Orange bill overcharging!!

[skintfedupstudent]

I was wondering if anyone could provide any advice as to my current situation. I've been a longstanding orange customer and last year in august upgraded my phone again, with an associated 12 month contract for 200 free x network mins and 500 free texts. However, at the beginning of April, I recieved a bill from them where they had charged me for every text message, which raised my bill by £50. As I am a student on a careful budget, I attempted to ring them on a number of occasions over the next two days but was left holding for ages, so I went on their website. There was a link there where you could contact them, so I did, explaining the situation and requesting that they amend the bill appropriately or contact me if there was a problem. As I didn't hear from them, I assumed (wrongly as it turned out) that the problem had been rectified. However, Orange took the original incorrect amount out of my account on the given day, causing further direct debits to 'bounce' and for me to go overdrawn on my overdraft. I rang Orange repeatedly about this and when I eventually got through (after a bit of wrangling) they admitted they had been wrong and re-instated the 500 free texts. However, they are now saying that I cannot have the money back that they wrongly took out of my account, rather that it will be 'credited' to my Orange account instead. I explained about the resultant bank charges and requested that they re-imburse me for these also- they have refused stating that once a bill is issued it cannot be amended (even if it is incorrect!) and that I should have known that and cancelled my direct debit (my psychic powers were turned off that particular day). I asked them why they hadn't contacted me about this and they said they had emailed and rang me (I have neither recieved an email, nor have any voicemails or missed calls from them on my phone). The conseqeunce of all this is that, I now have NO money whatsoever to live on this month, am rapidly running out of food and am afraid to borrow much as do not have the capacity to pay it back. I'm in real difficulty and when I asked Orange's Customer Service dept to ring me about this they were extremely unhelpful stating that they do not reply to email's via phone (which they later contradicted and is all semantics as far as i'm concerned). They have refused to help me,despite the situation they have placed me in and have said I am entitled to make a formal complaint, which could then go to the mediation service, however, this process could take 8 weeks!!! I have had to have three days off due to this situation to try and sort something out (to no avail) and because the stress has made me ill-have become very depressed and anxious as I can see no way out. Please can anyone offer any advice? Thank you.

[morteee]

I had exactly the same problem with Orange last year, keep hammering at them about the bank charges, I did and I eventually got them refunded to my orange account as a good will gesture, also contact your bank and see if they will refund the charges on the basis that it was an incorrect DD amount generated by a 3rd party and as such the DD should be covered by the DD guarentee, I did this with halifax and they refunded the charges to my bank account without arguament as they said alot of their customers with Orange had had the ame problem!

my other piece of advice would be get the hell away from orange as soon as you possibly can, they used to ba a great company a couple of years ago but these days their customer service is shocking and their billing process is terrible!

I am now a very happy O2 customer and when I approached Orange with the offer O2 had made me to see if they could match it (just out of curiosity) they admitted they couldnt!

[buzby]

I doubt the bank will refund as the guarantee only relates to where an error is made when they advise an amount and take a different one. Since your complaint is not that you didn't know what they were taking (covered) but that the billed amount was incorrect (not covered). All you are entitled to is 10 days notice that an advised amount is being taken from your account, NOT that is correct. You are expected to chase them for your money back, it isn't a guarantee matter. You'll note a DD is not the ideal way to keep control of your finances.

You need to get them to clarify why the promised free text package did not materialise, it may be a wrong tariff code was entered. Once they agree to this, and recalculate the bills, you ask them to compensate you for your additional charges incurred because if their incorrect debit. It'll be a slog, but at least winnable.