Orange Contract

Former Member

December 2005 i brought a new mobile Phone, Contract with Orange. I brought out insurance on the phone when i got it.
I lost/stolen the phone about September Time, in which my monther say It would cost about £100 to get a new phone with insurance (they dont give it for free). So i decided i should wait till December till the contract ends (I think it was a 12 month contract).
I went into the bank the other day as i brought a Pay as you Go Mobile, from Orange and cancelled the Direct Debit to them.

I got a letter in the post:

Your Bank has notified us that the direct debit payment we recently requested has been refused due to a query with the transaction. If you have not queried the transaction, please contact your bank immediatly to notify them of the error.

If payment is not received within the next days, your Orange phone service may be suspended without futher notice. You will continue to be charged for your monthly service Play during the time. If we find it necessary to suspend your service your original service plan may no longer be abvailable. In such cases we will, at our discretation, connect you to the nearest available service plan.

Please not the failure to pay the amount due may affect your credit rating and your ability to obtain credit in the future.

etc.

Now for one, i think the price of my contact has risen by £4.50 - In which i has no knowledge of..

Secondly, i dont want to be paying for a phone i do not have, get a replacement has i allready have one. be paying £40+ for and phone i wont use/have and get a bad credit rating...

What do i do?

Former Member

I so didn't even understand any of that

Former Member

Have you cancelled your contract with Orange? It's a minimum 12 month contract, but it's still up to you to cancel it, or they'll assume you want to carry it on. And I think you'll find that there's still t&c's regarding how you can cancel it. They'll probably want 1 months notice to cancel your contract with them, so they'll try and take the direct debit out as normal, and because you cancelled the direct debit without cancelling the contract, you got that letter. I'm guessing anyway.

Just for future reference though, in most cases, phone companies will let you change your price plan during the contract. So if you lose your phone, simply phone them up, and ask them to switch you to the cheapest price plan. That way you're only losing £15-odd a month, rather than £40 a month, or whatever your current price plan is.

Former Member

If you got insurance on your phone I don't understand why you have done anything since losing the phone other than to claim on the insurance for it.

You can't just cancel the DD, that doesn't stop the contract.

Ring orange.

Former Member

Mist wrote:

If you got insurance on your phone I don't understand why you have done anything since losing the phone other than to claim on the insurance for it.

He said that he'd have to pay £100 for a new one, so I'm guessing it has some sort of excess on it where you just pay £100 if you lose it, rather than having to buy a new handset for £300-400. Shit insurance by the way.

Former Member

In my experience with Orange insurance, both with reasonably expensive phones although not top of the line phones, I only had to pay administration costs (£20 when the phone broke, and £15 when it was lost) and they replaced my phone new exactly. Perhaps you should have asked Orange.

Former Member

joshmeister wrote:

Secondly, i dont want to be paying for a phone i do not have, get a replacement has i allready have one. be paying £40+ for and phone i wont use/have and get a bad credit rating...

What do i do?

If you're under contract then you're more than likely liable for the line rental for all the contract, irrespective of whether you want and use the phone or not.

I don't know what policy Orange have, but you really should have phoned them before you got the new handset, if nothing else you'd probably have been offered a free upgrade beacause you're at the end of your contract.

Former Member

The call center staff at orange in my experience are complete idiots.
Extremely unhelpful and practically useless. I've found that ringing them saying you want to be put on the lowest priced contract possible will get them to say something like 'well i can put you on the orange 50+ plan which is £20 a month etc etc...'. dont take any of this crap and keep on at them and telling them not to take the piss and that you know there are cheaper contracts available. I went from a £35 a month contract that i couldnt afford to pay to a £12.50 contract with more minutes and texts free than i previously got. I cancelled as soon as the contract was up though but i t was worth the switch!

Former Member

icey wrote:

The call center staff at orange in my experience are complete idiots.
Extremely unhelpful and practically useless. I've found that ringing them saying you want to be put on the lowest priced contract possible will get them to say something like 'well i can put you on the orange 50+ plan which is £20 a month etc etc...'. dont take any of this crap and keep on at them and telling them not to take the piss and that you know there are cheaper contracts available. I went from a £35 a month contract that i couldnt afford to pay to a £12.50 contract with more minutes and texts free than i previously got. I cancelled as soon as the contract was up though but i t was worth the switch!

When you take your contract out you're commiting yourself to that Price Plan for the full term of your contract, mobile companies are under no legal obligation to downgrade your plan just because you can't afford it anymore.

Stands to reason really, you wouldn't like it if they decided to up your price by a fiver or reduce your number of texts.

Be thankful you aren't with 3 - not only can you only downgrade your plan one step at a time, we'll charge you 25 quid or make you extend your contract by six months :wave:

Former Member

O2 were really good. I lost my phone about a year ago and didnt have any insurance. I rang them and they sent me a replacement sim card for free so I could keep using my number and I just put it in an old phone for a couple of months til I could get my 12 month upgrade.

They didnt tell me that I could change plan and get twice as many minutes for my money, but you cant expect too much... And I worked it out in the end.

Former Member

Cancelling the DD doesn't cancel the contract, and if you haven't cancelled the contract you will continue to have a rolling monthly contract. Which means that, basically, you are liable for the fee.

Cancel the contract in writing.

Orange call centre staff are no worse than any other, and they are better than vodafone's staff.

Former Member

Bri-namite wrote:

When you take your contract out you're commiting yourself to that Price Plan for the full term of your contract, mobile companies are under no legal obligation to downgrade your plan just because you can't afford it anymore.

That wasnt so much the issue i had with them, more the after effect.
I upgraded my phone in an orange shop to a better model, but it cost me about £100 to do so which i assumed was to basically pay for the phone. Without me aggreeing they added another year onto my contract and wouldnt let me cancel. When i told them i wasnt made aware that it would extend my contract with them the woman on the other end just said 'well, its common knowledge everyone knows that'

Former Member

icey wrote:

That wasnt so much the issue i had with them, more the after effect.
I upgraded my phone in an orange shop to a better model, but it cost me about £100 to do so which i assumed was to basically pay for the phone. Without me aggreeing they added another year onto my contract and wouldnt let me cancel. When i told them i wasnt made aware that it would extend my contract with them the woman on the other end just said 'well, its common knowledge everyone knows that'

Assuming I've read this right (I read it as something like 'my contract is X amount of months, but now I've upgraded it's now 2X months') surely that would be wrong to do that?

Former Member

Well i was pretty pissed at them yes. At no point did i sign or agree or even get told about having my contract renewed/extended. I assumed that i would be able to cancel when my original contract was up because it cost me so much to pay for the new phone.
Anyway...to the original question..

Former Member

It was a phone upgrade, phone upgrades usually come with contract extensions.

You should always read the small print.

Former Member

as far as i knew, if you upgrade your phone you are essentially signing yourself up for a new term on the contract

Bunnie

Firstly I would check it was only a 12 month contract, many now are 18 months. Then with all networks you need to send them a cancellation in writing. "I hereby cancel the contract of 07......" Give your billing address, DOB, date contract took out and full name, for Data Protection.
Your contract should therefore be cancelled one month after the letter has been received.
Id recommend sending the letter by recorded delivery tbh, so they cant dispute its arrival.