My latest war: Orange

Last weekend our contracts with Orange for our mobile phones expired. We were shopping in Stockport on Saturday so we decided that while we were out we would go into the shop, renew our contracts, and also upgrade our handsets at the same time.

A very nice lady saw to us and showed us which handsets we could have as free upgrades (curiously they wouldn't show us any others, and when I pointed to one and said I liked it she wouldn't say how much it was) and to be honest they were all pretty ropey, but the best of a bad bunch was the Samsung G600. I opted for a black one while Lou went for purple. As the assistant was inserting SIM cards etc. into one handset we had a mess with the other. They were very different to our old Sony Ericsson K800i handsets but we thought we'd get used to them, plus the specification looked better, especially the 5 megapixel camera.

Back at home we tried sending texts and soon found that the phones were pretty awful. When you dialled a number the screen showed a picture of Big Ben, and as you pressed the digits a fountain pen wrote the number onto a sheet of paper - all very naff. When sending a text the phone was effectively locked out as the message went, rather than the Sonys which sent messages asynchronously, and if you closed the slider while the message was sending it stopped the process, put the message into the drafts folder, and also conveniently removed the sender information. The camera was incredibly poor, all pictures being blurred and taking no less than two seconds each to take (the slowest shutter I've ever known) plus when I took a photo of myself from arms' length the flash was so bad it barely lit my face. Finally the operating system was extremely slow, and the signal strength was much worse than the Sony handsets. All in all they were a very bad choice.

Monday afternoon. Lou sent me a text: I hate my new phone. I sent a reply: I hate mine too. Something had to be done. I called the shop in Stockport, explained our feelings, and was staggered at what happened next.

"Oh, you can't change them," the assistant said. "You tried the phone in the shop, and so as you've tried it you can't return it." I was stunned. I explained that there is quite a difference between looking at a dummy phone then holding a real one and looking at a couple of menus, as opposed to actually making some calls, sending some messages, and trying all of its features. "We have a zero-tolerance policy for returns, and you can't bring them back." Needless to say, I wasn't happy.

So I rang Orange customer services. I explained what happened and received the same story. By this time I was irate. I called Orange back, went through to the "I want to leave Orange" number, and kicked off at a lady called Donna.

Donna was very nice. She listened to what I had to say before she dropped the bombshell.

"The shop are breaking the law," she began. "There is a European legislation called the Sale of Goods Act, which has also become part of the OFCOM regulations, and that says that when you buy something you have up to 28 days to return it if you feel it is not fit for purpose. If the shop won't change the handsets they're breaking the law, so you are perfectly within your rights to take the handsets back, and if they refuse tell them to ring Orange Commercial Support and anyone there will confirm that this can be done."

Brilliant!

So today we made our triumphant return to Stockport. I put the boxes on the counter and explained to the assistant (the same one who served us last week) about everything, and straight away she said we couldn't change the handsets. I broke the news that she was breaking the law and she should ring Commercial Support, and when she replied "they'll just tell you the same as me" I replied that this was not the case and would she please make the call. Reluctantly, she did - but from another room.

A few minutes later she returned with a lady, presumably the manageress, who was talking on a mobile about me. After a few seconds she lowered the phone and said the handsets couldn't be changed as we'd signed a contract which clearly said there was no 14-day money-back guarantee on the handsets. I know that, I replied - the handsets were free and I'm not asking for money, plus the law says it is 28 days anyway. She handed me the mobile and said that Orange wanted to talk to me.

The lady on the phone argued that as we'd tried the handsets in the shop (held them and looked at a menu, remember) we couldn't change the handsets, but had we bought them online we would have had seven days to return them as they would have been sold unseen. I pointed out the stupidity of this but she was having none of it, so I hang up - much to the annoyance of the woman in the shop who wanted to talk to the lady again - and called Customer Services myself. I went through to the "I want to leave" line and spoke to a man called Andy. Andy listened to my story, said that the woman in the shop was right and that the phones couldn't be changed. I mentioned Donna's words from earlier in the week and this intrigued him. He asked when it was that the conversation had happened, i.e. which day and what time, and when I told him he said they would do some investigations - finding the recording of the conversation, basically - and that "this will be sorted out" because of the confusion. I asked if this meant replacement handsets and he confirmed that it would.

Result!

So we left the shop in a huff and at the moment I'm waiting for Andy to ring back with more information. My mobile just rang and when I answered & nobody was there I called the number back and a message said that I had been called by Orange and that they would ring me back. Hopefully this will be sorted soon.

So what have we learned today?
1. Don't buy a Samsung G600 as they are absolutely terrible.
2. If you are an Orange customer and you want to change your handset, do it on the internet and then you can exchange it easily without arguments.
3. Ideally don't go with Orange at all.
4. When speaking to customer service people get their FULL name and their extension number.

In other news...
* We saw Elbow on Thursday night at the Apollo in Manchester. Amazing show, but the audience near the stalls bar just wouldn't shut up! That spoiled it a little, but it was still superb.

* We're going to see Lionel Richie at the MEN Arena in March, and have seats in block B! My mate Tara isn't going though as she's full of baby and should be releasing it into the world around then.

* I'm off to Edinburgh tomorrow to teach a 5-day SQL course. Being up there on my own will remind me of the bank.

* That's about all I can say for now.