yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Touch HD General] gmatharu12:
Hey there, I own the Touch HD on Orange, I really was finding the internet service through T-mobile and three great, they have good Fair usage policies.

I was told by the person who sold me my phone that I would be warned or have a flag applied to my account if i were to go over 500MB!

Not the case.. I've been hit with a huge bill, and I've argued with 3 customer representatives and unfortunately have not gotten anywhere. I've read a few people on forums who have not had this problem but have been warned and told the same story!!

I have the 500MB Add-on Internet (told it was a fair usage policy), but it turns out ive used about 700MB and been charged roughly £1.10 per extra MB which is shocking!!!

Any assistance would be much appreciated, Ive cancelled my direct debit in hopes to get this matter resolved, I couldn't believe it!

Thanks.

G.Matharu
[Touch HD General] RobTheRover:
Sounds grossly unfair, and you can cite examples of other users receiving different treatment to yourself. Ask them why you are being treated differently to other customers, and if you get nowhere ask to speak with a supervisor in their customer services team. Quite often the "first line" support you get follow a prescribed course of action and cannot operate on too much discretion.

Good luck.

Perhaps other users on Orange (or O2 for that matter, who also have a ridiculously small data cap) can post up their experience of exceeding their data ceiling, and we can keep a dossier of evidence on here? Just a thought.
[Touch HD General] TeesHD:
I recently got my Touch HD and with my renewal i blagged the free unlimited internet (or 500mb as you say)

Before i took out the contract i asked what the fair use was, they said 500mb and she said, and i quote "You will have to be on all day every day to exceed it" so if this happens to me, which i expect it will, i shall be getting a copy of that conversation recording and see what their excuse is
[Touch HD General] MAMeingast:
I have exceeded the data limit on my plan with O2 (here in Germany) twice before - and both times they took the amount for the extra data off my bill in good will!

But I didn't exceed my plan as much as you did...

BTW: O2 has by far the best customer service have encountered so far! Atleast here in Germany...
[Touch HD General] jab1a:
That sounds horrible, I hope you manage to get that sorted out. I have never been with 3 but I know these operators are tricky characters.

I am on O2 £30pm with no data package, the O2 lady said on the phone that if I use my data connection then I will get charged for data upto £1 and that is it (fair usage policy applys) so if i reconnect within those 24hr of a give day then it wont cost me anymore than the £1 already, which if you did this everyday then it would cost about £35~.

This is why she said they recommend the 'unlimited' bolt on for £5.99, which is 500Mb per month but i didn't ask about if I went over that, I would hope the £1's worth of data deal would kick in but I'm betting the money grabbers will not honor that for all thier customers.
[Touch HD General] sirec:
i have had this trouble but with pay as you go sim, i found out a few things that was using my credit.

the weather update, go into options and deselect them so that it doesnt download new weather data when not in active sync. just go into active sync n do it that way.

quickgps thingy, disable the updates as before active sync updates this everytime the phone is synched.

wap, when you close the internet, it leaves the connection open , well it does on occasion on mine. just go into the settings / communication in manilla and make sure data connection is off.

hope this helps. but i went through 10.00 within a few days without using the phone well to call anyway so hope this helps with others.

if thers anything i missed post it and a solution :)
[Touch HD General] kdaley:
Orange data rates are so uncompetitive it's unbelivable, I was on the phone to CS this evening about an unrelated matter but asked if there were any plans to change this, and the answer was a resounding no :mad:

I got my HD in from Orange in March on a 'Panther' plan whch came with the 500Mb package included, but they also said should I go over the limit the MAXIMUM they would charge would be £1.50 a day. While still seriously poor that would result in a charge of £46.50 in a 31 day month assuming that 500Mb+ was used on day one. It might be worth seeing if there is any mileage there, perhaps offer to change plan if they would consider bringing these outrageous charges into line with that plan?

I had a stock unlocked Kaiser and was with o2 on a 3Gb monthly package and was to impatient to wait until I had the money to buy a stock unlocked HD. I was in the Orange Shop with my wife upgrading her phone and I just couldn't stop myself, I asked if they had one in stock and they did. So that was that I had to have one................................. I wish I'd have waited :rolleyes:

Anyway, Good Luck.
[Touch HD General] gmatharu12:
Thanks so much everyone for your input seriously!!

I'm going to see what I can do, I'l report back here, Unfortunately I really don't think they're going to listen, the last guy I spoke to, told me that I can't keep phoning up to keep speaking to different representatives. The way he said it, was just really rude.

I've been with T-mobile and Three's data tariffs, and they've both been great, Three does fail to connect sometimes, and T-mobile is sometimes slow, but Orange had none of these issues but clearly has a bigger one!

Thanks a lot again. I'll post soon, Bill is due 14th April.
[Touch HD General] Elcs:
Whilst I love Orange Service (coverage/signal are great for me), Orange Customer Service is absolutely useless to the degree of insanity.

I had difficulties with their Upgrades team not providing me with a good upgrade onto the HTC Touch HD. I ended a rather frustrated and unproductive conversation with "Thank you for your help but I think I am going to look elsewhere as Orange are not offering me a competitive deal". Two minutes later, a call on my mobile from another mobile... it was the customer representative from Orange calling me to complain, say that I was rude and my comment was unjustified.

They offered me a £35pm 18mo contract and Id have to pay £X for the handset whereas I picked up the Touch HD from Phones4U online for £30pm 18mo contract, free handset. Cost me £15 to unlock, £1 for a T-Mobile SIM, £5 to top up and 1 week to transfer my number from Orange to T-Mobile and back to Orange.

It does not surprise me that Orange have been flagged up here and I thank you for your post. Since receiving my Touch HD approximately 3 weeks ago, I have used £1.69 of data outside the Free Evenings/Weekends Orange World usage plan which is tacked onto your contract for free.

It also saddens me that Orange has probably the worst data rates of all of the providers. I would have switched if only I was able to get the HTC Touch HD on another network.

One piece of humour I found when talking to a guy from Phones4U in store is that both O2 and T-Mobile refused to stock the Touch HD because it failed to meet their quality standards, same with previous HTC models. The Phones4U stores refused to stock the Touch HD as the previous HTC's had too many problems. I have to say, I loved my LG Viewty when I got that 18 months ago but the Touch HD blows away anything I have used previous.

gmmatharu12 - I hope your issue is resolved and I will be keeping a close eye on this thread regarding the data situation with Orange. We can only hope they improve their customer service to meet the standard of network service tthey provide.
[Touch HD General] Nasher79:
I had a similar problem with Orange, only I didnt have any data package to exceed. I didn't really even use it to any great ammount, browsing for football scores a few times in the month maybe.

Then I recieve a bill for £130, £70-odd pounds worth of data.

Naturally I queried it and I stopped my direct debit until they could explain it a bit more. At the time I had a SE K850i and I was supposed to have downloaded over 30MB of data in the six times I connected up over the course of the month.

Because they cannot log where you visited or what you downloaded there was no way of proving I had used that ammount (I assure you I couldn't have d/l that much just browsing a few times).

Anyway, the customer services chap explained that ALL Orange tarifs should have a policy where the MAXIMUM data charge one could acrue over the space of 24hrs is £1.47 and my account must have "slipped through the net". So I agreed to pay the maximum daily charge for the 6 occasions I did use the web, and they credited the rest.

Try to see if this is stated anywhere in their T&C's, you definately have a case.
[Touch HD General] Nasher79:
Amen Brother.

Snap. I ended up going to O2 from a mobiles.co.uk deal. I guess Orange actually did me a favour trying to charge me for the phone. I had renewed 12 years in a row and really wasn't getting value compared to new customes or customers on other networks. Them forcing my hand saved me a few bob so for that - I thank them.

:eek:

Can you believe I could have had exactly the same contract from mobiles.co.uk that Orange were offering me, only with a free phone, and Orange would have had to have paid mobiles.co.uk a commision. And they still wouldn't match it!

3 weeks into my O2 contract - no issues so far.

3 weeks using my Touch HD - Lovin it.
[Touch HD General] dao:
Much the same story for me. I've been with Orange for about 14 years and where I cannot complain about the signal/call quality in that time I have noticed a complete disintegration of their customer services.

Same issues where I wanted the HD for free but they said I'd have to pay £179 - even though their own website was offering it for free (all be it on a 24 month contract which i didn't mind signing because like I say the signal/call quality where I am is excellent).

In my experience - Orange have always charged £1 per meg for internet access but one word of warning people - their inclusive 500Mb is only orange world pages - I was told that if you navigate away you will be told that the page is going to be charged for but I don't think that is the case - you seem to be told that "this page is free" and I assume that if you don't see that then you are charged. It's only my opinion, I have yet to confirm this from customer services but can't be bothered spending the 45 minutes you have to wait to actually get to speak to someone
[Touch HD General] Freypal:
Maybe it is just me but... i've been with orange for about 10 years and i have never had a bad experience with their customer service. Of all the companies i've ever dealt with they have by far and away the best customer service. always been helpful and polite to me.

When the guy on upgrades couldn't offer me a decent deal on the HD he gve me the direct line number for retentions and told me what to say to them to get the best deal and it worked.

Also found there insurance to be excellent, i've rang up at 10pm at night with a dodgy handset and had a shiny new one there at 9am the following morning... can't really get any better than that.

I have an option on my account for the 500mb unlimited bundle but my account also shows up as having the OW capped daily usage so i guess this is what was referrend to earlier about being charged a maximum per day.
[Touch HD General] Sideburnt:
Well I've very recently switched to Orange from T-Mobile, I wasn't having great signal coverage with T-Mobile and decided that I could switch to Orange for the HD.

When I brought the phone I queried the Data plans, I had seen a deal on the t'interweb and ws happy to sign up as long as I had similar flexibility with connection as I did with Web'n'Walk.

What I was sold was an 'unlimited' data plan.

2 days later I read online that there's a 500MB limit.

So I ring back and ask about this, as I wasn't told of the limit, I REALLY had to push to get a 'yes' response from them, that there was a 500MB limit.

I got a lot of 'You should be fine, its practically unlimited' and 'No-one really uses the full quota you'll be fine' and after I finally blew at them and basically said 'Look...you twats, yes or no 500MB limit or not?' then finally I got told yes.

So they do not clarify this data plan, over the phone, the description on the internet is not descriptive, you do not get warned about the upcoming 500MB boundary, sounds like an easy cash in for Orange.

Having read this thread, I will re-install my GPRS data counter that I used to have on my Kaiser, sounds like I'll need it.

I bet business users get treated a whole lot different.
[Touch HD General] Quinny:
i had the same problem with orange in m first month £60 pounds worth of data.

I argued with them and they said there was nothing they could do and billed me for the rest of the contract lenth!! £700 please.

so i Tried A orange pay as yo go sim card and for £10 a month(Dolphin Package) you get 300 hundred messeges and free access to facebook, Bebo and myspace a month but ive never got charged for going on the wap on my phone no matter what i access or i download!! BRILLIANT

And i get to keep this brilliant PHONE

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
[Touch HD General] Nasher79:
I would have agreed with you up until recently. When it came to upgrading, they just werent interested in keeping my service, and actually got quite rude about it. Its pot luck whether you get a helpfull person answer your call or one of their not so helpfull staff, which to me seemed the majority towards the end.

Im pleased your content with their service. And im equally pleased I now have nothing to do with them.:)
[Touch HD General] Elcs:
I spoke to two people on their online customer services that suggested I would be able to secure the £30pm 24 mo contract for the HD which was an online exclusive.

The upgrades team, on my second attempt I got a helpful young gentleman who advised me that he could not offer that plan and the handset but he passed me through to retentions as he suggested they had access to better deals and as such should hook me up with something suitable.

Retentions were rather rude at which point I said that Orange Customer Services cant tell their "bum from their elbow" and asked for a definitive answer on my situation from a supervisor only to have no success.

I found it relatively easy to get my PAC off them and to transfer my number back in (even if customer services told me to ring 150 from my Orange phone and press option 1 option 1 for Transferring numbers)
[Touch HD General] astromark:
Try the (very old) trick of speaking to the Executive Office. I don't know how - there's probably a number knocking around somewhere.

I check my usage online at the Orange site and would suggest others do the same.

For example:

data

250MB Internet Browsing megabytes remaining : 223.4153

Also, when you first get your phone, call them up and check with them what the package offers. Go through it word by word - and record the call (er, do stock ROMs include call recording software?) Failing that make notes of the deal, and the time of the call, so you can refer them back to it in a couple of months time.

TBH I'd do this with any operator, not just Orange.
[Touch HD General] chaosdefinesorder:
It's probably not helpful to those of you on Orange contracts, but the O2 equivalent is actually effectively cap-less.

The 200MB only applies to PAYG, and when I phoned up to get the data bolt-on added to my account (contract through Mobiles.co.uk) I asked them about the data limit, their reply was basically along the lines of "there's no limit, as long as you don't take the piss". I use the mobile web on my HD very heavily, RSS feeds, mobile internet, weather updates, email, and I've never had any problems with the data.
[Touch HD General] moshbeard:
I've never gone over my limit, but I was told by Orange customer service that due to the fact it's fair usage policy rather than a straight 500MB limit I'd have to use well over 1GB before they would start to charge me. I feel pretty cheated by them if that isn't the case, I guess I'm just lucky that I'm near Wi-Fi most of the time.
[Touch HD General] bonesy:
Firstly on the comment saying "ill be getting a recording of the convo where he said you will hae to be n it all day" They will deny it. You will find it extremely hard to get money back from them i cancelled the blackberry internet service 3 months ago and every time im billed its still on there. I finally had to get a confirmation email to get it removed.

They wouldnt reimburse me or credit me any money! My first bill on the touch hd was nigh on £300 now i just have hsdpa turned off and have all my data connections tuned off,you will find it uses less if you tap the notification bar and tap disconnect.Theyre pretty crafty at the whole data usage thing onoy way i can see around it is buy 3 x 500mb data bundle or get some sort of gprs counter
[Touch HD General] astromark:
Yes, I agree they'll always manage to "lose" the recording they make for every call "for training purposes" if it falls in your favour.

I could tell T-Mobile (my previous network) were full of B-S when they went off to "confirm" what I'd said. The wait was approximately the length of a previous call, after which they, funnily enough, found in my favour. (Admittedly it wasn't a lost recording in this case!)

Therefore - record it yourself, or make contemporaneous and accuarate notes so when you quote them back to themselves (even from your notes) they know you know what you're on about. Don't at any point lie if you don't know.

On the whole, users are in the right here and have been mis-sold a product, and all the networks know it. Make them prove you're wrong.
[Touch HD General] Freypal:
You can just call 150 - 1 - 1 - 3.

And it tells you how many MBs of data useage you have left as of a stated time.
[Touch HD General] fex:
my experience so far is

ive been with tied to orange with my HD since december on a 24 month contract on dolphin tarrif paying £25 pm for 600 minutes and unlimited txts. i had the hd on renewal of my contract via retentions. i was informed over the phone that i would have unlimited data usage. when i check my usage online or by phone there is no mention of data and it staes i have no bundles data or otherwise. i have used the phone as a modem and almost constantly been connected to some site or other mostly you tube or using the WVD app for streaming and even used utorrent in abundance when im at home. for the about 20 days in february i monitored my usage when using the phone as a modem and

clocked over 3gig while maintaining my average usage.

just lucky or was the term unlimited for once used in its true form? fek knows but i aint about to rock the boat by inquiring.
[Touch HD General] ukdeviant:
Be careful

Be careful if you think simply cancelling your DD will help as they will feck your credit up for defaulting
[Touch HD General] simonastro:
Not for me - though I have the 500mb bundle the recorded voice claims I do not currently have a bundle and so cannot tell me

I knew I would go over my limit last month as was using as a modem for my laptop due to break in connection with my broadband.

I called them half way through to check and was told it was .013 of a mb and that it was virtually impossible to go over the limit. Only when I requested being put through to tech support did they tell me the true value of nearer 350mb. I was then told it would be up to me the end user to experiment with useage until the limit was found!

I asked to be called back with an explanation of the discrepancy in the figures given between departments but did not get the promised call back. When I tried to follow it up I again asked what my useage was and again was given a very small value to be corrected by the next department. I asked why there wasn't an indicator on my "your account" page like there is for texts and voice minutes and was told unfortunately I could only find out by calling up. When I explained that the first point of call had been inaccurate to a ridiculous degree I was told to download a free data counter "off google".

When my bill came I was a few hundred mb over as expected - I needed the facility to download and try most of the available cooked ROMs to get the machine working properly!

I was charged £1.50 per day for the few days at the end of the month so the bill was only about £12 over the expected

however I am in complete amazement at the complete ineptitude I have encountered and I am still awaiting the call back.

when I renewed my account to get the HD in Feb they accidently cancelled my account and I had to start from scratch again; reset my email - including having CS contact orange email department in france so I could sign up again for the email address I had been using for a few months; get a dodgy call from the new customer squad cooing over my choice of phone!?!; on the bill have the breaking contract disconnection charge applied and then discharged in the next line ( I know this has to happen because the software won't let them erase an entry but it still makes me goggle )

I'm gonna just check the 10% loyalty reduction hasn't been disrupted though it's relation to my actual 15 year association with orange is unfathomable.

a serious case of arse and elbow (A&E)

edit (sic) trouble is I have this nagging memory that I saw my data useage on the "your account" page prior to the account being reset ... hmmm!
[Touch HD General] Dogtag:
200 pounds wow that like 30 euro's... sorry lame joke, but you speak of a fair user policy u used 40% over the limit, ask them to charge you fairly, if you pay 30 pounds for 'unlimited' internet and have to pay 200 pounds for going over the unlimited limit (thats almost 700%) is ridicule. Also explain the lack of information (you would never have taken this 'unlimited' offer if you knew you had the pay 1.2 pounds/mb) and do this in writing to a 'senior' employee at orange, not some orange store dildo who get's paid to sell you a contract (not to resolve issues).

Good luck
[Touch HD General] gmatharu12:
I've tried to get on BBC Three Counties radio, if anyone has heard of it? They have a great consumer show to try and get consumer problems resolved. Hopefully I can get some assistance there too.

Thanks "dogtag", I had been told by one of the reps that if you were to go over 3000 Texts (aka Unlimited), I'd be charged appropriately, I said "Well then charge me for my megabyte usage appropriately!"

Thanks everyone so much for your replies, I've been reading through, I've been a bit busy at home during Easter, I'm going to back to University tommorrow, and I plan to get this sorted first thing I get back! Thanks for all your input, much appreciated seriously!

I never thought of referring to the recording of the phone call, I really wish I had one. I might try and phone up to talk about buying another phone and catch another representative telling me the same thing, what do you guys think?

Calling 150, and using the automatic speech to find out how much MB remaining doesn't work, and I didn't know this till a few moments ago, it tells me I don't have this bundle, so I will tell them this too! There is also nothing on "My Account" which tells you how much MB remaining.

"ukdeviant", your right about me cancelling my direct debit, but the DD was due on the 9th of April, and well I have rent to pay for etc, and well the actual bill would be due for the 14th of April, I plan to have some more answers by then, and I just rang now to ask about the final date/extreme last minute to pay would be the 24th of April. So will my credit rating/network be fine as long as I pay within the 14th and 24th of April?? As the guy said??

Cheers again! Will post back real soon. Much appreciated everyone.

Gurminder.