I am at the end of my tether trying to get Orange, or one of the entities it has passed my son’s “debt” to, to acknowledge, first, that I have written to them and, second, that the liability is disputed.
Nearly two years ago our younger son, who was studying abroad, came back to the UK for a month and needed to use a mobile phone here.
As he had been with Orange before, he went into one of its shops and it was suggested that, rather than “pay as you go”, it would be cheaper for him to take out a contract that could be cancelled with a month’s notice and that, when he cancelled the contract, he would be able to retain the number, which would be switched to “pay as you go” and a new Sim card issued.
He followed this advice but was told to leave it 24 hours and then phone to cancel the contract. He did this and was told the company could not do it then and that he had to wait a further 24 hours. He phoned the next day and cancelled the contract and asked for the “pay as you go” Sim card to be posted straight away to arrive before he left the UK. This was to enable him to have a functioning UK Sim card on arrival on his next visit, which would only be for a few days.
The Sim card did not arrive and, at first, this was what my son was trying to obtain from Orange. However, when a bill arrived and a further direct debit was taken from his bank account, it became obvious that the contract had not been cancelled.
Months have passed and this still is not sorted out.
By now your son was abroad again and trying to contact Orange. Initially, Orange said that communication with it could only be by telephone and, as it could not make international phone calls, your son would have to phone in. He did what he could, got nowhere, cancelled the direct debit and then you became involved. Now, though, he received a £351 bill for what was described as “voluntary termination”.
You tried to unscramble this but then your son received a letter threatening legal action and a bad credit rating.
My contact with Orange led to you receiving a most confusing letter addressed to me at your home referring to your son as mine. This odd communication continued: “When the contract was taken out the price plan was a Sim-only plan. However, the actual contract dates were set for a 24-month period. As the account is closed the information I have is limited as to why this happened, [but] it does appear to have been a contract set up in error and for this I apologise.
“We have advised that the debt collection agency have been asked to send back the debt to us and it will be cancelled. I have also emailed our credit referrals team to have any late payments removed from your son’s credit report, please allow up to 30 days for these changes to reflect on his credit file.” It thanked me for making EE aware of this matter as if it hadn’t known about it before.
An EE spokesperson apologised and said: “Unfortunately an administration error meant Mr G was incorrectly charged a termination fee.”
We agreed to allow time to see how things panned out and it does seem that this really is resolved now.
