I have been off the planet for 2 days due to the f**king IDIOTS that are Orange!!! 2 weeks ago I rang Orange to check to see if I could change my talk plan with them. I wanted to move onto one of their apparently super duper animal talk plans. On the face of it they look like a much better deal even though the f**kers are tying you into an 18 month contract! And Where once I would have been able to upgrade for free at 10 months? – No, Will I f**k – of course not cause that would be a deal that customers might actually benefit from. Anyway back to the point – I was told that o the 17th of the month I’d be able to sort it all out so while working away (painfully as I was having to use my Orange mobile as a modem with a painstakingly slow connection of 230k) I looked at the handsets on offer and rather stupidly got my hopes up with excited thoughts that maybe with a new better contract and a shiny new handset I could possibly have Orange make my life a lil easier! – WRONG!!!!
So last week I went into an Orange store here in Manchester. The 17th was coming up but it was a Sunday so I needed to find out what time they closed on the coming Sunday to see if I would be able to get out of the studio and to the store in time to sort all this stuff out. The lad I spoke to told me they closed at 8pm. As you can imagine i was a lil taken aback so i asked him: “are you sure? on a Sunday? – Not Monday – i mean Sunday?” he assured me Sunday was an 8 pm close. Cut to Sunday – We finished in the Studio around 4:20 so i walked up to the store and got there at 4:45 only to have the security guard block me from entering. – Guess what he said. Yes that’s right!!! they were closed!!!! i asked when they closed and he said 5pm! UUUUUH WHAT? its bloody 4:45pm!!! Then he gives me that typical security guard look of helplessness which is failing to conceal his true feelings of – I really couldn’t give a flying f**k as this means I am getting out of wok early! You know the one I mean, it inspires feelings of wanting to mach the expression wearers face in with an oversized ice pick. (this is the first point of Orange staff seemingly never giving a crap about customers and not being bothered) Not being happy with this i Got the number of the store from directory enquiries and walked round the corner and rang the shop. Who ever’s phone the line was diverted to had there phone unlocked in their pocket and instead of being greeted by the sounds of a welcome to the Orange store I got chatter between the staff which went along the lines of- “Yeah that guy earlier was a right f**king d**k head, glad we got him sorted in the end” and so on and so forth! OOOOh the professionalism just oozed from that call! I was really impressed! This is when I started to get really annoyed. I gave up and headed back to the studio with the intention of returning the following day.
Cut to Monday afternoon. – I got to the store and was seen immediately by a phone trainer. He was very helpful. He helped me choose the talk plan that suited me best and I had already chosen my handset – A lovely new spangly SPV M600. After going through the motions he came back to me saying I’m afraid you cant do that as the system is saying you cant change your talk plan yet. WTF????? I was already told that I could!!! What the F**k is going on here???? I told him that he was wrong and he gave me that “don’t give a s**t” stare so i called orange myself, spoke to a lady who confirmed I was right and then shoved my handset at the assistant. Full of apologies he continued the transaction. (this is the second point of Orange staff seemingly never giving a crap about customers and not being bothered – oh they has got some great customer service skills innit!!). This goes to show how bad Orange are as there systems don’t collaborate on key customer information. One system says one thing another system says something else! Had I not pushed the matter I would have found myself waiting unnecessarily for an extra month! How idiotic is that!!!!
So he continued to process my transaction and while I was waiting I was again shocked, this time by another member of staff. An elderly gentleman came in to sort his pay as you go sim card and get some money put on it. He did not have his phone with him but did have his card and for what ever reason there was a screw up of some sort. I think they needed to know his phone number which he didn’t know. Now, instead of being polite, the assistants attitude of treating the gentleman like he was an idiot! then getting a little irate with him as he had to go through a refund procedure and it was all the mans fault! What an A**EHOLE! Had that been me i would have had a right go at the assistant for being so bloody rude but the timid old guy just stood there apologizing while huffy w****r assistant dude did the refund. (this is the third point of Orange staff seemingly never giving a crap about customers and not being bothered – only this time the guy seemed visibly put out by the fact that he actually had to do his job!!!). Ok so back to my story. Once i was sorted the assistant told me that within 16 hours my new handset would be activated. I went home and started to play with my new handset all happy as a pig in s**t!
Then the morning arrived!!!! (cue the theme tune from Psycho) I woke up to find my old handset was deactivated however my new one had not been. Uh Oh! This meant i had no phone line at all. It meant I had no connection to interweb via my phone – i was cut off from the world! When ever i made a call the phone would connect to the Orange Registration Menu. I got through to some bloke who said it should be active but there was a delay on the system slowing down some of the upgrade activations. This is stupid as why would they deactivate my old phone before activating my new one? That’s ridiculous! Orange basically had cut me off from the world the t**ts! – I was told to wait and try again. I had 5 calls to that line during the day trying to get it sorted. The final 2 calls were perplexing as it had been over the 24 recommended hours for activation to take place and they were a lil confused by it all. Several hours later when I was able to get my hands on a working phone I called them again and they called me back on the other line. It was at this point that we found that the sim card numbers did not match. And i don’t mean there was one digit wrong, no. the whole thing was completely wrong!!! The only thing I could do was to return to the shop to sort it. At this point in case you have not already guessed i was completely livid! I’d had a whole day of not being connected and i’d had calls to make to clients which i failed to do as a result! GRRRR!
Cut to this morning! – 9:15am at the orange store in the Arnedale center manchester (yes i had to get up early to do this) . At first I was intending to go i there and shout and throw my rattle and swear at the guys in the shop as it seemed that they had given me the wrong sim card but being used to Orange’s ineptness I decided that no, i’d keep it together until i know all the facts never mind the fact that i didn’t trust myself from loosing it completely and castrating them all with a paper clip and a siemens phone charger from the shelf. So I went up and explained all that had happened. The usual apologies ensued along with that aforementioned expression (resist the urge to castrate, Mark, resist it!). After a bit of fumbling and a couple of calls it turned out that when they registered my new sim card the lady at Orange head office or where ever the hell she was took down the wrong number for my sim card. Now here is the big f**k up. The assistant did not verify the last 4 digits of the sim properly which as I understand it is Orange procedure. Who’s to blame – both of them!!! Idiots! – LAZY idiots (this is the fourth point of Orange staff seemingly never giving a crap about customers and not being bothered). SOOOOO the outcome was that he told me my old handset would be reactivated within the next few minutes and my new one would be active later today.
As i type this my old phone still has not been reactivated and i hold no hope for the new one either resulting in me still not being connected! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! Not at any point have i been offered any form of compensation for all the trouble I have had! I ask you WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS COMPANY???? This is lunacy! I will be copying this entry as my letter top them. I’m not gonna make it all formal as i don’t think the neanderthals that work for the company will be able to understand it. I will ask them what would they do if they were in my shoes. I’ will also tell them that i intend to leave them and not pay them another penny! as far as i am concerned Orange have not provided the service i pay them for therefore they are in breach of contract – Quite simple really! Lets see what they say!!!
