In what is going to be a regular feature, our hero dons the cape of consumer activism and goes in search of getting a better deal from his mobile phone operator. Saddled with a lousy phone and a lousy contract, Sam works his unmistakeable mojo on those in a customer service role.

Dear Orange

If you check my customer history with your fine selves you will discover that I have been a contract customer with you for as near as damn it 10 years, and that in that time I have spent an awful lot of money with you having never once complained or otherwise failed to hold up my end of the bargain – that bargain being that I use your service and pay up every month.

Until 3 months ago I was very happy to be an Orange customer and, moreover, an advocate of your service over that of your competitors however that has now changed.

At my recent upgrade opportunity I was sold a handset touted to be (admittedly not by yourselves) the “iphone killer” with a contract that at 2 years in length I wasn’t overjoyed at but was pretty certain I was making the right move. It turns out, however, that I had made a really bad move.

Firstly the HTC “Hero” (inverted commas added for effect) is a noble effort at beating the iphone, but when it comes down to it is not fit for purpose. I could issue a long list of problems with the phone but I’ll limit it to one that is fundamental : the keyboard lags while I’m typing. This may sound minor, but imagine a phone where every 8th letter takes a second to appear leaving you uncertain whether you hit it or not, and you’ll start to get a sense of the frustration this causes.

Having researched this phenomena online this is apparently due to the HTC “Hero” being underpowered for what it tries to achieve and can be improved by running fewer apps. To that end I now run no apps, none whatsoever, and it still lags while typing. It really is only a matter of time before I throw the wretched thing into a wall before beating the incompetent spite out of it with a housebrick.

This is coupled with the rather marvellous Racoon 40 call plan, which I was lead to believe comes with unlimited bandwidth… not so! In fact it’s capped at a paltry 500MB which, I can tell you, even with light usage (due to running as few apps as possible) in a given month you can easily exceed – to the extent that for January my usage was 700MB leaving me owing you fine people an additional £29 on top of my regular bill.

I could now go on a somewhat lengthy tirade about the cost of bandwidth being somewhat out of whack with what you’re charging for it, but that’s not why I’m here.

I have, specifically, two grievances :
1 – I have a paperweight for a phone that, for the first time since I’ve been a customer of yours, is a massive step backwards from what I had before. In fact I only purchased the phone from you because I was unaware that HAD I WAITED 2 MONTHS I COULD HAVE BOUGHT AN IPHONE FROM YOU! This was not mentioned.
2 – I appaer to have a call plan that is completely inadequate for my needs.Last month I used 16 minutes 30 seconds of my permitted 1200 minutes call time, and 93 of my permitted 500 texts, at the same time using 340 of my 500MB of bandwidth (despite my phone being turned off for roughly 50% of the month).

In essence I have a lousy phone with a lousy contract and I’m seriously annoyed as a result.

I do not wish to leave Orange (despite the fact I have to remain a customer with you for the next 19+ months) but I will do so at the end of this contract period if satisfaction is unavailable to me.

What, specifically, do I want?

First, I return the HTC “Hero” to you in exchange for a decent offer from you on an iphone 3GS. I do not expect this to be free, however I also do not expect this to be full price – make me smile today and I’ll sing your praises for the next 10 years paying out, I don’t doubt, ever increasing sizes of contract.

Secondly, I’d like to replace my contract with one that is fit for purpose. Might I suggest 120 inclusive minutes, 200 texts and unlimited bandwidth may be more reasonable? Do you have a cute woodland creature that represents that sort of package?

I look forward to your response which will be in email fashion. Sadly the HTC “Hero” is not a good conduit for telephone conversations. I can be contacted on (email removed).

Many thanks and best regards,

Sam

Sam vs Orange : round 1, 7.0 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

Related posts:

1. Sam vs Orange : round 2

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Against The Wall, Ranty, Schemes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.