Third party Orange rip off

[progenic7]

Hi all !

wondered if anybody had any thoughts about this...a while ago my orange contract was coming to an end and orange rang me to upgrade (but it wasnt actually orange) i said yes thats fine as i wanted to do that anyway. the phone arived the next day and i realised it was from a third party company who sell orange talk time. I send the phone back and ask them to cancel the agreement as i felt id been duped. I didnt post it recorded delivery and low and behold the company say they didnt receive the phone and that there was nothing they could do. So i had to pay 12months contract for a phone i didnt have in my possesion !
I rang orange to complain saying id been duped and i needed everything cancelling, they too said there was nothing they could do and that i had to pay the contract fee's (£25 a month).
I rang the company in scotland and asked them to send me a copy of the recorded phone conversation and guess what the systems were down and they had lost it.
Anyway i refuse to pay and i close my account with orange down in disgust, a few months go by and its past to a debt recovery office. They then put £265 charge ontop of the £300 contract charge for accepting the case.
In the end i payed it to avoid court action, this was a couple of years ago. I would be very greatful of any advice !

[progenic7]

just googled the company involved and got paged and pages of complaints back lol.

I was telephoned to upgrade my Orange phone, by whom I thought was Orange, but in fact it was North East Radiopaging who xxxxxxx me into thinking that they were Orange.
Sent incorrect handset, to wrong address, and invoiced me for incorrect tariff. Did not inform me of any 14 day cancellation period.Were totally unreasonable when I tried to sort this out on 13th day, (in an Orange shop - and were extremely rude to the Orange advisor).
Did not send any written agreement and refused to do so. Will not accept phone back even though it hasn't been used.
They didn't upgrade my contract, they added a new account - which has left me with very high bills. The sad thing is that Orange will not cancel the contract - even though North East Radiopaging are their agents - and so are using the situation to gain themselves instead of protecting me, their existing customer.
Am now seeking advice from Trading Standards and my solicitor with a view to starting legal proceedings againt North East Radiopaging. They are going down.

[buzby]

This scam is more common than you would believe. Do not assume that the person calling you (to your mobile OR landline) that they are even aware you have a contract with a network, but the call script leaves these things ambiguous, and leave you with your existing contract and a new commitment. The only way out of this is to cancel your original contract - which, hopefully is out of its minimum term. So that you don;y lose your number, get a PAC code to have it transferred to a PAYG SIM card.

You WERE conned, but unfortunately the contract you didn't sign is still binding - even signing for delivery of the handset can be taken as full acceptance of the contract terms. As for blaming Orange, for all they knew you wanted another handset for a family member and would not ordinarily barr you getting one. As yo what legal proceedings you could take that would be successful I'm not sure. Their tactics were suspect, but the contract would still be valid unless the judge found they were deceptive in their claims, and very often they are not - it is the customer who makes the wrong assumptions and is left holding the contract. So do be careful!