So a very senior person from Orange called me this morning and offered to send me a brand new iPhone completely free as a replacement for the old one. They confirmed this should have been done on Day 1. They are also paying for the calls I made and will be conducting a full investigation into the managers conduct. It turns out he was not only giving me false advice but also a false name. They will also be taking further steps as a result of staff leaving notes on my account stating "Customer has damaged phone" despite nobody at Orange seeing the phone since it was sold. Overall I'm still disappointed but I'm happy enough with the end result as it was what I was after, a replacement phone without needlessly travelling to Glasgow or sending it away for days on end, which Orange now agree is unacceptable (They should not be using Apples usually excellent service as an excuse to avoid the retail store processing a replacement)

I have spoken to the Executive Office on the phone today who have advised that they cannot deal with my enquiry without an Ofcom reference number. They are adamant that this must be dealt with by customer services

I'll give that a try when they open tomorrow morning Perhaps if it is a franchise that explains the level of attitude as the manager will think he's less likely to be reprimanded

Thats my plan now, I only originally kept calling the Store on Customer Services advice, haven't spoken to the store since yesterday afternoon. C/S has tried and they can't get through so I doubt id have much luck anyway. I definitely think raising this with the highest possible level is the best route otherwise other people are going to potentially have the same problems as me.

No problem, 15/1/12 So today I was supposed to receive a call back “Just after 11″ as the lady I spoke to yesterday was going to speak to the manager of the store and explain to him their understanding of the Sale of Goods act. I have not heard anything yet and it is now 12:17pm, so thats another member of staff to add to long the long list of ones that have lied to me. This has gotten so ridiculous I have to re-iterate again that I am not making any of this up nor do I make any money from this blog. More updates to come later today no doubt as I’ll be phoning them soon. 15/1/12 12:42 10 minutes after the above update went up I received a call. They are STILL unable to get a hold of the store despite trying for over an hour, starting 15 mins before the store even opened. So again they repeated ad nauseum was “Theres nothing more we can do”, I said there must be some way of contacting the store cush as contacting another Edinburgh store and getting them to call or text the manager personally, or call the Area Manager, or email the store or something…Nothing “theres nothing more we can do, its the stores responsibility” Now, I’m more than prepared to go into the store, the problem I have is that particular manager has been pretty aggressive to me on the phone and has already threatened to call the police if I do show up. Whilst this is probably a bluff I’m not prepared to take the risk as he’s got a habit of not playing by the rules with me and so he could say anything to the police to get me taken away. I Was transferred to Chris in Dealer Support, he is now escalating this “as high as he possibly can”. He agrees the managers treatment of me is “disgusting”, He is the first person at Orange to agree that I am entitled to a replacement. I now just have to wait unto 5 days for them to deal with it. When I do get to speak to someone when they call back I’ve made it clear to orange I want the phone replaced, my phone calls paid for and the phone unlocked so that I can take my custom elsewhere. We’ll see what happens. As soon as I hear anything more I will post another update.

Theres been a few updates on this today, i've updated the blog at xxxxxxxxxxxxxx with the details and screenshots etc. Its probably easier reading it there than me trying to post it all again on here? If thats not cool let me know

Thanks for that, certainly something I'll look into

Thanks, I've quoted that too them so many times now, they just refuse to acknowledge the SOGA existence, they think their 14 day policy is enough

I'm not sure what the rules are about posting to other sites so I'll paste this here as well. This has been my experience over the last 2 days with orange who refuse to replace my 16 day old iPhone 4S. Heres the story originally posted at thechunkygeek.wordpress.com which I am updating everytime something new happens. Sorry about the length. Its quite shocking just how inept Orange have been with this, its got staff telling lies, swearing, trying to break the law, all its missing is sex! Any help or advice with how to proceed are the best course of action would be grateful. Orange – My worst customer service experience ever. Jan 13 I’ve worked in Customer Service for the last 11 years and today has taught me new lows of how to treat customers like ****. I want to stress straight from the off that this piece is not intended to get sympathy or even to “shaft” Orange. It’s more to share with people my astonishment that this type of thing can happen. I promise that every single word that follows is 100% true, some of this makes me seem like a bit of an awkward p**** but I’ve left them in for the sake of transparency My Girlfriend bought a White iPhone 4S on pay and go on the 30th of December as a late christmas present from the Orange Store in the Cameron Toll Shopping Centre in Edinburgh, all has been fine with it until last night when we noticed that a long, thin piece of the glass panel on the front has come away from the phone. The phone has never been dropped at all and this is obviously just one of the freak manufacturing faults that happens from time to time. No big deal, We’ll ring Orange in the morning. I called the store at 13:30 and spoke to a Female who did not give me her name and has not left notes on the account (despite speaking to me for 10 minutes) who said that Orange may replace the phone but as it was us who damaged it that it was unlikely as “it was outside of the 14 days and not our problem anymore”. I explained that the phone has never been dropped etc and that it was obviously weak, there are no scuffs or scratches anywhere else on the phone. I asked to speak to manager to get a better idea before making the trip and the Female said she would pass my details on, she then continually repeated variations of “Will you let me take the details” even though I was continually giving her my name and number! The manager then took over the call and said without hesitation or pause “Are you going to allow me to take your number, too ****ing late then, bye bye” and hung up. Now as someone who has worked in call centres I have seen this trick employed before, as it plays to the fact the other people hearing the call can only hear one side. Its a good way of being “taken offline” for 5 minutes after having a difficult customer. Called back almost immediately (9 seconds elapsed according to the phone timings) and a male answered. I was told that the manager was not available as he was on the phone to a customer, I said “That was probably me, the call ended and I need to speak to him further, he said “No the manager has been on the phone for at least 10 minutes and is not available” I told him I could hear the manager giving him instructions in the background and again the call was ended abruptly at the stores end. Called back again and eventually spoke to Jim, the manager, who said that as the handset was in its 15th day I am not entitled to a refund or replacement from the store. I told him this was illegal as the product was not fit for purpose (the defect is potentially quite dangerous as its a glass display so its becoming sharp) He then said he could not speak to me because i wasn’t named on the account (nobody is named on the account, only the address is listed and he had already discussed it with me so DPA would have already been broken) He spoke to my partner who took a number to call for a “doorstep replacement within 24 hours” she confirmed this was accurate 3 times before ending the call Called Orange C/S, explained the situation and they advised that they do not replace pay as you go phones that have been purchased instore irrespective of the 14 day period. They confirmed that the 14 days only applies to refunds and not replacements or repairs. They stated that the store should replace any faulty products from their stock to minimise impact on other parts of the business, if this is not possible they should refer them to another store that has stock, if both are not possible stock should be ordered in for the customer. We asked to speak to a manager to confirm this and they confirmed this is the procedure. Called back the store and spoke to Jim again, who stated that the above advice was false. He said “I think your lying because if you spoke to C/S how come there are no notes on your account?” I said I don’t add the notes and it was only a few minutes since I spoke to the advisor so maybe they were still updating the system (We found out in a later call that the reason the notes had not been updated was because JIm had left the account open, preventing it from being updated.). I asked him how we could proceed, if it means ordering stock or sending for repair he said “There’s nothing more Orange can do, we only cover you for the first 14 days, after that your not our problem anymore” After some discussion about how poor and illegal that policy is he said “I really don’t care, take it up with Trading Standards if you think you’ve got a case then” I explained I will call customer service back incase they had it wrong but that I wasn’t confident. Jim said “Well don’t bother calling me back because I have more important stuff to be getting on with” in the aggressive tone I’d become used to and then hung up. Called back C/S who again confirmed that Jims advice is wrong, I asked them to check the account and add notes so that I can prove that I called customer service. They were unable to get into the account because Jim was still in it and said they’d phone the store to resolve. They could not get through even though they tried 3 times over a 15 minute period. I asked the advisor if it would be ok to record her telling me that they cannot replace the phone on behalf of the store and that the store should 100% be offering a replacement irrespective of the 14 day refund. She also suggested I go to an Apple store if theres one nearby, I explained the nearest on is in glasgow and whilst Ive been there before it usually as part of a bigger trip to Glasgow as its too far otherwise. (There are other reasons like not having enough time to get there during school hours or having to drag a six year old all the way to glasgow and back because of something Orange should be dealing with) I then thanked her and ended the call, safe in the knowledge that if Jim was confused about the procedure then he’d understand better now? How wrong was I. I redialled the store at 14:35 no answer, I then tried a further 27 times between then and 16:00 before I eventually got an answer. During this time I had transcribed the recording and got it ready on my laptop to play it and also got a few pieces from the sale of goods act ready, nothing too arsey or technical just the basics that explain why I felt I was in the right. Jim picked up the phone and when I asked if there was a problem with the phones or something he said “No, we told you you weren’t our problem any more so we put all the phones on silent” and hung up! I was shocked at this because not only does it give me a problem as a customer but anyone else who was trying to call them was ignored for an hour and a half! I called back again and explained to Jim “If your not going to speak to me on the phone then would you prefer that I came and spoke to you in person” Jim immediately raised his voice and said “Are you ****ing threatening me? If you come down here I’ll get centre security to sort you out” I politely explained that there was no threat, implied or otherwise so not to twist my words. I also calmly explained that “I used to work for the security company who are contracted to the centre and so not only do I know the rules about what people can and can’t do, I also know the area manager” I then began explaining my points I’d prepared earlier, I had been talking for about 45 seconds when I asked JIm “Do you see where I’m coming from”? No response but I knew the call was live as I could still here sounds, the following is word for word what was said as I’d recorded this part in evernote: Me: “Hello…Hello…Jim?…are you there? Jim?” Jim: “I’m here” Me: “What happened there did you hear my question?” Jim: “No, because your were rabbiting on and the other phone rang so I answered that instead” Me: “So you didn’t think to tell me you were doing that?” Jim: “No, why would I?” Me: “Because its polite?” Jim: “I don’t want to be polite to you! Look, just go to the Apple store in Glasgow like customer service told you that you had to” (His emphasis not mine) At this point I started to lose my temper, I asked him “So your saying that anyone who buys a phone from you is only covered for 14 days” he said “yes, like everywhere else”, I asked what happens if a phone breaks or develops a fault after that time he said “Its usually the customers fault anyway so its not really a problem we would tell them to go to the manufacturers own store” When I explained that only Apple has retail stores and theres no such thing as a RIM store or a Samsung store he said “Well thats not my problem, just like your not my problem, now I have to go because I haven’t had my break yet, don’t bother wasting your time phoning back cos my staff will be told to hang up on you, byyyyeeeeee” I’ve since left 4 messages on the answer machine at the store and heard nothing back. I’ll stress again I haven’t written this for sympathy, or to get some sort of compensation for orange or anything like that, all I want is for Orange to replace my girlfriends 15 day old iPhone so she’s not running the risk of catching her hand on it and so its back to being how Apple intended it. If you could do me a favour and send this and post it to as many places as you feel comfortable I would be extremely grateful, its about time people like Jim and Orange realise when they treat customers badly nowadays they aren’t going to just bitch to a few mates down the pub.

I started a summary cause case against RBS in jan and the hearing date is the middle of march, unfortunately due to unforseen circumstances i haven't been able to get the papers served as of yet. Am i right in saying it has to be done 21 days before? If so can i contact the sheriff court and ask them to delay it? Any advise would be much appreciated

Got the paperwork back from court today. Hearing date set for march (i won't say when, dont want Rbos to figure out who this is and monitoring the case too much) So the bank should be served soon, then the ball is in their court (pun intended)

I was supposed to, but never did! doesn't matter anyway apparently, its not possible to sign away your legal right to something

Managed to find charges to make up the rest of the claim. letter should be delivered to the bank on monday Does anyone know if it will make a difference that i've had a refund before? tommy mclean refunded £1250 to me but im due around £3000 in total and im claiming for 1455 this time round through the court

summary cause is limited to £1500. i took my forms up today but unfortunately i sent the bank the schedule of charges so didn't have them, its going to take another 40 days and a SAR to get the rest i also wasn't aware that you had to pay a sheriffs officer to serve the papers when making a claim at summary cause level. Feel a bit rubbish and close to giving up. Basically back to square one now

yep sheriff court for me. how long is it normally before the hearing? if it gets that far?

I sent off my letter before action which was completely ignored, i gave the customer relations team a call to confirm receipt and ended up in a conversation with ross mcdonald about a refund, he said he would be very willing to discuss settling this out of court and if i could email him the chedule of charges. I did this and received an email saying he would reply in due course. This was on the 12th december. I waited until after xmas and had heard nothing, so i gave the customer relations team another ring, they said that ross was away due to a family grievance and that the issue would not be dealt with until his return, i said i was not prepared to wait and they said they would get someone to ring me back. Heard nothing. I called them again last thursday and spoke directly to ross who stated that, despite his enthusiasm to resolve the issue quickly during our previous conversation he stated that the policy is now no longer to settle ANY claims out of court. I tried to ask him about this as he was willing and i had been messed around by them for a month now. He then said "see you in court" and hung up. I immediately filled out the forms and will be taking them to the sheriff court tomorrow. What i want to know is i started a seperate claim back in august which tommy mclean settled out of court, £1250. I have been charge £1080 in charges since august alone so i have decided to issue a claim for £1420 which is the charges since the last settlement and the remainder of the previous claim. Is it £39 tomorrow when i take the forms up? Can i write a cheque for it? I also would like to know what is likely to happen as i am a bit confused as to the procedure after the court proceedings have started and i'm not very good with legal speak rtc, any help will be appreciated. Thanks

I already had a refund of £1250 in august, but since then i have had another £586 in charges, (i had a lot of failed direct debits due to other issues). And i have begun again by sending the 1st letter, no response. I am now on the LBA. Has anyone ever successfully claimed twice? To get the refund last time after getting the standard fob off letters i spoke directly to tommy mclean and he authorised a refund for he very next day. I do have to say that he seems a thoroughly nice bloke and was very open and honest about claiming charges. He told me that the reason they don't just pay out straight away is because most people give up and that he is happy to speak to anyone regarding the issue.

Over the recent months when calling customer services i have been hung up on several times, i have been mis-informed on numerous occasions by both advisors AND managers. I have had my account suspended due to reaching my credit limit, recieved the standard "approaching your credit limit" text message an hour after suspension. I was then informed by a manager that my account would be re-instated, only for it to be suspended at midnight. This happened 2 days in a row despite re-assurances on both occasions that as long as i paid the bill by a certain date i would continue to receive a service. I have requested several times in the past that my payment date is changed to the 27th of the month and this has never been processed. The website is frequently out of date which stops me being able to keep track of my allowance/calls etc. In the past few weeks i have also purchased a nokia 6131 from the t-mobile store in edinburgh which later turned out to be faulty, despite returning the phone to the store in as new condition within 28 days i was told under no circumstances would i be given a refund and if i took a less expensive phone as a replacement i would not be entitled to a refund of the difference. This was eventually resolved with a printout of the "sale of goods act" which was shown to the store manager. I have also been informed that the notes on my account state that i have been "cheeky and abrupt" with advisors on the telephone, which would constitute a breach of data protection as "cheeky" would be tantamount to a personal opinion. I was also informed that the only time i could speak to the cancellation department/ loyalty team would be between the hours of 13:00-16:30 as they were "too busy" otherwise. I was also told that i could recieve a callback from a manager but at "a time which suited them" not myself as the customer. A little over 2 weeks ago the sim card i had began to show the message "insert your sim card" i tested the sim in around 10 seperate handsets but the same message appeared. i then called to report this fault only to be told i had broke the sim and i would be charged £10 for the replacement, after much persuading of the advisor and a check with his manager this again was confirmed to be incorrect and the sim was replaced free of charge. This arrived only to have EXACTLY the same problem. I again tried the new sim in several different handsets only to get the same results. The following is the main body of an email recieved from ofcom, using the ofcom.org/complain/ online form, in response to the same text from above "Let me begin by thanking you for taking the time to contact myself with regards to the issues you have experienced recently with t-mobile. Some of the issues you have discussed would need to be raised with the t-mobile customer services/relations department however the issues you have had with regards to your account billing and sim are of a subject we will address. I would recommend following t-mobile's escalation process first as they may be able to offer a resolution, if you are still unsatisfied with t-mobiles response then please contact us again using the same email address and we will investigate this further. We take all reports of customer dissatisfaction extremely seriously and will investigate regardless of the type of issue. You also asked if it was possible to end your contract early, whilst given the events which have transpired would constitute a breach of t-mobiles terms and conditions this would need to be processed with t-mobile. As they have attempted to replace a faulty product once already without a resolution then you are entirely within your consumer rights to a refund for the time unable to use the product/service or early termination of the service without further cost to yourself" I do not feel i have been a valued t-mobile customer since joining t-mobile and in fact actually fear calling the customer services departments. I used to be a customer of orange and speaking to their customer services was a pleasure i also used to recieve a handset upgrade every 3 months providing i paid the upgrade fee, (usually £50), and if i was with them now i would also get free broadband, 3g video calling and television services. I have yet to find any benefit of my contract with t-mobile. I was wondering what you guys think i should do? i've sent this to customer relations, should i be looking out for anything? any idea what will happen apart from being told to get stuffed?

RBOS have already refunded me £1250 as a "full and final settlement" however i have seen that other people have accepted this and still claimed the full amount. Would you recommend i do the same? i accepted the offer last month but im still due around another £1000

I am very worried about them revoking my overdraft. I need the money.

Just a little update, I got a letter offering me £1235 which i have accepted and i am waiting on payment. However what i want to know is i have a 1000 over draft at the mo but i am approximately 1200 overdrawn. Will the bank use the offer to clear my full overdraft including the agreed one? or will the just clear the unauthorised £200 and let me keep my other one? if they clear it then this past 2 months has been a complete waste of time, but i will say that if it does i will be going to the sheriff court to claim the rest and also the newspapers. Oh and by the way, Full and final setllement my @r$e.

Did not hear back from neither tommy or neil. I will give them one last days grace today and then i'm going to the sherriff court. if there due me over 2k sure as hell im not going to sit about and let them keep it

Ok. I spoke to tommy mclean directly this morning and he said that he is going to get some nice chap called neil to give me a ring back later to let me know if there is anything else they can do. I've been honest with them and stated that if they are able to refund at least £1500 then i'll drop it. However that is the lowest i'm willing to accept and if a suitable arrangement can't be made then i'll be taking my behind upto the sherriff court (its on my route to work anyway). Ill let you know what happens.

will do. im phoning first thing in the morning so ive got time to go to the court if they tell me to shove it.

I am at the stage before sherriff court currently looking to claim around the £2400 mark. I have sent my LBA and the deadline has expired, just got their standard template. so im about to toddle off to the sherriff court. Before i do this do you think i should give customer relations a ring and see if they will re-think there mistake? If they pay me now they'll only be benefiting themselves in the long run.