mobile phone charges. what would YOU do?

[5lab]

i recently spent a month in canada/usa, and i took my mobile out with me for use in case of emergencies (it is tri-band, and roaming enabled). before I left, i checked with orange how much call charges etc would be, and they told me that to recieve a call would cost me ~70p a minute, to make one is £1 a min and to text is 30p to send and free to recieve. great i think, i can send some texts without killing myself with the cost. get back here a couple of days ago and an orange bill is here.. total £60. £30 of that is my monthly plan (i have lots of mins/texts, so dont normally spend any more than this), and the other £30 is roaming charges. specifically, there are about 20 charges for 'outgoing rogers atnt canada' for £1.10, all to the number for voicemail (+447973 100123). I did not use my handset once for calls - i did not make a single call, and i did not recieve a single call. i think that what has happened is every time my phone has directed a call to voicemail, i've been charged £1.10. orange claim this isnt true, and are saying i made all those outgoing calls, some of which were at 5am (10am uk time - i was asleep). they are refusing to drop the charges. where do i stand? i did not dial out once from my handset. not ONCE. i dont want to pay for something i didnt use..

[TiG]

If the normal member of staff won't help you, ask to speak to a supervisior or ask them to get one to call you back. That this was not you making calls. If this continues you may be required to write them a letter stating that you are contesting this, and may need to get ofcom involved.

Have another go at customer services first tho.

TiG

[shiato storm]

dispute the bill. you should have a call log on the phone. failing that get hold of trading standards tell them whats what yada yada yada...or ofcom or whoever it is governing mobile networks...see what they say.
oh and tell orange you're cancelling your subscription to them right now, i wouldn't bother with talking to a 'manager' cause thats total BS you'll never get to speak to anyone with any responsibility - its a way of protecting the company...just be calm and don't get worked up cause its not the poor girl's fault on the other end.

[Rhyth]

Most people are advised to suspend the answer-phone service before they go because of this reason, at-least I always have. It's strange thet they are denying this. Can you request an itemization of these phantom calls? The rates are: to call- £1.10min, recieving 0.65min, txt35 , you will pay 0.65p min to recieve an answer-ph message before retrieving it! then £1.10min to listen to it. FROM THE HORSES MOUTH

You could try and explain that you were not made aware of these charges when asked.

Hope this helps mate.

[5lab]

they are all £1.10

i didnt phone anyone, not even the answer phone. my guess is my phone was re-directing to my answer phone, which i was being charged for. i dont agree with that, because i wasnt told about it (if i was i would have disabled the answer phone).

i think i will threaten them with oftel (or whoever) next time they phone back..

[Rhyth]

Not sure if you saw this. But do open a can of woop-ass on the phone, don't let them get away with it.

Most people are advised to suspend the answer-phone service before they go because of this reason, at-least I always have. It's strange thet they are denying this. Can you request an itemization of these phantom calls? The rates are: to call- £1.10min, recieving 0.65min, txt 0.35p per txt , you will pay 0.65p min to recieve an answer-ph message before retrieving it! then £1.10min to listen to it. FROM THE HORSES MOUTH

You could try and explain that you were not made aware of these charges when asked.

Hope this helps mate.

[scottyman]

you're being billed for an outbound call as it's redirected. bit annoying I know, but that's the way it goes. in fact it's cheaper to answer the call and say - "nope, I'll be back in a week" or whatever.

if you were away on business - pass the entire bill on to your company.

was funny with vodafone last year - my call charges for the month (when I was away) hit the £600 mark... vodafone called up to ask if my phone had been stolen - told them no - and I'm overseas. please tell your billing dept. not to charge me for this call as I'd not normally accept it.

true to their word - they took as deposit for the call - when I checked my bill, I'd not been charged for any calls at all on that day. would've been about £60 worth.

[MD]

A friend of mine is going to South Africa tonight, she called O2 to check on charges and she was told to switch off her mobile phone voicemail as if anyone calls it she will be charged the outgoing call rate. I can't see how this would be different for Orange.

If you have been with them a while and the call center or a team leader don't solve it for you, and you like a good phone arguement where you have to tell the person who picks up that you are not to transfer you to Customer Services then drop me a PM, I have the Orange Executive Services number for the group of people at orange who deal with serious issues, its fun calling them, but you gotta be real mean

m@

[5lab]

orange phoned me up to tell me they're paying me back all that money. which is nice of em

[Kumagoro]

5lab why are people always trying to rip you off hahah at least you got your money back
this time.

[5lab]

cos the world hates me