also havign to pay for dial-up....
Basically what they're doing is stalling you - Orange cannot provide broadband to most people. It's proven beyond any doubt by the sheer number and contents of posts on this site alone.
As for getting things moving I suggest reporting them to both OFFCOM and ISPA.
This usually gets at least a reply from Orange, if not an improvement.
The other option, which I took, is to leave them and move to a real ISP that cares for customers, not just their money.
Joined: 24 Aug 2007Posts: 18Location: Gateshead, Tyne & Wear
ok, so been home and tried the speedtouch modem (why it has taken 25-ish days to get this far i don't know).
it's failing with the 0721 error which i've seen mentioned here a few times.
hopefully i'll be shot of Orange by next week, there is simply no way i can continue with this.
even if my problem were to be resolved in the next few days they (orange) have lost the chance to hold on to a long term customer, and i'd still leave at the earliest opportunity.
See I'm not alone how sad been with Orange for about 4 months with a bundled mobile phone package Ardvark I think & everything was fine untill Thurs Aug 23rd PPP serverdown. Reported 1st thing next day to be told experiencing signiicant network problems take 3 days. Strange my next door neighbour Orange service was up. Needless to say daily calls to india tec support - lies smoke & mirrors, line tests, reduced to 2mb what a laugh how can one reduce a non existant service. Patience lost by 11th Sept spoke with uk mobile phone customer care to reuest complete phone & broadband cancellation on the basis of paying for goods not recieved breach etc. to be told the broadband is free so you can't cancel the contract. Asked how to get MAC address released without penlty told 30 days no service they will release free of charge and stop charging (£5 p/m) for access to the free broadband. Next call raised a case with Offcom + told me to also write to Orange registered post re this problem and also their arbritration watch dog to complain about the bundling charge and the so called free broadband. Next call back to O Uk broadband customer care gave me 1 month credit (£5) + dial up access. Needless to say I hope they do not restore my service as I am determined to break their contract, what utter tossers worst company I have ever dealt with privatly and proffessionally for yrs. Any advice how to make official complaint raise merry hell for them appreciated.
Still no Orange broadband been a month now ppp server down gave up on tech surport just want rid, but dont want to pay them anymore for a non exsistant service.
its frustrating and very demorolising having to deal with idoits like Orange
We have a connection!
... Three weeks without and no help from the "technical" help desk - I finally lost my temper and sent a letter to their customer service department and, voila, all of sudden we are connected again...
I have no idea if it is a conincidence because I have heard nothing from Orange (there's a surprise!), it just worked without even doing a re-boot or anything....
...I am still a bit suspicious though - wonder how they did it!... And how long will it last...!?
...Watch this space!
Joined: 24 Aug 2007Posts: 18Location: Gateshead, Tyne & Wear
30 days passed yesterday afternoon, and last night i had cancellation of my contract approved at no fee to myself. This was all achieved in one call (eventually).
The one thing I will say is that I was wary of how Orange would be on their stance of 30 days (despite telling me 30 days on half a dozen occasions).
When ringing tech support I made a point of asking "how long does my internet need to be down for before I can leave at no cost". The standard response was "we need to look at your account first" (I assume if they had seen it was down for 30 already they would have said longer). Anyway, the initial call I asked this question and was told (without giving my details) it was 60 days!!! talk about making stuff up...
So I phoned again and asked the same question (without giving my details). Again I was told that they need to see my account. I said that it is either 30 or it's not, this went on for a while until eventually they said "yes it's 30 days".
I said "good as mine has been down for 30 days as of a few hours ago". 10 minutes later I'm out of my contract and they started generating me a MAC code which I should get by the end of the week.
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