In December, I received a phone call asking me if I’d like to get a new mobile phone for free and a four night cruise to Spain and back. Sounds good. The service provider would be Orange and the new phone, a Motorola Talkabout (T2288e). And a WAP phone, no less. Oh yes, sounds like a bargain and my old phone was chunky and outdated and a holiday would sure be good.

I had a few requirements of my own however. My husband was already on Orange and had been for a few years. I was on BT Cellnet and had finished the tie-in period. But I wanted to keep my current phone number as firstly, it’s a nice easy number to remember with lots of 5’s and 7’s and secondly, I was looking for a new job at that time so I didn’t want to have to change my CV and get in touch with all the agencies I’d registered with as that would likely be an impossible task anyway.

So I was assured that there’d be no problem porting my existing mobile number to my new Orange account. Great. So my next requirement was this: Hubby and I had previously decided that we should combine a mobile account to save money, or at the very least that we should both be on the same network. Again I was assured that this was no problem and yes he could also keep his number. His reasons were mainly due to the length of time that he’d had his previous phone, which meant that some of the buttons were starting to behave a little temperamentally and the fact that everyone knew his number. Double great. Two new phones (WAP for what it’s worth!), one account for two phones, numbers remaining the same and essentially one lot of monthly charges. Things were looking good.

So having made our decision it was time to sit back and wait for the phones to arrive. My husbands phone arrived within a week or two. He didn’t like the look or feel of the phone, it was too light and had normal looking rechargeable batteries as opposed to the chunky specialist phone batteries that most mobiles have. I thought it looked quite nice so I waited patiently for mine to arrive.

A week or two later, me growing cobwebs, waiting patiently still, a letter arrived for me. It turned out that they couldn’t port my number as I’d given them my married name (as you do when you get married!) and my old phone was still in my maiden name. Well I didn’t see any reason to change it as I’d already decided months and months earlier that I’d be getting a joint account once my 12 months had expired. So I had to sign a whole load of forms again in my old name and was then told that they had to open the account in my old name and they couldn’t change it to my married one without seeing my marriage certificate.

I understand legislation relating to proper ID etc having work in the Pension industry but for a mobile phone? Bizarre. Yet if I were simply opening an account I wouldn’t have to. It’s inconceivable that every woman giving her name as Mrs should be asked for a marriage certificate to prove she’s a Mrs, which is essentially what it all boils down to. So they set up the account in my old name. And to add insult to injury, every letter I’ve received from them since, refers to me as Mrs ‘maiden name’. No, no, no. She’s my mother. Miss ‘maiden name’; Mrs ‘married name’. But not a mixture of both. Pleeeeeease.

Then we discovered that hubby was unable to keep his old number. Why? Because he was an existing Orange customer, of course. Apparently they can port numbers from any other phone company but not their own. Stranger and stranger. Hubby, getting slightly impatient, agreed to have a new number, which it turns out is actually quite an easy one to remember. So his phone was up and running it seemed. But hang on a minute. This is my account and I’m choosing to have two phones on it. I hadn’t received my phone yet and hubby had two. Which incidentally, much to hubby’s initial amusement, both worked.

We had been told that his old account would be closed once his new phone was active. This was never done. We phoned them on a few occasions, which was a marathon in itself as only the account holder was allowed to discuss the details. Hmmm. We were both account holders and the issue we wanted resolved, spanned across both accounts. That was a big hassle having a conversation and having to pass the phone back and for, answering passwords etc and generally getting a real bum deal. It was quite simple really: Close hubby’s account, open my account with two phones and move my number from a different provider.

But no. I started receiving bills relating to an account I hadn’t even received a phone for yet and hubby had a phone but hadn’t used as he was still using his old one until my phone arrived. We queried this several times during January, February and March, eventually being told that he had to terminate his old account in writing with a months notice. Not what we were told at all. So what about all the calls? No it still had to be a month’s notice from the time they receive it. Well I kicked up holy hell as it was meant to be a straightforward transfer, yet it had turned into a nightmare.

My phone eventually arrived. Unfortunately it was more than useless. I thought the menu layout was rubbish (see my Motorola op) and assumed that this was why I couldn’t text and get through to answer phone services amongst other things. I finally managed to get through to someone at Orange and found that they hadn’t set my phone up properly which meant I didn’t have more than a handful of useless options available. Fair play, they upgraded my phone there and then and I simply had to remove my sim card and replace after a few minutes. I then got a call back on my landline so that she could run through the option to check I had everything now.

So after much wrangling we eventually got a £10 complimentary payment on my husbands account to help pay the extra 4 months charges he’d incurred due to the incorrect information given. His account was closed, my new phone worked (as well as this particular phone is ever going to at least!) and life resumed….

…Until our next bank statement arrived. There clear as day was a debit for Orange taken on the 8th and another with a different account number taken on the 25th. Now bear in mind, my husbands own account with Orange had been taken by direct debit from a different bank as we hadn’t converted my bank accounts to joint ones when it was set up. Yet there it was, two payments from different DD’s and different account numbers. The bank statements also run from the 9th to the 8th so it had been a whole month more before noticing anyway.

This was getting a little tedious now. At the end of the day this whole process was meant to be quick and easy yet it had already dragged on for 7 months. I phoned Orange for the hundredth time and demanded to know what was going on. One thing I can say in their favour, they were always polite and helpful on the phone even the few who didn’t seem to be able to deal with such a ‘complex’ case! I was disappointed however to find that they didn’t always phone me back when they said they would after telling me that they’d have to find someone who could understand what was going on first.

This account was meant to be one account with two phones yet they’d started taking two debits at different times of the month. The woman I spoke to about this mess was a bit unbelieving herself until she saw for her own eyes on her system, a cancelled account with a live direct debit, which was collecting money. Well, it had been until I cancelled it at the bank anyway. Neither of us had authorised a second direct debit so it’s most annoying to find that something like this can just happen.

Now we are being told that even with a joint account you still have to pay two separate monthly charges. Now forgive me for being stupid here but this was the whole reason for getting a joint account in my book. It’s apparently related to the tariff we are on. We’re not even on the right tariff yet but we felt it was too complicate to try and resolve that before they’d resolved the main problems.

We didn’t want to be put on the talk 50 tariff in the first place. This tariff allows you to make 50 minutes of calls a day and non-peak times. Ie after 7pm during the week, and anytime during the weekend. We both mainly need to use our phones during the day and we wanted to be on the tariff my husband was previously on, which gives you 60 minutes of talk time a month and it can be used at any time. This is more than enough talk time for me as I don’t use it much, mostly for emergencies.

So when I get home tonight I have got to phone them yet again to confirm that it should be on a different tariff and as one account, as per the booklet I received last night. Oh grief, will this torment never end? I’ll let you know if I live through this ordeal! It was meant to be so simple….(sob, sob)

Apart from all of that, Orange is quite a good provider. (?!?!?) I think they have severe problems with non-standard requirements, even ones that should be so easy and straightforward. I’m happy with the coverage I receive on this network whether I am in Wales, Bury St. Edmunds, Reading, Orpington or Hastings. I suppose that’s a relief. It’s the only thing keeping me sane in this little orange world. The statements are actually very easy to understand too, which is more than I can say for my previous provider. I could never make head nor tail of those wretched bits of paper.

So come on Orange pull yer finger out or you’re gonna start losing valuable customers. At the end of the day all mobile phone companies would be nothing without us, the customer. So stop being profit grabbing greedy little bugs and give us the excellence we expect and deserve.

By the way, that cruise they mentioned when trying to get your custom, it turned out to be a single sheet of A4 paper giving the details and it looked like it was a hundredth copy from a photocopier, all black and smudged and blurry. It was like a scrap bit of paper and unfortunately (as they most likely hope and expect) most of the people getting this offer would lose that scrappy bit of paper before they could book their trip. It had to be taken by the end of June and I still haven’t even got my new account up and running properly yet (8 months later). Maybe they count on the fact that people will want to get their accounts working properly before thinking about their free holiday and by then it’s too late. I think I should get a Caribbean cruise as compensation personally