Trouble after signing up to Orange Broadband

[Parm]

Hi all,

My girlfriend signed up to an 18-month Orange mobile phone contract about two weeks ago. For £30 a month, she gets unlimited texts and 200 minutes. Whilst signing her up for this package, we opted to go for the Orange Home Starter broadband package too, with the mobile phone contract the broadband came to only £5 a month. She's been using dial-up so any broadband is likely to be better!

Things haven't turned out quite as planned though. Firstly, there was no e-mail confirmation of the order we'd placed. The phone did turn up on the scheduled delivery date, and that was fine. We phoned Orange to register her new sim card, gave them her PAC code from O2, and the phone is working. Orange say the number from O2 will be transferred around January 2nd.

We wondered however why we hadn't heard anything about the broadband, so we asked. Orange said they hadn't received an order for broadband but could put the order in, Home Starter for £5 a month. We said great, do that please.

Now, our understanding was that Home Starter provided a simple USB modem used to give DSL access. Speeds of up to 2mb and a low monthly usage cap, but for £5 a month, it's all my partner needs. She's currently living with her parents, and doesn't want the broadband to interfere with her parents' BT line at all. Judging by the website, we both assumed that Home Starter was broadband only and the more expensive package, Home Max, provided broadband, line rental and calls.

Yesterday, the modem arrived and with it a letter stating that the broadband is ready to go and that although the home line rental would remain payable to BT, all calls would now go through Orange. Not what she wanted at all and this really wasn't made clear on the Orange website or via their welcome letter.

Both my partner and I spent nearly two hours on the phone to Orange yesterday (on their overpriced support lines) speaking to foreigners who had absolutely no idea. Firstly they tried to tell us that the home phone line calls would switch to Orange on January 3rd and we'd need to call them after that in order to disable the calls service. That to me sounded like the advisor was trying to put the issue off and get rid of us.

The next person suggested that if we cancelled the service now, we would incur a charge for the 18 month contract. This is the same day the service started!

The third person advised that we could switch to a 'Home Select' package that provided only broadband, no calls service, but would cost £15 a month. Not ideal either, that's paying more for no reason.

Finally, the fourth person suggested that although Orange has placed a request with BT to takeover the calls on the homeline, it shouldn't be processed until January 3rd and we can contact BT in the meantime and ask them to prevent any change. So, we give BT a call and speak to a seemingly helpful guy who says it can be done, puts us through to the right department but after being on hold for 30mins with no answer, we decide to give up for the day.


SO!...

My partner wants to keep her mobile phone and contract, £30 a month, that's fine.

She'd be happy to keep Orange broadband for £5 a month but doesn't want her parents' home phoneline calls to be charged via Orange, all that needs to remain BT. Is there anyway we can get this done? If so, is there a telephone number we could dial that has useful and understandable Orange advisors on the other end?

Last but not least, if this can't be arranged so the calls stay with BT, is there anyway she can just cancel the Orange broadband without being charged? The modem only arrived yesterday so I'm hoping there's a 7 day cancellation period or something...?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, we don't seem to be getting much from Orange!

[joshwa]

According to this you have a statutary 10 days cooling off period - you'll need to notify them by phone, and recorded letter:

Moneysupermarket.com - Orange Broadband: 14 Day Cancellation Period? Please Help!

Another posts says you need to cancel before it goes live.

edit - AOL give a 7 day cooling off period and help on how to cancel here:
How to cancel your broadband membership if you are within your cooling off period - AOL Help