Orange - what are they like?

[Andeh13]

My contract came for up renewal quite a while ago, and I've been on a 1 month rolling contract since then waiting to see what my usage would be when I started working (as opposed to being a student). Now that I;ve got a fairly good idea about it I am looking for new contracts


Having been with t-mobile for 5 years (!) I was hoping they would be able to make me a good deal, but was sadly disappointed. The best they could offer was £90 For the Galaxy S on a £30 contract for 18months. A good deal maybe, but for someone who has been on Flex 40 for 3 years and Flex 35 for the first 2 I was surprised they couldn't offer me something a bit more enticing.


What I showed the guy on the phone was Phones4U offering the phone with Orange for £27.50 a month for 18 months. He couldn't come close to matching it with the offer above (£90 then £30 a month) being the best he could do!


Either way, now as much as I have liked being with T-mobile, I can't ignore the fact I can get the same deal for £27.50!

Has anyone ever delt with phones4u before? Is is worth loosing 5 years of brand loyalty for the offer they have going? Whats their customer service like?

thanks guys

[razer121]

phones4u.....Well i could list aload of Cons with them but they also have there Pros aswell (like cashback but then look at how much you REALLY pay them for that...)

Either way, i've found there customer service to be crap, if your phone has broken, god help you...

But otherwise yes there great XD no im kidding, i think carphone warehouse would be a better bet!

[Rob_B]

Has anyone ever delt with phones4u before? Is is worth loosing 5 years of brand loyalty for the offer they have going? Whats their customer service like?

thanks guys

Why is loyalty to a company who don't care one iota about you something to want to keep?

Orange - My experience is awful offshore customer services, like 3 were when they first came out. I've dealt with some morons over the last few days, got through to a UK staff member, problem sorted in 30seconds...

Coverage ok, good 3G signal I believe.

P4U - Used to be cowboys (in the stores at least) Can't say I've had dealings with them recently but that's not to say they're any better/worse now.

Also - don't forget Quidco

[Andeh13]

Are there any disadvantages with going through them over Orange themselves? Problems with the phone & I'll prob go through Samsung, problems with the network I'll go through Orange I imagine?

Will orange know I am on the network through phones4u, in which case do i ask getting shunned if something goes wrong 6 months down the line?

[TheAnimus]

T-mobile and orange are merging.

As a T-mobile customer I'm bracing myself for the onslaught of crap customer service!

[Andeh13]

With them merging I'm probably just going round in a circle to join T-mob again in the future. It's that big step into the unknown im worried about! . I've always reminded T-mobile about how long I've been with them and I'm on a rolling contract & they move like lightening to sort me out...I don't want to downgrade to one of the ''standard'' users!

500mb of Data doesn't sound like much either, what sort of usage will that give me from Google maps? I imagine a video on youtube consumes a few mb of data per time?


edit: http://www.affordablemobiles.co.uk/basket.html

With deals like that, it seems even better, just need +£5 booster for internet. I can stay with T-mobile but get a great deal at the same time. Even if I do fluff the redemption It works out very nicely. My concern is if something goes wrong will I be bounced between T-mobile & the reseller, each blaming the other person for whatever my problem is?

Also if I take the offer out, can I still take T-mobile up on future upgrades/boosters to my price plan? Or do I need to do it through the reseller?


Are these companies just ''introducers'', or am I linked/tracked back to them? If I call T-mobile will they see me the same way as they would had I bought the phone & contract from their store?

[pauldarkside]

edit: http://www.affordablemobiles.co.uk/basket.html

Empty basket here, I don't have your cookies

[alpha channel]

Well the first (and last time) I bought anything through P4U was not a particularly good experience (this was a good few years ago so things might have changed). As far as my experience goes my phone developed a fault so I took it back to have it repaired or replaced. P4U decided to have it repaired which was fine by me unfortunately what wasn't was the better part of two months without a phone (and frankly rubbish excuses) only to get it back and two weeks down the road it went belly up again and a further month before I saw the phone again (this was the point I got sick and tired and I bought my V620, which I still use , from The Carphone Warehouse, finding out a while later that it was unlocked as well).

As for phone deals can't help there I'm afraid

[Andeh13]

I would probably go through Samsung if I had any problems with the phone, they have a 2 year warranty which I'd like to fall back on! I Imagine the risk is the same with any company, if it fails & having to return it etc.

It is tempting, there are quite a few of these online retailers doing it for what looks like 'too good too be true' money!

For those of you who don't have my cookies (you good honest folk you!):

http://www.affordablemobiles.co.uk/c...l?source=rupiz

That deals looks amazing, there must be a catch?

[Behemoth]

Orange - Where do I start ?

I've been with them since mid 2007 as a contract customer and to be really honest I've never been that happy. Text messages I send don't get delivered instantly, sometimes they can take days to reach the person I'm sending them to. I've tried different phones and even had them replace the sim card, still the same issue.

They have cut me off twice without so much as a text message or a call to say why. On each occasion I've had to phone up, talk to someone in India who's English is about as good as my Welsh tell me that I was cut off because I didn't pay my bill yet my bank account states otherwise.

They charge you for a paper bill so the best thing you can do there is switch to online billing mode and stop them sending you a paper bill otherwise you'll be paying £2 + VAT for that.

Refused to repair a faulty phone (Sony Ericson C902) last year when I was having problems with it. They said I needed to flash it to the latest firmware, which the phone refused to accept. Sony Ericson just kept referring me to Orange.

God only knows why I renewed with them for another 18 months earlier this year was beyond me, I think it was due to the fact that annoyingly round here they have the best coverage although thats now debatable as my signal is up and down like a whores knickers.

I'm dreading the merger with T-Mobile, and I can't wait to get shot of them.

[matty-hodgson]

Phone T Mobile and just remind them of the fact you've spent almost £2500 with them over the last 5 years and ask to speak to the manager..

[Lucio]

TBH, the deal I got from Three was outstanding. Under their Refurb section (http://threestore.three.co.uk/refurb.aspx), £25 a month, no money up front on a HTC Desire.

If it'd been used before, I'd like to have seen where Admitedly not a Galaxy S, but I think the next best thing, still got an 8GB SD card.

[Agent]

Orange is the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Never again.
Voda has ok CS, but coverage is really bad where I am.

O2 were the best for me, and I'll be going right back to them as soon as my contract is up.

[Mblaster]

I've been with Orange for about 2 years on contract now, never had any issues so my only experience of their customer service was changing the address on my account, no problems to report. They were good when I renewed, managed to get the HTC Desire for free on a £17.50 per month contract for 18 months, this was just after they were released.

[Andeh13]

That is what I feared Agent, rang them to discuss moving to them earlier & what they could offer for some needs of mine (international calls etc) and spent 25mins on hold before I gave up.

Hopefully this T-mobile contract will pull through, just a shame Orange (and T-mob now) are the only signals I can get in work!

[Agent]

The biggest issue for me was that they constantly screwed by bills up. Then denied it.
I literally had to phone them every month and go through my statement line by line to show them their errors. In one case, they applied VAT wrong (seriously, how?!) which took them a while to fix as they claimed VAT was auto added and not something they could easily change.

And they have totally killed my GF's credit rating - something we are still trying to fix. (TL;DR - phone broke, they wouldn't replace but offered to terminate contract. Then went on to sell this 'debt' on, even though they had terminated the contract, not her).

Nightmare, honestly