Blacklisted by Orange

I think this is the last straw with Orange.

I broke the screen on my M3100, and Orange swapped it out on Saturday under
the Orange Care insurance. Unfortunately, the refurb they replaced it with
had a faulty keyboard.

When I called them yesterday to get a working replacement, they said that
because I have another phone 'paired' with my account, the insurance
department was wrong to send out the replacement they did. They said they
would investigate further and call me back today.

Today, no call - instead my new phone was blacklisted. When I called they
explained that the insurance department placed the block but they close at
5pm and will not deal with the situation until tomorrow. They have also
passed the details to the European IMEI DB of stolen phones.

Although this is quite obviously unacceptable customer service - it's not
particularly fun to be branded a thief - have they actually done anything
wrong here? Have they broken either Ts and Cs, or the law, particularly with
regards to data protection?

I'd really appreciate some expert opinion.

Benedict.

On Jan 29, 7:39 pm, "Benedict Addis" <n...@theale.uk> wrote:
> I think this is the last straw with Orange.
>
> I broke the screen on my M3100, and Orange swapped it out on Saturday under
> the Orange Care insurance. Unfortunately, the refurb they replaced it with
> had a faulty keyboard.
>
> When I called them yesterday to get a working replacement, they said that
> because I have another phone 'paired' with my account, the insurance
> department was wrong to send out the replacement they did. They said they
> would investigate further and call me back today.
>
> Today, no call - instead my new phone was blacklisted. When I called they
> explained that the insurance department placed the block but they close at
> 5pm and will not deal with the situation until tomorrow.

If the Ts&Cs indicate that if you use more than one phone on your
account the insurance is invalid, then technically the phone belongs
to the insurance company and they can block it if they want. Yes,
poor customer service, but that's the reality of it.

> They have also
> passed the details to the European IMEI DB of stolen phones.
>
> Although this is quite obviously unacceptable customer service - it's not
> particularly fun to be branded a thief - have they actually done anything
> wrong here? Have they broken either Ts and Cs, or the law, particularly with
> regards to data protection?
>

Data protection applied to personally indentifiable information --
Orange would have only passed the handsets IMEI to the other networks,
and not any personal information, so there would be no breach here.
And, even if there was, since the phone belongs to the insurer,
they're not passing details of your phone -- they're passing details
of the insurer's phone!


> I'd really appreciate some expert opinion.
>
> Benedict.

news@theale.uk declared for all the world to hear...
> When I called them yesterday to get a working replacement, they said that
> because I have another phone 'paired' with my account, the insurance
> department was wrong to send out the replacement they did. They said they
> would investigate further and call me back today.

If you do indeed have a different phone on your account then your 3100
was not even covered, so you should count yourself the beneficiary of a
mistake.

It's now unlikely Orange will be able to reverse this mistake and
retrieve your previous 3100 so I imagine your new 3100 you will be
allowed to keep and it will get un-blacklisted, however you would need
to send it or take it to a repair centre for warranty service if you are
not covered by Care.
--
Regards
Jon

"Jon" <spam@jonparker.plus.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.2028792da72ff8c898a6f1@text.usenet.plus.n et...
> news@theale.uk declared for all the world to hear...
>> When I called them yesterday to get a working replacement, they said that
>> because I have another phone 'paired' with my account, the insurance
>> department was wrong to send out the replacement they did. They said they
>> would investigate further and call me back today.
>
> If you do indeed have a different phone on your account then your 3100
> was not even covered, so you should count yourself the beneficiary of a
> mistake.
>
> It's now unlikely Orange will be able to reverse this mistake and
> retrieve your previous 3100 so I imagine your new 3100 you will be
> allowed to keep and it will get un-blacklisted, however you would need
> to send it or take it to a repair centre for warranty service if you are
> not covered by Care.
> --
> Regards
> Jon

Spot on Jon, that's exactly what they did.

Benedict.