High Orange Bills

[ian1961]

I am on Orange's £35 per month tariff and yet my monthly bills are excessive. Over the last 4 months my bills have averaged nearly £100 per month. My latest outstanding balance is £196 and the last one I paid approx two months ago was £186. I do not receive a bill so I have no way of checking why the bills are so high. I am currently refusing to pay the latest bill and want to have my bills reviewed, butI cannot get access to my online account and now my mobile has been cut off so I cannot call Orange to discuss the bills. Has anyone had similar experience with Orange or another provider? Am I within my rights to withold payment because they have not provided me with a breakdown of my charges?

 

Any help appreciated

 

Ian

[Mr lex]

Hi Ian,

 

Welcome to the Consumer Action Group

 

A couple of questions,

 

1. Do you use the mobile internet ? it's a good way of running up a high bill without knowing.

 

2. Does anyone else have access to your phone ??

 

3. Can you view your bill online ?, most mobile comany's have this option.

 

Lex

[MrShed]

You can call them:

 

If you'd prefer to give us a call - please use one of these numbers. Pay monthly mobile customers

150 from your pay monthly phone or 07973 100 150 from any other phone

Pay as you go mobile customers

450 from your pay as you go phone or 07973 100 450 from any other phone

 

As for itemised billing, this is usually an optional extra that you pay for. Whether they legally have to supply it if you dispiute the bill, I am unsure.

 

What I would say is, a mistake may have occurred should you have an excessive bill one time. If it has been multiple, it is almost certainly down to your usage of the phone, and as such you are going to be ultimately liable. My suggestion would be to pay the bill, get reinstated, and take out itemised billing for future bills so you can assess your phone usage.

 

Mobile internet and "subscription" premium texts would probably be the culprit...

[ian1961]

Hi Lex

 

Thanks for the welcome and replying so quickly.

 

No one else has access to my phone and I have used the phone very infrequently to check emails. I also travel abroad and send texts, but again very few. Orange have barred me from using the online service so I am unable to check my bill online. Catch 22.

[MrShed]

By any chance do you have a raft of voicemails when returning from abroad?

[OrangePrimate]

Hi Ian

 

you can call to customer services on any Orange phone, including going into an Orange dealers and using theirs!! or landline to 07973100150.

 

they will then be able to give you a breakdown verbally of your bill. once paid you will then be able to access the online system and view your itemised bills monthly. You change your status for getting bills too when on the phone to CS, you can chose a fully itemised bill at a cost of £1.50 per month.

 

If you are abroad alot it may be the international calls you are making/recieving and the texts that are driving up the costs. that can be helped with a bundle on the account to lower the per min costs and/or you can by a batch of roaming minutes or texts for using abroad.

 

sorry you are in a bit of a catch 22 at the moment, but the itemised billing is a service that is available, if a customer choses not to use that service, they cant then say not paying the bill because dont know what the charges are for!! once outstandings are cleared you can get organised but if you really need to see some itemisation before paying anything, give CS a call and ask for copy bills to be sent out (they are £3 each)

OP

[Emil]

I signed up with Orange Mobile broadband in August 2009. I have received two bills for 6 weeks usage of £969.15. My limit was 3GB per month and I have been with Vodafone before this and never exceeded their limit.

Basically, I have been using my connection to access my mail and facebook and a few Windows update (0.2GB a month maybe)

 

I have declined the invoices but according to their customer service they have already given me a bad credit report.

Have sent an email to Jackie O'Leary (vice president of Orange Personal Communications). After that I got contaced by Executive department. First they offered me 25% off, when I did not agreed to that, the next offer was 50% off. I offered them to pay 25% and have a written document that I would not receive any bad credit report. At this point they are not willing to offer me that.

 

To me this totally outrageous, I know I am not responsible for the 19GB they claim I have been using. In Executive department they said that the case might be that I left the dongle in the computer over night and that is has been updating internet during that time.

 

I believe there is a major fault in Orange billing system and from what I learn many people share the same experience.

 

The next step for me is to send an email to BBC Watchdog and as many news papers as I can. I am not going Orange get away with charging me this amount and claim it is correct and also give me a bad credit report while I am in a dispute of this.

 

I am happy to hear from other clients of Orange Mobile broadband experiencing the same as I. My email is [email protected]

Together we are able to seek legal advice.

 

/Emil

[London D]

I have just discovered my next Orange bill is going to be just over £2,800. I have not yet received my monthly paper bill - I rang Orange's customer services regarding something else and inadvertently learned the news. My monthly bills are normally between £65 and £70. The reason is of course my Orange internet dongle that I brought with me to Ireland at Christmas. I called the Billing Department and they informed me there is no mistake and I must have been downloading some very large content.

The trouble, I used my internet dongle for the first time in Ireland last June and came home to a bill of over £300!! I called Orange then and complained, but had to accept that perhaps I inadvertently downloaded something large. I could remember showing my elderly parents Google Earth, and it was suggested to me that if I didn't have the program already on my laptop I would have been charged for the full download. Fearing this probably happened and it was my own fault I paid the bill. However I have since found that Google Earth was actually downloaded several months before, so I still don't know why the £300+ bill.

The point is, this time round, bringing my laptop and dongle to Ireland, I was extra extra careful not to open any attachments on emails, not to accept any software updates (despite being plagued by Adobe for a Reader update), not to open anything that might have been larger than an email. I used the internet for emails and for weather forecasts for roads: sites such as AA Roadwatch, as you'll all remember most roads at the time were carrying severe warnings.

I am in shock at a bill for £2800.00: it's not quite sunk in yet.

Orange Collections department have offered to take £254 from me per month for the next 11 months, presumably that's when my contract needs renewing. During this 11 months I can keep the phone for incoming calls only, and 'helpfully' Orange won't charge me a line rental during this period. I could pay the £2,800 now - if I had it, and if I was really stupid. But I'm not: I don't have that kind of money and I'm not going to accept this. I have absolutely no idea what to do next however. The Collections lady was actually genuinely sympathetic, which was a relief, and she has granted me a 2 week 'stay of execution' to allow me time to write a representation to them.

Edited January 22, 2010 by London D

[Emil]

I am sorry to hear about your bad experience.

I was in the same situation when I first got their bills, I thought something had gone wrong with my network.

But after using Mobile Broadband for a couple of years with three different providers - the usage with my dongle with Orange was high from day 1 up until they disconnected it.

I don't think I am responsible for that - I have NOT changed my Internet behaviour and when I then choosed 3 Mobile Broadband after I had no problem using the same computer.

There are so many people that are experiencing problems with them.

They said in Citizen advice bureau that they have had a few cases with them as well, only in Camden.

Decline the invoices, question their billing. That is all I can advise.