Hi all. I have not posted on this forum since August of 2008. If you look at my posting history you will see the horrific problems I had with Orange. These problems were over a period of 18 months and during that 18 month period I never had a reliable broadband service.
Anyway, after I last posted on the forum my problems got a hell of a lot worse. I had no internet whatsoever and the people at Orange were refusing to do anything until I was without it for a month. I eventually got through to a man in cancellations and he let me out of my contract. Not only did he stop any cancellation fees, he actually made sure I recieved a cheque for the money I had spent on phonecalls. I consider this man the saviour of my mental health.
That sounds extreme but I really did think I was going mad when Orange sent an engineer to my house and then the following day told me an engineer hadn't even been, despite the fact that the engineer had been sat in my living room telling me there was a fault in the line somewhere.
Orange are the worst company I have ever dealt with.
Their treatment has left a very bitter taste. So much so that even 18 months after I left them I still implore everyone I know not to use Orange. I recently got mobile broadband and also a new mobile phone contract.....in both cases I would not even consider Orange.
I now have broadband as it is mean't to be. In the 18 months I have had broadband with Sky I have never once had a disconnection and my speed has never gone below 8meg. And because I have Sky tv I pay the grand sum of 10 quid for this and it is genuinely unlimited.
By the way, does anyone still have the dreaded 608kbps cap?
If so, get out and get out fast. Orange do not deserve your custom.
glad you got your problems sorted . unlucky for me ive just re-entered into another 18months . Just out of interest, what company was the engineer from? was it openreach or was it an Orange engineer? until now I didn't think they sent engineers out to check your line and that they just always did a line check from their end
glad you got your problems sorted . unlucky for me ive just re-entered into another 18months . Just out of interest, what company was the engineer from? was it openreach or was it an <a href="http://www.maccodes.co.uk" target="MAC">Orange</a> engineer? until now I didn't think they sent engineers out to check your line and that they just always did a line check from their end
YEs it was an open reach engineer. Bizarre ly he turned up and said there was a fault in the line and someone else would come out to fix it. No one ever did and when Orange finally admitted an engineer had been they said that BT were reporting no fault.
I started off with wanadoo on a 1 meg service and it was great. Never disconnected, no noise on the line, no speed drops. As soon as Orange took over my speed was immediately capped to 608kbps and the connection would go every 2 minutes. Eventually I discovered that the broadband would only stay connected if I had a pphone off the hook. Clearly a high open fault somewhere and I assume it was in the exchange since it only became fault when they LLU'd it.
For 18 months I had the usual crap from Orange that I need to change my filters etc etc. They refused to send out an engineer until I threatened to cancel. They even literally taunted me that I couldn't cancel or i would have to pay to get out of the contract. Very rude customer sefvice people told me that the problem must be my end despite me assuring them I only had a BT master socket and had used the test socket.
I complained 3 times through the ISPA and they ignored every complaint. I even got a recording of an Orange customer service person admitting that LLU lines were being capped at 608.
I was literally going mad. And then suddenly the english guy let me out of my contract and gave me a refund. I couldn't believe it.
I know the feeling PDoherty76, I also had similar problems with my broadband with Orange, and like you, left them well over a year ago now. I did move to Sky, unfortunately Sky didnt directly cover my area so I had to pay to have broadband with them as they got it through another provider. The connection was better than Orange, it was usable, but it still wasnt great.
I then moved to PlusNet several months ago, on a 10gb monthly limit (which is fine for me as I just do online gaming and surfing and only use 2 to 3gb a month consistantly) and have had a perfect connection since, even at peak times.
Like you, I also hope others see my postings and see the light and get out of their contract with Orange, even if you have to pay to leave. As you said, Orange are the worst company ever, not just with their actual broadband but their attitude and customer service is the worst I have even seen and if I manage to help one person get out of being with Orange, then I would be happy
The futures bright, and for me, its with www.plus.net
Like some others posting here, I left Orange some while ago (3 years), but still occasionally look in on this site, partly in the expectation that posting traffic will have reduced as Orange get their act together.
But as far as I can tell nothing much has changed in the way Orange treats its customers or the shoddy service they provide.
So I can only endorse all those who say GET OUT. It's usually a relatively easy process to migrate, all those problems Orange blamed on you will probably suddenly and magically disappear and you'll kick yourself for not doing so before.
_________________ Was with "Orange" since pre-broadband Freeserve dial-up days; Loyalty or Stupidity?
Migrated to Be August 2007
Another broken record response David? You may have had a bad experience as well do others who post here, but don't be so hastey to slate Orange when 'every' provider has their own faults. You were just unlucky i guess.
Another broken record response David? You may have had a bad experience as well do others who post here, but don't be so hastey to slate <a href="http://www.maccodes.co.uk" target="MAC">Orange</a> when 'every' provider has their own faults. You were just unlucky i guess.
Of course no provider is 100% perfect, and you bet I was unlucky, as are a greater proportion of Orange customers compared to those of other providers.
When I was going through my year of Orange hell others were experiencing exactly the same slow speeds broken connections and receiving the same runaround and fobbing off stories from Orange. I migrated and within a couple of hours my line speed increased to over 3Mb from the 0.5Mb that Orange insisted was all they could deliver, and broken connections pretty much became a thing of the past. Under the same contract I'm now getting over 5Mb and I'm some distance from the exchange. I, as were others, was frequently lied to by Orange staff.
I can only take as I find, and I find pretty much the same "unlucky" stories being posted now by others.
The mere fact that this site is thriving says something about the service and support given by Orange IMO.
_________________ Was with "Orange" since pre-broadband Freeserve dial-up days; Loyalty or Stupidity?
Migrated to Be August 2007
Joined: 13 Nov 2009Posts: 408Location: South East Essex
liquid wrote:
Another broken record response David? You may have had a bad experience as well do others who post here, but don't be so hastey to slate <a href="http://www.maccodes.co.uk" target="MAC">Orange</a> when 'every' provider has their own faults. You were just unlucky i guess.
Not unlucky at all.
0range have just about the worst Tech Support that you could ever find , being based in India. If you get to talk to UK based staff then not so bad really but it's not easy to get escalated that far up.
Unfortunately that's what most users judge an ISP by and on that score 0range deserve the bad reputation that they have. Not too likely to improve when BT manage the the broadband side as their support is poorly rated as well.
Another broken record response David? You may have had a bad experience as well do others who post here, but don't be so hastey to slate <a href="http://www.maccodes.co.uk" target="MAC">Orange</a> when 'every' provider has their own faults. You were just unlucky i guess.
Not unlucky at all.
0range have just about the worst Tech Support that you could ever find , being based in India. If you get to talk to UK based staff then not so bad really but it's not easy to get escalated that far up.
Unfortunately that's what most users judge an ISP by and on that score 0range deserve the bad reputation that they have. Not too likely to improve when <a href="http://btbb.at/theside?LID=21">BT</a> manage the the broadband side as their support is poorly rated as well.
To be fair, the problem wasn't/isn't that they are in India; they could be on Mars as far as I'm concerned if they provided a service.
Yes the accent doesn't help understanding, but the fundamental problem I encountered was that the technical help line is not staffed by technical people. They run through scripts and always insisted on starting from the top with their tests, even though I’d have done the things they wanted me to do before I’d rung, or we’d done it the last time I’d rung and the problem had not changed.
I got sick of the “we’ll run line test, ring back tomorrow for the result”
When you rang back there was often no record of a line test.
Bottom line was that calling the Orange “help" line, rarely helped.
Here are the reasons I left Orange:
Broken connections lasting hours, sometimes days.
Flaky connection when it was up.
Slow speeds, akin to dial-up at times. Around 0.5Mb for the last few months I was with them, despite repeated calls / letters.
A help line that never helped
A help line that, being charitable, told me things that were not true
A help line for which I had to pay for not being helped
It was cheaper elsewhere.
All those issues disappeared immediately I left Orange.
A good ISP will provide a fast stable connection in most normal circumstances.
A good ISP can afford to provide a free help line, because you’ll rarely need it.
A good ISP will staff the help line with people who will solve your problem quickly
A good ISP will have a member forum in which they will actively contribute, answering questions and keeping customers informed.
A good ISP will have a system of “logging” problems/queries on-line and allowing 2-way on-line communication.
A good ISP will ask for and listen to customer opinion.
A good ISP will be unhappy if their customers are unhappy, not just because it might affect the bottom line, but because they take customer care seriously.
A good ISP believes customer loyalty works two ways
Maybe Orange do some of this now, but they didn’t back then.
_________________ Was with "Orange" since pre-broadband Freeserve dial-up days; Loyalty or Stupidity?
Migrated to Be August 2007
As with any service that requires calling someone for help you just have to know what to say and when to say it.
All call centres are run in a certain way and all you need to do is ask to speak with a manager. Refusal is a common tactic (this is legally not allowed by any provider who has an internal escalation proceedure as OFCOM will 'love' them for it), next will be the excuse 'no one is available' so ask for a callback, one must be offered within 48 hours. If this fails then the next step is what is known as 'Subject Access Request' and whilst this may cost to request, if you have phone bill proof you have called a provider yet they haven't noted or actioned a request then 'oh dear' is all i will say.
I agree however that many residential ISP's employ 'people' to do technical work which many don't understand. If you want that kind of agent working for your ISP they have to pay for it somehow, some customers are happy for this cost to be passed to them for a good service, many are not.
You might call BT, o2 (now Sky), Talk Talk, Orange etc. and 'think' you are talking to someone who knows technical problems inside out, truth is less than 1% truely understand ADSL engineering to any extent. You can easily check this by asking a tech agent complex terms such as what does setting up DMZ on a router do? How does jitter affect the speeds i receive? What is a shared migration order? What is IP profiling? What is RAMBOT and what does it do? These are all questions i would expect a technical agent to answer and i ask whatever ISP i am using what these mean before signing up. If an agent answers truthfully and says they do not know then i will not touch that ISP. If they tell me things which are untrue or try to 'read from a script' then i won't touch them. If they show initiative and say they are not sure but will find out and come back to me i know they care enough to have my custom. Simples
Gotta agree with David T, in fact I left Orange 6+ months ago and still visit just for laughs.
People still kidding themselves Orange will get better make me laugh.
Going from 1000+ pings in online games with Orange, to 20 pings with BT on the same line... heh yeah Orange, switching my box off again might have helped right?
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. unlucky for me ive just re-entered into another 18months 
. Just out of interest, what company was the engineer from? was it openreach or was it an 
