Hello, I could do with some help please. I have been with Freeserve/Wanadoo/then Orange for 6 years. I upgraded my speed in December last year (12 months ago to 3.5meg). I am in an 18 month contract. Since 30th December Sunday, each day my download speed from about 2pm until 7am the following morning is about 280kbps, upload is about 50kbps. If I try getting on the internet say 7am in the morning I get about 3meg connection which is fine. On the slow connection it takes me about 10 minutes to get to the Orange website, and I can hardly get any webpages.
I reported the problem to Orange technical support on Tuesday 2 December, who did a line test found a fault and said wait 24 hours. I did this and called back on Wednesday 3 as it was the same, another line test was done which failed again. They then said wait 48 hours for an engineer to fix. Did this but Thursday exactly the same, wait another 48 hours. So Saturday 6th Dec phoned again, spoke to customer services and technical support neither can advise when the engineer came out, what was fixed, how long it will take to resolve and keep telling me to wait another 48 hours.
I have sent about 7 mails in total to customer support, spent about £6 on phone calls to Technical Support and given up on Technical support as they cannot understand me and I cannot understand them. Tonight I have called to get a MAC code so I can sign up with 02 (already a mobile user with them) and Orange are saying that I will have to pay £119 if I come out of the contract unless I wait up to 30 days for them to fix the problem.
Is this correct ? As I was screaming blue murder at this point on the telephone, do I have to wait 30 days with not being able to get any websites when I get home from work and weekends and I am paying £20 a month ? Why should I pay for less than a quarter of the service I should be getting and have to wait for an engineer to fix my problem who has an SLA of up to 30 days !! I have had to use the internet at work in the daytime as I cannot use in the evenings and weekends.
I do not know what to do and I cannot even download the terms of the Orange contract because after 10 minutes it times out, help any advice or anything I can do, I have managed to get the address details to write to them anything else I can do ?? Before I tear my hair out.
Joined: 12 Jun 2006Posts: 907Location: Weston-super-Mare, UK
30 days is an Orange rule which has no legal standing. You can leave at anytime. However Orange will probably come after you for the money unless you have waited the 30 days. If it went to court you would either have to pay or defend the case. The case will hinge on whether you gave them a reasonable time to solve the problem.
Yeah, 30 days has no legal standing, that's why the period is an OFCOM guideline...no legal standing at all *giggles*
With any sales of a service that you pay a monthly subscription fee for there has to be a certain level of service adhered from both sides.
If you have a technical fault you must notify Orange and they have 30 days to rectify it, if they don't then they are deemed as not providing you with a service and you may terminate it without paying a cancellation fee. You'll need to make reasonable contact though. Having a problem and not telling anyone isn't reason for termination for free.
I'll give you a bit of advice with an ISP if it doesn't fix a technical issue within 2 weeks. I have Virgin Media; have a very experienced knowledge of the Broadband market and the technical background of problems. Almost all companies have UK based cancellations teams and all have an internal complaints team, you just have to know what to say and who to ask for them. ISP's do business mainly over the internet and phone these days, writing letters is a thing of the past. Read up on the internal complaints procedure online, you'll be surprised at how fast you can use the phrases "OFCOM, complaint, cancel" within 30 minutes of a phone call start, just have to know when to say it.
1) ask to cancel
2) ask to make a formal complaint over the phone (don't bother with asking for a manager, call centre managers are there to manage teams and people, not to talk to customers, that's what agents are for)
3) exception to the managers rule is that of a complaints team manager, they tend to be very high on the legal knowledge and have more powers than agents and any other department
4) no success then ask for a copy of your account notes and an e-mail from the manager detailing what you have done and said
5) involve a regulating body (OFCOM or ISPA) and you'll likely get out of your contract sooner than you thought, all of this can be done easily within a week, you'll be surprised how generous complaints teams can be if pushed enough at the right time
This structure works for BT, Virgin Media, Orange, o2 (now Sky) and AOL for certain
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