Please help! Tricked into 6 month extension of contract by Orange

I originally signed a 12 month contract with Orange in February 2007.
In the autumn of 2007 I get a call from Orange Outbound who wanted to
offer me some free text messages.

The guy never properly gave me the terms and I guess I was stupid not
to check them carefully myself, but when I now tried to cancel my
contract to go on PAYG (after 12 months) I was told that my contract
still had another 6 months to go.

I knew this wasn't right, so I checked my purchase price and called
them back to complain about this. A friendly girl (who I stupidly
don't know the name of) told me that Orange Outbound's terms had
extended my contract by 6 months as part of the "free text messages".
When I objected to this, she said that it was quite common for Orange
outbound to be misleading about the terms, and she said she would get
them to call me back to sort this out.

A week later, after nobody called me, I called Orange again and this
time a bloke completely refused to back down, claiming that his system
said they had informed me of the terms. I asked to speak to his
manager, and was told someone would return my call later that day.
Which of course didn't happen.

That brings us to today, when I tried to follow up on this and was
told that the best they could do was to email Orange Outbound and tell
them to contact me, _since they apparently don't have any phone
numbers for their own Outbound department_.

I'm frustrated and annoyed at the moment and every day this takes
costs me money. I would never had agreed to extending the contract for
a few measly text messages per month, which I haven't even used and
just thought it was some kind of sweetener for customers (how naive I
was).

If anyone has any advice to offer, that would be much appreciated.

Gaute

[.....]

While I normally hate replying to my own emails, this isn't one of
those situations. Almost as soon as I had sent out the email I was
called back by Orange who told me that because I hadn't actually used
any of the extra text messages I was offered, they agreed to cancel my
contract without getting in touch with Orange Outbound.

The scary thing, however, is that she also said that they aren't
supposed to talk to Orange Outbound once Outbound has flagged the sale
as being proper with all the necessary information given..

So essentially, if the Outbound salesman tricks you and just lies and
puts down that he gave you all the information, you have no way of
challenging them on it and you just have to hope that Orange customer
services will be kind enough to accept your story.

So having gained this knowledge, I think the best advice if anyone
else gets into a similar situation is just to be persistent with
Orange customer service even if you get a refusal at first.

I'm still uneasy about Orange, but I figured it was easier to switch
to Pay as you go with them than with someone else at this stage and
I'm not sure anyone else is any better.

Gaute

> If anyone has any advice to offer, that would be much appreciated.

I'd be tempted to say "i'll see you in court, and you will remember to
bring the recording of the call won't you..."

"Colin Wilson" <REMOVEEVERYTHINGBUTnewsgroup@phoenixbbsZEROSPAM.c o.uk> wrote
in message news:MPG.2227cbea4b8745d198a5db@news.individual.ne t...
>> If anyone has any advice to offer, that would be much appreciated.
>
> I'd be tempted to say "i'll see you in court, and you will remember to
> bring the recording of the call won't you..."


Not an option however, if your number is valuable to you...

Gaz

> Not an option however, if your number is valuable to you...

If they switched it off without being able to back up their own
argument, i'd be putting a claim in for damages before they could get
their own case lodged !

Colin Wilson wrote:
>> Not an option however, if your number is valuable to you...
>
> If they switched it off without being able to back up their own
> argument, i'd be putting a claim in for damages before they could get
> their own case lodged !

The loss for me would be a £1000 a week... I always get nervous when
transferring between networks.

Gaz

> The loss for me would be a £1000 a week... I always get nervous when
> transferring between networks.

I would too at that level of risk, but at least you can quantify it,
you stand a better chance of being able to claim...

In article <70b0f286-8d0c-4a18-bca7-abaf4dbd0615
@z17g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, lindkvis@gmail.com says...
> If anyone has any advice to offer, that would be much appreciated.

I've never heard of a 6-month extension. They are either 12 or 18
months.

I think the more likely scenario is that your original contract was for
18 months, whereas you believe it to have been 12.

What price are you paying and for that how many mintes/texts do you get?
--
Regards
Jon

FWIW I had a not dissimilar offer from Vodafone; carefully scripted from an
Indian call centre I guess. "You'll be glad to hear that we are rewarding
your loyalty with a £20 refund and BTW extending your terms for a further 6
months so the price won't go up".

"newshound" <newshound@fairadsl.co.uk> wrote in message
news:62m4rbF23g25qU1@mid.individual.net...
> FWIW I had a not dissimilar offer from Vodafone; carefully scripted from
> an Indian call centre I guess. "You'll be glad to hear that we are
> rewarding your loyalty with a £20 refund and BTW extending your terms for
> a further 6 months so the price won't go up".
>
Learn to say "NO" on the phone.