# Dealing with Orange Mobile



## Stephen D (Aug 21, 2013)

Hi everyone.

I've got a contract with orange mobile and last year when I was in between houses I contracted their mobile wifi thing. Anyway to cut a long story short, it was terrible and I returned it after 3 days. They phoned me with the offer and caught me unawares and said "si, si" to every question I had about it. I will never accept any telephone offer again. Lesson learned.

This was last August. I noticed a week ago that they continued to charge me for it so I phoned them to sort it out. After two twenty minute calls with hideous hold music on Friday, they conceeded that I was telling the truth and told me to send a fax to cancel the service that I had cancelled last year.

I sent the fax on Monday asking for a cancelation and a refund (fat chance, I think!) and they still haven't replied. 

Meanwhile I have been perusing the spanish forums and this behaviour from orange seems to be rife. The best tactic it seems is to send a burofax to their head office as they can't ignore it.

It's just so infuriating how they pass the buck, or torear as the spanish say. I know for a fact if I ring them again I'll have to go through the whole story again.

Has anyone had any dealings with Orange and come out on top?

Steve.


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## olivefarmer (Oct 16, 2012)

*No*. Sorry.

I complained through all the official channels including Spanish version of Oftel. 

It was all most unsatisfactory despite them being 100% in the wrong.. The company hasn't a clue about customer service.

I will never use them again . Ever.

My tip for what it is worth is:

Find a person in the organisation that speaks good English (they do exist). get it sorted and cut your losses. You will not win no matter how strong your case.


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## Madliz (Feb 4, 2011)

Dealings with all telecom companies is infuriating here. I had similar problems with Vodafone a couple of years ago. I had ordered a mobile wifi unit but it never arrived. They began taking the money though, of course. I suggested that they could check that I had never used the unit, had never signed for a package with a courier company, but how else could I prove I had never received it? Many phone calls, visits to shops, emails, all had no effect. I stopped the direct debit with the bank. I then started getting threatening letters from a debt collection agency. The thing that worked was a trip to the consumer office at the local council (OMIC - Oficina Municipal de Información al Consumidor at your ayuntamiento). Within a week I had a refund. They were marvellous and told me that telecom complaints made up the bulk of their workload, followed by utility companies.


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## davexf (Jan 26, 2009)

Madliz said:


> Dealings with all telecom companies is infuriating here. I had similar problems with Vodafone a couple of years ago. I had ordered a mobile wifi unit but it never arrived. They began taking the money though, of course. I suggested that they could check that I had never used the unit, had never signed for a package with a courier company, but how else could I prove I had never received it? Many phone calls, visits to shops, emails, all had no effect. I stopped the direct debit with the bank. I then started getting threatening letters from a debt collection agency. The thing that worked was a trip to the consumer office at the local council (OMIC - Oficina Municipal de Información al Consumidor at your ayuntamiento). Within a week I had a refund. They were marvellous and told me that telecom complaints made up the bulk of their workload, followed by utility companies.


Hi 

I am having a similar saga with Movistar; I am now on the bad debtors list (which I have no objection to as I am not rich enough to have credit and no-one can impersonate me to get credit) and am still having threatening letters from Movistar solicitors even though I have a signed letter from Movistar saying that it was all their mistake and I don´t owe a penny! 

OMIC have been brilliant and know their stuff these days; That should ALWAYS be your first port of call so there is a timeline of events 

Davexf


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## Stephen D (Aug 21, 2013)

Thanks for all the replies.

I phoned them today and they said they received the fax, the service is cancelled and I'll get my refund within 30 days.

I found that hard to believe and said it to the operator, she said I'll get it, so let's wait and see.

I have a timeline of events, fax reports etc anyway should I need to go to OMIC.

Steve.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

I'm going to ask this here as it seems as good a place as any to.

OK, we have been with orange for 3 days and is it normal to have them ring and ask for your passport number(we joined with passports) over the phone?
They were also asking for bank details and confirmation of our address etc..
They did have some of our info at hand obviously but it came up as an unknown number and under no circumstance would I give that sort of info out over the phone.

Is that normal behaviour for orange? 
From some of the thing you read it may just well be.


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

Pazcat said:


> I'm going to ask this here as it seems as good a place as any to.
> 
> OK, we have been with orange for 3 days and is it normal to have them ring and ask for your passport number(we joined with passports) over the phone?
> They were also asking for bank details and confirmation of our address etc..
> ...


If someone rang me and asked for those details I would *refuse*!

Perhaps asking for a reference number and then offering to go into one of their shops would be the way to go.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Exactly, we refused and did offer to go into a shop to sort out whatever the issue is. It was made a lot more difficult due to the language barrier so realistically I have no idea what the problem was.

Still I think it's best to go into a branch and find out exactly and make sure we aren't signed up to anything else.
To be honest it sounded genuine enough and they had our account details at hand but it's bad practice to ask for those type of details over the phone and call on an unknown number.

Worse practice by me to of answered the phone in the first place.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Well the account has been blocked after I made one phone call.

So it must of been orange on the phone, they sent me a text saying

_Hemos desviado su linea a un agente especializado para facilitarle informacion sobre su consumo. +info en el 2206_

If I call that number or the other provided am I likely to get someone speaking English?
It doesn't matter I wont give them the details over the phone anyway.
If I go to a shop will they know how to deal with it?


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

Pazcat said:


> Well the account has been blocked after I made one phone call.
> 
> So it must of been orange on the phone, they sent me a text saying
> 
> ...


It's unlikely that they will be able to speak English. The shop should be able to call them on your behalf and sort it out.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Well I hope so because I'm pretty close to the edge as it is and if they can't/wont sort it out the poor guy in the shop is going cop all the built up rage over every other damn thing that people can't do correctly.

I mean c'mon, it's a phone line. What's the point in having one if you can't make a phone call without them then blocking your line.
Why don't they use their heads and figure I might just want to make a phone call occasionally.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Well it's been sorted but they said just because we fixed it doesn't mean it wont happen the next time I make a call.
The problem being that it was an international call so their system flags it despite being on an international package.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Not over yet.
It's like pulling teeth with these people.

So after an hour on the phone this morning where they make you jump through hoops and then make you pay immediately the cost of a phone call before recommending that you get another phone to make your calls, they then unblocked the phones but they only unblocked one of them not the two.

Going to have to go through all that again tomorrow because no way do I feel like bothering with that now.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

As it turns out the international contract doesn't allow you to call Australia.:doh:

Basically orange is a phone company that doesn't let people make phone calls or seem to want your money.

Any recommendations for a good international sim?


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

Telefonia movil barata en España omv Hitsmobile - HITS Mobile
They are offering 0€ for 1st 5 mins up to december 31st for anyone signing up now.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Thanks, that looks like it might suffice.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

I had a big problem with Orange, but that doesn't mean to say the other companies would have been any better. We left Orange and went back to Moviestar. I think they have improved a little and at least you know that they've got the lines that your phone is operating on, well at least that's the case in our area.
This is the government site that tells you where/ how you should make complaintss about phone companies apparently although one poster says that these people didn't solve his problem.
Oficina de Atención al Usuario de Telecomunicaciones - Oficina de Atención al Usuario de Telecomunicaciones
Another difficulty could be the language. I speak fluent Spanish but ended up giving the telephone to my husband or daughter who had no qualms about telling the call centre agents that they didn't understand a word they were saying. (We had a problem with the line and they kept telling us to check various parts of the instalation with technical language, which it turned out had been done wrong, by the original Telefónica workers... In the end I told them I was disabled and couldn't go up and down stairs )


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