Orange have mucked up - Where do I stand?
Discussion
Weird one this....and could do with some advice from someone who knows the law better than I do!
I checked my Orange account at the weekend and was somewhat 'surprised' when it said I owe them over £100! Very, very strange considering I pay by direct debit!
After going too and fro between my Bank and Orange, it turns out that when I originally signed up for my contract in July 2010, the person who entered my DD details, got one of the numbers wrong. Amazingly (and this is where my lack of financial/legal knowlege is weak) it seems that the incorrect account number belonged to someone else, and it went through! This seems increidble to me as surely names/addresses need to be checked?! About 4 months in to my contract, my phone was blocked as the previous months bill hadn't been paid, and (having checked my account) discovered this to be correct. I phoned them up, paid £100+ to clear what was owed and read them my DD details again as it was that which had failed to go through. Thinking all was ok, I didn't bother to check the previous payments!
I'm now don't have easy access to my bank statements from 18months ago and online backing only goes back 15months so it's hard to see for sure whether what I suspect is definitely true.
I'm reluctent to pay them straight up, and also could do without shelling up £100 this month, epecially when it's not my mistake.
Question is, what can I do? Can I refuse to pay based on some aspect of law or can I at the very least offer to pay back at an amount that suits me?
Either way....all seems incredibly incompetant!
I checked my Orange account at the weekend and was somewhat 'surprised' when it said I owe them over £100! Very, very strange considering I pay by direct debit!
After going too and fro between my Bank and Orange, it turns out that when I originally signed up for my contract in July 2010, the person who entered my DD details, got one of the numbers wrong. Amazingly (and this is where my lack of financial/legal knowlege is weak) it seems that the incorrect account number belonged to someone else, and it went through! This seems increidble to me as surely names/addresses need to be checked?! About 4 months in to my contract, my phone was blocked as the previous months bill hadn't been paid, and (having checked my account) discovered this to be correct. I phoned them up, paid £100+ to clear what was owed and read them my DD details again as it was that which had failed to go through. Thinking all was ok, I didn't bother to check the previous payments!
I'm now don't have easy access to my bank statements from 18months ago and online backing only goes back 15months so it's hard to see for sure whether what I suspect is definitely true.
I'm reluctent to pay them straight up, and also could do without shelling up £100 this month, epecially when it's not my mistake.
Question is, what can I do? Can I refuse to pay based on some aspect of law or can I at the very least offer to pay back at an amount that suits me?
Either way....all seems incredibly incompetant!
Your OP is a little lacking on detail but you seem to be saying that due to a DD error someone else has been paying your phone bill for you, but it now seems they can't pay this months for you so you now need more time to pay? What happened to the payments that went from the wrong bank account to pay your bill? Don't you ever reconcile bills and bank statements?
Think you need to get your finger out, get duplicate bank statements sorted, check the phone bills and get it everything on track. You're legally obliged to pay pursuant to your contract terms, it's not reasonable having had one DD problem for you not to have made sure before now that all was sorted and having more time to pay would be purely for Orange to gift you if they feel like it.
Think you need to get your finger out, get duplicate bank statements sorted, check the phone bills and get it everything on track. You're legally obliged to pay pursuant to your contract terms, it's not reasonable having had one DD problem for you not to have made sure before now that all was sorted and having more time to pay would be purely for Orange to gift you if they feel like it.
Andy_GSA said:
Your OP is a little lacking on detail but you seem to be saying that due to a DD error someone else has been paying your phone bill for you, but it now seems they can't pay this months for you so you now need more time to pay? What happened to the payments that went from the wrong bank account to pay your bill? Don't you ever reconcile bills and bank statements?
Think you need to get your finger out, get duplicate bank statements sorted, check the phone bills and get it everything on track. You're legally obliged to pay pursuant to your contract terms, it's not reasonable having had one DD problem for you not to have made sure before now that all was sorted and having more time to pay would be purely for Orange to gift you if they feel like it.
It was only for the first 4 months of my contract which is over 18 months ago now. Since then I have been correctly paying through direct debit.Think you need to get your finger out, get duplicate bank statements sorted, check the phone bills and get it everything on track. You're legally obliged to pay pursuant to your contract terms, it's not reasonable having had one DD problem for you not to have made sure before now that all was sorted and having more time to pay would be purely for Orange to gift you if they feel like it.
As I explained, I believed I had settled any outstanding balance initially by paying Orange directly in Dec 2010.
I'll try and summarise more concisely below:
- July 2010 to Oct 2010 - It seems that incorrect Account number entered by Orange
- Oct 2010 - Orange cut me off without warning (I don't pay for paper billing)
- Oct 2010 - Settled what I understood to be unpaid balance having checked my account for the previous month
- Oct 2010 - Set up DD for second time - This time details entered correctly
- Oct 2010-Present - All bills paid correctly on DD from my account
- Jan 2012 - Money recalled by Nationwide - No notification given to me
I'm not familar with Orange's online billing system but does that not go back to the start of the contract.
As for the bank account info, you may access the history to determine whether you did indeed pay off the charge.
In the meantime, I'd contact Orange, explain the sitation and escalate it until you reach someone who can actually deal with your enquiry. After all, if you didn't pay the original amount off, why have they been letting you use the network for the past 12 months or so.
(I'm assuming the additional charge isn't for something else, data roaming etc)
As for the bank account info, you may access the history to determine whether you did indeed pay off the charge.
In the meantime, I'd contact Orange, explain the sitation and escalate it until you reach someone who can actually deal with your enquiry. After all, if you didn't pay the original amount off, why have they been letting you use the network for the past 12 months or so.
(I'm assuming the additional charge isn't for something else, data roaming etc)
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