I have just cancelled my 2year contract that I had to have to get my free lap top and never again will I go to orange. My original customer service was appalling. I had errors setting up broadband and they couldn't help me. They blamed the brand new lap top and hung up on me. I had to then call back. It was a problem that I solved myself and should have been simple for the staff. At that time the helpline was not free and cost me £15. I complained, got a message to call back about the complaint so I did and was just told they had no log of a complaint and again hung up! Now I have cancelled I have been charged to cancel and being charged for a month of no service!!! Terrible company!!

Posted by Lmitch on the 2nd February 2010

Been through freeserve days to wanadoo to orange broadband over the years. Prices go up, service down. They doubled my monthly from £10 to £20 last summer because THEY couldn't manage their supplier cost base (they blamed BT).

Called early Dec for a final haggle but no moving them, requested and got the MAC key no prob and switched over as at 29th Dec (thank goodness).

I called wishing to settle up the final month (cos I'm a good citizen) and was told to call back at the end of Jan.

I took this advice at face value, so I called them today to pay the £21.65 I owe (cos I'm a good citizen) but because of the elapsed time they are going to charge me a month's 'notice'.

Told 'em no chance at which point their person (Laura) got aggressive and started threatening debt collectors. If Orange want to incur the Debt Collection cost for a £19.99 debt then fair enough I said - I await the bailiffs knock on the door.

Posted by Sprout on the 2nd February 2010

I'm kicking myself not to read these comments before I apply for the home phone broadband package, I applied on the 19th Jan and they already charged me the cost per month, still I have not received info that I am on this package, no confirmation and when I intend to cancel that I have been told I must pay the penalty fees of 18 months which is over £500, they are doing daylight robbery. I have written to their head office I have to wait and see the results.

Posted by zia Kalantar on the 31st January 2010

Do not buy Orange broadband. It is the worst service I have ever encountered. When the contract started we had 5 weeks of no service at all. Since 21 December 2009 we have had a service on 9 days. We never know if it will work. We said we want to leave and they immediately threatened a £200 disconnection charge. The call centre is appalling. It is common to be kept on the phone for over half an hour without any resolution.

Posted by Peter Wright on the 22nd January 2010

Hooray....! Following a complete lack of service and approximately 4 hours on the phone to them, I have today managed to be released from my contract at no charge :) I think it all comes down to giving them the heebie-jeebies by going right through there T&Cs and pointing out all breaches by them... that and sheer persistence!

I wish there were a negative rating on here, which would be the only way to give a truly accurate reflection of their customer service (and actual services provided). I would strongly advise NOBODY to sign up to Orange. Even if they were the last broadband supplier on earth, I think I would rather go without the internet than be put through the horrors of trying to escape this company. Good luck to anyone unfortunate enough to be an Orange customer with no way out - you have my deepest sympathy!

Posted by andrew on the 17th January 2010

I wish I had read these reviews before signing with Orange broadband. The service is APPALLING!!! My broadband has not worked properly since being installed and I am charged to try and get it sorted out. It is incredibly frustrating and inefficient. I can hardly understand the people I am talking to and they just go over the same things again and again and again...

Posted by MAG on the 12th January 2010

I have been using Orange Livebox for several months and the use of a Second line/number from which I could call Orange Mobiles for free, suddenly the second line stopped working. They sent me out a new Livebox saying this was the problem and that I would have a new second line number activated in 10 days, I am still waiting 2 months later. They are unable to tell me when it will be activated and are not prepared to give me any compensation until the problem is sorted. I am still waiting. Has anyone else had this problem as I am sure I am not the only one. I have noticed that the package offering free calls to Orange Mobiles has now been stopped.

Posted by John Woodgate on the 4th January 2010

AVOID! Called in October to request MAC code, which was ignored, then called again to request MAC code end of October. Gave the MAC code to new ISP and was activated on 10th Nov. New ISP confirmed to Orange that transfer is complete on the 11th Nov. Orange will then continue charging you for 30 days from that confirmation! In effect charging you for no service for 30 days! No other ISP's do this. If this was a mobile phone contract you would pay upto the transferred date not 30days from when they get confirmation from the new provider.

Posted by Rich Leung on the 1st December 2009

WOW have just found this site. I thought I was alone; I have met a few people who have experienced problems with Orange. Thank God for this site, the Call Centre makes you feel that YOU are the problem. Rude, appalling English. I started off with Freeserve, then changed to Wanadoo, then it became Orange so I've had the same contract for about 15 years. At least I think it' the same contract. nyway, I've had the settings destroyed on my PC because of an update from Orange. I took out a mobile with them so I could get a free internet connection, didn't get anything. Yeah Yeah my fault for not checking my direct debits. They were taking £50 out of my account every month. £25.00 internet, £25.00 mobile. Never got any of my money back.

I always try to avoid calling Orange Customer Services because I am concerned that the stress may induce a Heart AttackAnyway, but have no option. I haven't got through, so this post is really to enquire whether anyone else is experiencing difficulties with email. It just keeps rejecting me invalid user name or password I am just concerned that I have been cloned or someone has managed to change my password. Anyone experiencing the same problem as of today's date? More to the point if you are, then how to Orange propose to compensate people for this.

Posted by Katy on the 28th November 2009

Beyond shoddy. Their helpline consists of people desperately trying to screw disconnection charges out of the rats leaving a sinking ship. They appear to have hung their hopes on 20Mb broadband and it has failed them in a big way.

Posted by Johnny on the 26th November 2009

I have spent 2 hours on the phone today arguing with Orange over my home line. Despite having dual entry point for telephone and broadband which the broadband is working, 5 phone points and 3 phones none of which are working they are insistent that it is my phone that is at fault and there is nothing wrong with the line, refuse to come out to inspect unless I agree an internal inspection fee of £170 - said no, they can do the external inspection but I will not allow them to perform any internal work without a quotation and a breakdown of what work needs to be done. So they are refusing to come out. Absolute joke - quote terms and conditions that are not legally binding and refuse to budge... Spoke to BT and they won't conduct work without a quotation so I can see where I shall be heading!

Posted by Tracy on the 16th November 2009

Orange Mobile customer care is the worst exp ever, call centres always give misguiding information, can't speak the queens English to understand accents in the United Kingdom, always apologise and achieve nothing in curing your problem, pathetic service, always hang up if can't deal with the problem, always missell data deals etc without giving real information that is honest. Stay away from Orange mobile deals, it's not what it seems.

Posted by a maxwell on the 6th November 2009

Sadly there are no negative stars which is about all that Orange deserve. In trying to upgrade my Broadband connection they managed to disconnect me and have had no service for 4 days with no end in sight. I cannot find anyone in Orange who will tell me when we will get reconnected from the normal support through escalation to the executive support are simply increasing levels of incompetence but it seems I am with them for another 18 months unless I pay a cancellation charge.

Posted by Sandy on the 29th October 2009

I've been given a 3rd party internet provider through Orange, them claiming they don't cover my area.. you have for the last 3 years ok? I may have better speed but the quality, for what they said is unlimited downloads is abysmal, peak times I lag constantly, takes ages to load web pages.. tech support are no help they give you 1 of a number of excuses basically saying it's not us it's you. Can't wait to convince my dad to change internet.. Orange no way, stay clear.

Posted by James on the 19th October 2009

I have been with Orange for a few years now on their HomeMax package. I had an 'fair usage' letter about three month ago - nothing since until last week when suddenly I got capped. NOT happy as had no further warning from Orange. Very unhelpful when I contcted them so I cancelled and demanded MAC code. Initially they refused to provide it immediately - but got it eventually (dont be put of by the 5 working days - you can get it there and then). Their customer service is appalling and I've now gone elsewhere - just waiting for the transfer. Only got 1 star as it wouldn't let me post without a rating.

Posted by Paul on the 22nd September 2009

Orange is possibly the worst customer service I have ever experienced. All that their India Tech Support centre does is apologize for not being able to help you. I trust they have a long list of excuses they must rattle out, before they try and help you. Starts off with... "that is BT's fault" and continues from there. I have currently been without broadband (and I have a VOIP phone) for six weeks. Each time I call. I apologize, I apologize, I apologize. I am so sick of it.

Posted by John C on the 22nd September 2009

Orange capped me for using more than 5GB in peak times in one month; I contacted the customer services but email this took orange 4 days to email me back. When they did I have been capped for 3 months I get 0.5Mb between 6pm to 12pm and 1.5Mb in off peak this is from the email they sent me:

"Now you have been placed on capped service the amount of data you use during peak times will be monitored; if after 3 months that has been reduced down to what orange say is acceptable (5gb per month between 6pm - 12Pm your service speed will be placed back to normal."

I contacted Orange to cancel my contact; I was asked why I’m leaving because or you have capped my internet, I was passed on to another customer services person and he tried to talk me out of leaving Orange saying I only have another 9 weeks and they will uncap me. I just asked for my MAC Address. This is another email from Orange.

"We are sorry to hear that you have chosen to leave orange due to speed restriction being applied to your line during peak hours. We would like to inform you that, this restriction is for customers only who are in breach of our fair usage policy, ie downloading over an average of 5 GB of data in two consecutive months at peak times. This congests the network and heavily affects the performance of our internet service for other broadband users, at peak times. Your MAC (Migration Authorisation Code) request has been escalated to our concerned department and it will be generated at the earliest."

"Once we receive confirmation from your new provider that the MAC is used a 30 days notice will be applied to your account and your account will be closed after 30 days. You will be charged till your account is active."

As you can see Orange get every last penny out of you even you leave. So watch out Orange unlimited broadband it not unlimited, so don’t use any more than 5Gb in peak times.

Posted by Paul on the 13th September 2009

STAY AWAY! Been with them a few years on home-max. I got a call in April this year from them saying I'd not been getting the full discount through my mobile, even though I was! They said do I want to start having the £9 discount, no matter how many times I said I was already getting it, they were having none of it, in the end I said yes ok.... I rang to cancel a few weeks ago due to moving and they'd put me on a new 18 month contract! Currently waiting for a response from OFCOM. Then I'd left the livebox at the old address (my brothers) and he can still use 2nd line and it gets billed to me at my new address even though I've moved home?????? VERY RUDE CS TEAM, would not look into it and insisted it was made from new home, even though I've nothing set up there but the basic landline.

Posted by mike on the 13th September 2009

DONT USE ORANGE, my son has a HP laptop with them and for the fourth month it has packed up, this time I got involved as son is in services, went thru to lol something could customer service, got told by someone to calm down then stuck me on hold, every answer was from script "we only supply the donga" NO you also supply the laptop because we got it from an orange shop, then put onto a so called manager, answer I got was from the same script as the previous one "you r only paying for the donga", I asked "do u not recommend this laptop?" - "we only surply donga" time and time again. I asked him "would u b happy with this service," well faults happen not for 4 months in a row they don't. I wanted this sorted before my son goes away, he is now going to be paying for something that he wont be using for about 6 months. The laptop is a pile of junk, orange want nothing to do with it saying it's down to HP, ORANGE the company that take your money but won't help you, customer service what a laugh and this wasn't in India it was over here. I know orange will do nothing to help my son apart from keep taking his hard earned money for a service he cannot use. Thank you Orange NOT, if u want a good service DON'T use orange rating no stars.

Posted by Phill Baker on the 13th September 2009

Just a few words about the Bright future of Orange. Saying that Orange had capped me because it was using broadband to much in peak times, Orange (unlimited broadband) said that fair usage is in peak times 18:00 - 24:00 is 5GB per month and any more than 40GB per month comes under fair usage policy. I pay for unlimited broadband, my exchange is capable of 7Mb but orange have capped me to 0.5Mb from 18:00 - 24:00 and 1.5Mb after peak times. Orange also said if I don't go over 5GB at peak times for 3 months they will uncap my line, if I do go over on the peak times Orange will cancel my broadband. I explained to orange I have two sons that play on their Xboxes every other night which they are unable to use, If I downloaded anything big I would do this after 02:00 (Off Peak).

If you call Orange customer service they can't explain what unlimited Broadband is, all I keep getting is "you have used to much broadband" and quote Fair Usage policy to me. I hope Qrange will cancel my Broadband NOW it would save me money on phone calls!! I have asked for my MAC address and still waiting Six working days now.

Posted by Paul on the 9th September 2009

Never sign up to orange I had a broadband account with these for 16 months when I wanted to change broadband providers they charged me £71.45 in disconnection charges and mac code charges which I wasn't told anything about. When I rang to query this they said that I had been made aware as their notes said so which was a complete lie. I paid the outstanding balance anyway just to get rid of them. I paid by card over the phone and was told that everything was finished. 6 weeks later I received a letter from a debt collections agency saying that I still owed the outstanding balance, when I contacted orange they said that the payment never went through as they don't except switch and that if payment has been made within 16 weeks it goes to a collection agency. I was not told that they did not except switch and they said everything was and when the payment had not gone through no one contacted me to make me aware of this, now this has affected my credit rating and I can not renew my mortgage and orange say there is nothing they can do. This company is disgusting and would strongly advise that no one signs up with these criminals.

Posted by laura stewart on the 8th September 2009

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE if you only do 1 thing today make sure its avoiding signing an orange contract. They will change it as and when they feel like and very rarely even tell you.the broadband is very poor and constantly breaks down and when you have to phone them to complain you end up talking to someone in India who barely speaks English. If you dare to ask to speak to someone that speaks better English you are passed onto a manager who accuses you of being racist and points out that I cant speak Indian (but then I don't work in an Indian callcentre so why would I). The livebox is at best bad and in the 12 months I was with them I needed 4 replacements (yes 4). When you finally get to the golden 12month point and can leave you have to beg for your MAC code and even when you get it doesn't work, after 3 attempts at getting a mac code I get 1 that works but am then told I need to give 30 days notice to leave (so that 12month contract you sign is actually a 13 month contract). Anyway after the 30 days are up you go to your new provider and everything is nice, then the phone calls start from orange. Why did you leave, who are you now with, how much are you paying, how long is your contract and then to top it all 3 months later I get a letter from orange saying I owe them £81 and if I don't pay I will be taken to court. This breaks down to 3 monthly payments of £21 since I left and an £18 disconnection fee. None of which has been paid nor will it ever be paid for as long as I have breath in my body. Orange is an unpleasant, uncooperative and unhelpful company. I've yet to hear a good word said about them. Avoid them like you would avoid a man in a mask with a knife. I calculate that in the 12 months I was with them I had working broadband for around 8 months and you try getting a refund for the time it's not working or when the livebox breaks down. I give them 1 star and only give that because I cant give them 0 stars.

Posted by roy on the 7th September 2009

All I can say is AVOID ORANGE AT ALL COSTS if you value your sanity. I am currently in dispute with them via CISAS (the telecoms ombudsmen) and Orange have not responded to my most recent comments within the deadline so I'm hoping that CISAS will instruct Orange to release me from my contract. In a nutshell, Orange tried to claim I hadn't returned two upgrade handsets (which of course I had and proved on several occasions) and then had the audacity to give me a new account number, despite the fact that the contract phone number and tariff had not changed - they said this would just 'make things easier' - yeh right, lock me into another contract more like!! I used to think they could do no wrong up until January of this year (2009) but they have seriously taken a big nosedive since then. I could have forgiven them messing up once (one department doesn't seem to talk to another within Orange it seems) but to do it on two separate occasions and get a debt recovery agency involved was unforgivable. Thankfully however, when I rang the DRA, they immediately saw that the error was NOT on my part but on that of Orange! I am hoping to hear the Adjudicator's final decision very shortly. If you too are in dispute with Orange and getting nowhere, initially go to Ofcom and if they are unable to help, they will probably put you onto CISAS. You will not necessarily need a deadlock letter if you've been in dispute for more than 3 months and I think less than 9 and can prove it with documentary evidence. Good luck everyone and I just implore, anyone thinking of signing up with Orange on either broadband or mobile, DON'T for goodness sake - the future is certainly NOT Orange as far as I'm concerned!!!

Posted by Toria on the 3rd September 2009

Anybody reading this, please consider carefully about signing a contract with Orange. I was never informed when signing up to orange that there would be a disconnection charge of £18.11... this is because they didn't introduce it until I was about a year into the agreement.. there must be some law against changing the rules of a contract once it has been signed. Tried to get some sort of answer from their Indian call centre but was cut off several times and incurred a phone call cost of nearly £2.00. Don't use Orange!

Posted by David Roberts on the 1st September 2009

Left Orange almost 2yrs ago, but they are still billing me (YES, accepted, my fault for not checking standing orders!) - offered me 6 months refund, but claim as Talk Talk didn't respond to them re MAC its not their problem. I'll give them a chance and then raise a CISAS - it'll cost them more in processing that than they owe me.

Posted by Jim on the 28th August 2009

Wished I had read all the comments below before trying to take on Orange customer service dept, long story but got through to the Executive Team, got the number of Ofcom, formed to offer a better service the nice man said!! So I ring them only to be told they cannot deal with my complaint because they can't or won't access my file and I will have to wait 48 hours till a business manager has time to look at the complaint what a joke. So I rang the the nice man at Ofcom to check he had given me the right number he said he had and to ring them back and ask to speak to someone that could access files so I did (being to lose the will to live). This is a company that offers many technology-related products and services but the executive complaints team deal with pen and paper and you have to wait 48 hours for the results. My complaint was again the mac code which was duely sent but not used, the bit they forgot to log was the beginning of our conversation which I said I do not wish to be your customer anymore and bye then can I have our mac code but according to orange you cannot request them both in the same call, what planet do these people live on. To conclude after 10 years in total with the companies they name in the other reviews. Orange don't give a fig!!

Posted by stephen cardwell on the 27th August 2009

Shockingly bad service. The call centre in India make it up as they go along, they can hardly hear you and don't speak good English. Every time you ring you get a different story, after 4 days of trying to get my xbox sorted out they didn't even know I was connected to them. Followed all their advice to the letter, no avail. Spent hours on their expensive telephone line just to be left on hold and then hung up on, and when you request to speak to a manager, they won't speak to anyone but the account holder. They are really, really bad - I mean worse than tiscali, its really that bad - save yourself hours and go with someone else

Posted by marc harris on the 27th August 2009

To Simon's comments below, it is certainly not only in UK that there are problems with Orange. We signed up for service a month and a half ago and are still not set up. A very long story. Yes, we have swapped Live box but to no avail. My employer's tech team in France knew without asking that the ISP with whom I was having problems was Orange and gave a string of issues they had to deal with and non-employee reports. And denigrating the hardware and software from Orange.

Posted by k on the 18th August 2009

I moved house recently and notified Orange 2 days after the line was activated as per their terms and conditions. About 2 weeks later a message was left asking me to call them. When I did so I was told that there was a discrepancy between my postcode and the BT number. When I checked the postcode I was given one which was nothing like my new postcode or my old one and was for an address in Newcastle! I gave them the correct address details (again) and was told that we might have to wait another 10-15 working days.

Tonight I rang them again and was told eventually that there is a long line issue and they cant supply me with broadband. This is despite the fact that our neighbour has broadband without any such problems and they are only the other side of the semi! Initially I was told that they would have to cancel and would waive any cancellation fee. Sadly the operator then spoke to a supervisor and was told that in fact I would have to give them 30 days notice! The manager, whose name was Richard Cook, was completely unwilling to depart from their procedures under any circumstances. It is up to me to write to them, he wouldn't confirm whether their Head office has email or a phone line, but I have little confidence that they will change their mind.

Sadly my experience of Orange is very similar to the other views on this page. Definitely one to AVOID at all costs.

Posted by Al on the 6th August 2009

Ref the posting by Daniel, same thing just happened to me. I am moving to another ISP after being with Freeserve, Wannadoo and now Orange for many years. I too am disgusted with Orange

Posted by jane on the 1st August 2009

Orange! what a swear word in our house re broadband. Got a better deal and wrote them a letter terminating my contract with them. I then made the mistake of phoning for a MAC code. The switch went over without my new company using the MAC code as it wasn't needed after all. Apparently Orange then ignored my letter because of the telephone call for the MAC code and as this wasn't used account stayed open. They now are trying to charge me the £11.73 for broadband plus a £5 late fee. To say I am fuming with them is an understatement. The banking system is under great scrutiny for overcharging customers on their accounts, when is someone going to start looking at these companies too as they are ripping people off. All beware if you are leaving Orange make sure that your new provider does need the MAC code before you request it and uses it cause if you request it and don't use it the account stays open.

Posted by DMP on the 28th July 2009

How I wish I had consulted your web site before joining Wanadoo (Orange). It would have saved me an awful lot of hustle. Orange are geared to causing as much aggravation to its customers as possible. I have been with them over four years and have recently changed. Thank goodness. They have refused to respond to my formal complaints and their Code of Practice needs a qualified barrister to interpret. All designed no doubt to discourage dissatisfied clients from taking action. Their Customer Service Department should be renamed as Company Service. They refuse to listen to any complaint and their replies are obviously read from a pre-prepared script, from which they will not deviate, merely repeating parrot fashion the same old answers. No star rating.

Posted by Peter Bostwick on the 28th July 2009

Well I've been with Freeserve, Wannadoo and now Orange. I had a letter come through the post the other day informing me my price will increase from £17 to £19.99 a month. I phoned up and tried to get a cheaper price as last year I got 6 months free then 6 months at £17 a month as long as I signed a 12month contract.. which I happily did.. They told me they could no longer offer the 6 months free deal and there was no offers for me... it was £19.99 a month of nothing. So I've chosen nothing. I've cancelled and now they want to charge me £24.60 for the privilege of leaving them! I'm utterly disgusted, I will never ever recommend anyone to use Orange!

Posted by Daniel on the 14th July 2009

Sorry to tell you guys,but it would appear that it is only Orange in the UK that is abysmal, I have been with Orange here in France for two years, enjoying constant line speeds of over 20meg, and a free swapout service for the liveboxes that inevitably blow up in the frequent storms we have. (Walk in the shop, hand one in and get one back - not even any paperwork!!!). The degrouped line I have uses VOIP for all calls and it is every bit as good as a landline - AND ALL CALLS FREE to ANYWHERE. Maybe it is time that you all got together and demanded that UK Orange got their act together and followed the EU lead, (my sister also swears by Orange in Portugal.) Orange has now taken over France Telecom, and is THE national provider. We have local help centres that really help (multilingual as well). If it can be done over here, it ought to be possible in UK, where IT claims to be so advanced.
Failing all else, join us in France and enjoy the cheap wine as well.

Posted by Simon on the 13th July 2009

Have had a reasonable service up until around 2 months ago when line speeds dropped by half. Phoning their call centre is likened to extracting teeth without sedation. My speed has dropped by half and barely attains 1 meg down, I have another incoming line (obviously from the same exchange) and using adsl 2 ( same as Orange) from another supplier i attain around 5.5 meg down. I also work in IT support as a 2nd and 3rd line engineer and get absolutely frustrated speaking to people reading from a script and cannot get any one to contact me that can speak on my level. They get 2 stars due to their reasonable service in the past.

Posted by Stephen Lawlor on the 2nd July 2009

Following on from my post on the 16th March. I finally received a letter from Orange threatening Legal action if I did not pay the £18 Disconnection Fee within 10 days. I wrote them a letter... a very abrupt letter complaining about the service, the way in which my complaint had been handled and most of all my outrage at them having taken 'Silence as an acceptance' to their email in November regarding the disconnection fee.... (which I never read due to a recent addition to our family) and that I had no intention of paying the £18. Anyway - had a phone call last night from Orange Customer Support apologising etc and to inform me that they have removed the disconnection fee and my account in now closed! Yeay!! Never again will I even consider returning to Orange. Their Customer Service is an absolute disgrace! Don't be bullied by these people!

Posted by Angie Gunter on the 1st July 2009

Orange are an absolute disgrace. We had an issue with our BT line and they had to assign us a new line. I called Orange and they told me that it takes 10 - 15 days to get our internet back and the worst part is we still have to pay for the month while we wait for them to get us back online. I work in IT and I find their the technical support team completely stupid. I strongly recommend that you don't use Orange broadband. Just have a look around on the internet at UK broadband customer feedback and you will see that they have the worst feedback of any broadband provider. Not to mention the connection is extremely slow! Move on!

Posted by Richard Blodwell on the 11th June 2009

I have also been with them through freeserve, wanadoo and I also had no problems until it changed to Orange! I was on the Home max paying £19.99 per month I had problems getting the second line to work and eventually when it did work I lost my internet for almost 2 months off and on.
Lots of phone calls to them cost a fortune on my phone bill!
I did get a nice chap on escalations who gave me 6 months free internet but I had to renew my contract for 12 months which I thought ok since they promised to get my connection back quickly. My monthly payment is reduced to £14 to compensate not having the second line. Anyway after the 6 months free was up and I made my first payment I'm now on slow speeds 298.53 KBPS waiting on line test after line test and no phone calls to let me know what is happening, I now have to wait yet again on another call next Thursday !!

Be wise don't join Orange!

Posted by Lorraine Mackenzie on the 31st May 2009

Finally got rid of Orange. Had to pay the £18 but at least I have got rid of them. In relation to Kevins letter below may I tell you to steer clear of Virgins 50 meg service until they sort it out properly. I had their 20 meg service with no problems although occasionally they dropped the speed a bit. Their 50 meg is terrible. It may work for a while then nothing for ages. Gone back to 20 meg.

Posted by Tony Robinson on the 21st May 2009

Orange support is pathetic. I lost my broadband link on the 11th march after 18 months of consistent service around 2Mb. I carried out a full set of diagnostics before contacting Orange e.g. powercycle, factory reset of the livebox, replaced filters and RJ11 cable and connected to the BT test socket without any connection whatsoever. Rang Orange technical support and have now spent hours on the phone re telling the same story, struggling to understand the answers due to appalling sound quality and strong accents. I get a different story every time, there is a line fault or the next time it is my internal wiring, which is impossible as I am connected through the BT test socket. Have been promised call backs on 6 occasions, only one has this happened at the correct time and once two days late, the other 4 times nothing. After 3 weeks have finally established a connection at 0.5mb. I have written two letters of complaint had a brief sorry response and a free months broadband in 1 letter, nothing from the second letter. Pointed out it is pointless having a free goodwill gesture for a service they could not provide, tried to cancel the contract to be told that there is a £18 disconnection fee. Now have to wait to the 11th April to invoke the 30 day rule. completely useless service. Now going over to Virgin Media Cable broadband and praying that Fibre Optic will give me reasonable speed and customer support worthy of the name. ORANGE ARE A TOTAL disgrace, and that is coming from a 13 year Orange mobile subscriber and original Freeserve broadband user. Can I give them 0 stars!!

Posted by Kevin Hatfield on the 4th April 2009

'nNo hassle' mobile broadband.. hmm. Since December I have received 2 bills for over £100 each. I have apparently been to Dubai and Germany with my mobile dongle, I was told I was a lying about not being abroad at the time (even though I cancelled the DD at my bank in England! on the same day to prevent the money leaving my account) I asked to cancel my contract, orange refused and I now have the pleasure of phoning customer 'service' (ha) every week as they keep disconnecting me!! It's beyond a joke, I think like everyone else I will be seeing them in court...

Posted by Natalie on the 2nd April 2009

It's good to know I am not alone....and only have another 7 months before I can come out of this awful contract with orange... my connections have been good.... but the home move transfer was a disaster... the communication with India is appalling, no one understands what anyone is doing... and now after trouble free for some months my second line has gone... almost an hour I am on the phone to India plugging un plugging telling my story several times... all to be passed onto the super top dept who will let me know what is wrong.... I said I think it's the wee cable but no I can't just have one.... so I have no free phone line.... and also zero confidence in this company. You can't hear them on the phone... it fades in and out and there is no rapport. They must be reading off sheets... it's horrific. Sometimes tho you do get through to a bloke in Leeds somewhere who is really helpful, but apart from that it's a nightmare. Don't do it...

Posted by saraboomdeay on the 30th March 2009

This is a follow up to my comment on 10th March. I had Virgin 50 mg installed yesterday with a new modem and router and I am getting speeds of 39-49 mg. I have 3 computers in the house hard wired to the router and my sons xbox 360. So far no problems whatsoever. I rang BT to cancel the line coming into the house with no problems at all with the service being cut off in 14 days time. I rang Orange from my mobile and got through to a nice chap who has cancelled my service but as the last commenter (Angie) has said has told me there is a disconnection fee of £18. BT cancelled my landline for nothing and Orange are charging £18.Rip off ! When my phone contract is up I and the rest of my family are going to change networks so that's 10 people. Well done Orange (not) for your fantastic customer service.

Posted by Tony Robinson on the 24th March 2009

I have just called to cancel my broadband with Orange today and have been told that I have to ring back in two days time as I am two days outside of my 30 day notice period! AND that I have to pay £18 to disconnect as this is what they get charged?!?!? Apparently I received an email in December telling me this and that if I objected then I had to reply and would not be charged! After explaining that I've recently had a baby, who would have been 3 months old then, did I have time to sit down and read emails!! I've not signed anything nor received anything in writing but will be taken to court if I do not pay. I will be cancelling my DD and will look forward to seeing them there!! Anyone been made to pay?

Posted by Angie Gunter on the 16th March 2009

I have virgin for my use on a computer and my son has an orange livebox for his xbox 360. Just recently (last month or so)he keeps getting disconnected in the middle of a game which must be very annoying. I am gonna get the 50mb broadband with virgin with their new router that they give you, so hopefully I can share my connection with my son with no problems. WheneverI check the Orange connection speed it is usually about 6mb but as a previous commenter has said sometimes mostly at evenings it is dropping to below 1/2 a meg mostly about 300k. I have got fed up changing modems over all the time. I was forever letting my son have virgin and me orange but downloading something could take hours instead of minutes. So I am cancelling Orange today. Good luck everyone else with Orange you may need it.

Posted by Tony Robinson on the 10th March 2009

Well been here since freeserve like a lot of you have and was always happy with freeserve and wanadoo... But orange came along and problems began... slow internet from day one with them and we foned support... They suggested all things like monitoring speed over 1 week, didn't get above 500 kb. Some days only got 40 kb so we couldn't do anything. Phoned them back and they looked into it and found our line was cut to 0.5 meg for some bizarre reason They said they would sort it. Obviously never fixed it as the speed worsened further so we phoned back their support. Spoke to a woman and she cut us off first go which was disgusting, phoned back again and we luckily spoke to a English man who was more help than anyone. He admitted that it was all from orange's end and it would be dealt with, still to this day nothing.
We are now moving to 02 and cant wait for it. We ordered internet on Sunday with new sim card after unlocked phone, sim card arrived on Tuesday and router arrived today, and internet should be up by 11th of march so overall so far it's a very good service, just hope it lasts. But bonus of them is it's english call centers so even that was just heaven.

Posted by sam on the 5th March 2009

It's reassuring to see I'm not the only one shocked at Orange's appalling service.

As I'm being left with little option other than to cancel my account while still under contract I'm being hit with a huge cancellation fee. I have no plans to pay it and have seen other posts from people who are being taken to court. I've got no problem going to court to have it out with them. Has anyone actually been forced to pay?

Posted by Rob on the 3rd March 2009

The service is getting worse, it all started just over a week ago when my son was unable to play online with his ps3, I logged into broadband speed checker and could only get 300k. Checked next morning and back to 6mb, strange as live box showed connection speed had not changed between the 2 tests, still connected at 8mb. I wrote to orange and got a reply that they do not support PS3, wrote again and got reply to check all my connections, they did not seem to understand the it is fine during the day but dismal in the evening. I have mailed them again about the problem and for an explanation on the slow performance in the evening but still no reply. Time to start looking for another supplier I think.

Posted by Fred Hornigold on the 3rd March 2009

Not even worthy of one star. Orange Broadband is the most abysmal, disgraceful service, ever. It doesn't even deserve to do Internet. My livebox crashes around 20 times a day, the general internet is always slow and their claims of being XBOX Live acclaimed is absolute rubbish, I can't even game online it is so abysmal. Avoid at any cost. If you get this internet service it will be the biggest mistake you ever make.

Posted by Jake on the 26th February 2009

I like everybody else think that Orange broadband has gone down hill very rapidly. Over the last month I've done regular down load speed tests at different times of the day and night, and the best I can get on average is 556Meg which is just over dial up speed. I've been in touch with Orange and they keep saying that on most days I average a 2.6 Meg download. I myself have been with Orange since they were Freeserve but am now seriously looking to change to a more stable and helpful company.

Posted by Wayne on the 1st February 2009

THIRTY FOUR DAYS AGO my phone line went dead. Post office telephones then sabotaged it by fitting a line splitter to give me a phone line then told me that loss of adsl is down to orange, now the fun starts (not). I have lost count of the times I have unplugged modems, bought new filters and leads etc and I have even been told to upgrade to Vista (I don't think so). Five days ago I sent a recorded delivery letter to their customer services, they cannot even be arsed to reply to this. They have also extracted 17.99 from my bank twice during all this and I intend to get it back. I have never in my life been treated in such an appalling fashion. Just found a local provider of wireless broadband and I can't wait to get rid of both orange and BT.

Posted by glenn croft on the 17th January 2009

We were loyal Internet Customers of Freeserve and remained with them when Freeserve was taken over by Wannado. When Orange took over Wannado we were persuaded to join their Wireless and Talk Service. What a DISASTER! We used this service for our Internet Business and suffered one breakdown after another. Finally on 31st July 2008, the service broke down for more than 3 hours and we lost a lot of Internet Business as a result. Orange Customer Services had no idea when the service would be resumed and told me the breakdown was to their Main Server. Anyway, we told Orange Customer Services that enough was enough and we needed a reliable Business Internet Service. We were told that Orange Internet was not to be used for business purpose, even though we joined as a business and paid our bills through our business. After being told by a very rude lady that we couldn't leave Orange as we had a few months left of our contract, I phoned them again and finally got through to a supervisor who told me that he would email me a MAC Code and so we joined the excellent O2 Wireless Broadband.

Now we have received a demand for payment of the balance of our contract from a debt collector for about £180.00 or we will be taken to Court! Guess what, we actually want to be taken to Court by Orange Home UK so that we can tell everyone just how dreadful that company is. What a bloody cheek, we lose money because they run a Mickey Mouse Internet Service and now they want to sue us in Court because they couldn't supply a reliable service. All their customers should just leave and join a proper service where if you have a problem you speak to someone in the UK who knows what they are talking about. The O2 Wireless Broadband has NEVER let us down. We are looking forward to seeing the Orange Legal Team in Court as we will make them look like idiots.

Be well advised - stay clear of Orange unless you want a lousy Internet Service and high BLOOD PRESSURE.

Posted by Harry Whiteley on the 9th January 2009

Have to echo everybody else's comments. Have been with Orange for 10 yrs (Freeserve then Wanadoo) and the past 3 months the service has collapsed. Have had no internet access for 2 weeks due to a fault at Orange. Engineers supposedly working on it for 2 weeks - bridges get built quicker! Awful technical support - cannot understand a word of English and a complete rip-off. The worst large ISP by a country mile. Orange are so bad they make BT look like shining beacons of success - beware

Posted by Andy on the 5th January 2009

The fair use policy sucks. If we assume my average speed downloading is 6000 kilobits/second or 750 kilobytes/second and 40 gigabytes is 41943040 kilobytes then it takes 559204 seconds to download 40Gb which breaks down to just 15.53 hours of downloading per month. If we work on an average 30 day month there are 720 hours in which I can download. This means I am allowed to download for just 2.16% of the time (at any time)! At peak times (6-11pm) this is still only 10.35%.

750kb/s downloading 40Gb = 15.53 hours
15.53 hours / 720 hours (any time) = 2.16%
15.53 hours / 300 hours (peak times) = 10.35%

I just got capped for breaching the FUP. My figures work out at downloading for 3.1% of the time (any time) or 14.89% if it was all done at peak times! Remember - this is supposed to be an Unlimited package!

Posted by Shane on the 24th September 2008

It's at least nice to see I'm not the only one that's being scammed by Orange. I would like to add my experience if that is ok; I have tried to keep it real and to the point but it is kind of long. It's hard to believe this all has happened in less than 1 month. Actually it's hard to believe most of it and it happened to me first hand. If you’re thinking of buying Orange broadband though then I seriously recommend you read it to let you know what you’re in for. Especially applies to those who need the internet as part of their work.

I ordered Orange broadband as my DSL signal kept disappearing off my line for up to 24hrs at a time and AOL that was my supplier at the time had no idea what was causing it, although to be fair it never lasted longer than 24hrs before they got BT on the job. It seemed to just randomly go off then come back on some hours later. After the first time it happened they said BT had replaced a faulty 'line card' (whatever that is) at the exchange but the next 3 times it happened they had no answers. I got a migration code from them and shopped around for another ISP.
To be honest I didn't like the sound of Orange from the start, there’s just something about their image that looks tacky and there mobile phone signal isn't good outside of towns I have found. Anyway their prices looked good so I decided to give them a call for more info.
I had clear questions ready to ask the advisor of which most of them she did not know the answer and had to ask a supervisor. My main concern was that although I wanted the 'Unlimited download' package some ISP's will slow down your bandwidth if you go over a certain amount, usually about 10GB. Some will only do it during peak times as AOL did and some will do it all of the time. Some ISP's will also block ports to prevent you downloading easily via a bit torrent or peer to peer networks.
As I said the Orange sales lady had no idea but assured me that if I downloaded after 9PM (as I do - really should get out more!) then this would not be a problem. I also asked if the call was being recorded but she didn’t know, worth doing as they will deny anything if they need to at a later date. I would actually strongly advise anyone to record each and every phone call made to any business these days as a matter of course as so often it will be of use.
Getting back to it - I decided to take the unlimited download 8mb max package with telephone line, free second line and a free wireless dead box, I mean Live box! With the half price for the first 3 months offer. I gave her the migration code that I got from AOL and waited for the activation date to switch ISP's. That came, plugged in the dead box typed in my miss-spelt email address (phillp@blah.blahblah.co.uk and not phillip- morons!) and password and it connected, great. I didn't really care about the email address as I have my own domain name and my own email addresses. Besides using an .orangehome.co.uk address for business is like buying economy Chocó rocks in Tesco instead of Coco Pops - bad analogy but you get the picture!
A couple of days later I got really bored and decided to log on to Orange's drab website to activate the free second line phone they give you that connects to your router. Whilst doing this I noticed that I had Orange email so logged in to read it. It was from Orange customer services saying that they were sorry that I decided to cancel my line rental with them for my landline and that they would welcome me back anytime. Actually there were 3 emails exactly the same saying this sent about 10 minutes apart.
Confused I phoned Orange's 5p per minute customer support line to be told that they were unable to transfer my phone line from First Telecom and so could not provide me with the package I had ordered. They then went on to say they had changed the package to their 'Home Max' deal on my behalf as it was about the same price. Well for one that was a bit of a cheek as I neither agreed to this or had any knowledge of it and also it wasn't such a good deal as I now had to continue to pay First Telecom for my line rental and calls. The advisor was however very quick to remind me about the free second line with free UK calls to landlines and Orange mobiles. It's just a shame that I couldn't ring Orange customer services on it for free also. Besides that the number they give you is an 0845 number so anyone else with free landline calls on their phone package (unless it's Orange) will have to pay national rate to call you on it (who gets the benefit of that?). Also it has an annoying 3 beeps before you can dial out on it and you must always use the area code, even if you’re calling your next door neighbour. Not so great after all.
Well the call started to get complicated and the advisor was slipping back into his Punjabi native tongue so I just decided to stick with it as it was because really I just couldn't be arsed with it anymore and my phone bill was clocking up rapidly.
Another day or so later I went back to the Orange website as I thought that I would use the 0845 number for my business as it just looks more professional and gives the image of a large company. I couldn't remember the PIN code for the voicemail but before I got that far I noticed another email from Orange. They informed me my first bill was due (yeah they want advance payment) and asked me for a twenty something or other quid connection fee and twenty four quid for this month’s broadband! Well I was slightly gob smacked as it clearly said at the time I signed up on the Orange home page that there was no connection fee for migrating customers. I remember thinking at the time this was funny as I thought this was standard practice. It's not like they have to do anything, you give them a migration code which they then use to steal someone else’s customer and slap an 18 month contract on them. Why do they expect I should also give them £20? If anything they should give me £20 for joining them! Besides this I was being charged full rate when it should have been half price for the first 3 months.
So again I phoned Orange 5p per minute 'tech support' line (didn't bother using the second line phone - no point) and was put through to billing. I was told that all customers had to pay a connection fee if they migrated or were getting broadband for the first time. I argued with her about this as I know it is not the case and while doing so brought up the Orange home page on my computer. Guess what was still written at the top of the page in a drab orange banner? 'Free connection for migrating customers' (or words to that effect). I told her this and she checked it out while I was on the phone to her and replied with a series of, 'oh, err , erm, I'll just need to transfer you to....' I stopped her there and added about the monthly payment not being half price. 'Oh' she says, you cancelled your telephone line account so therefore we can't offer the 3 months half price rental with your new package! WHAT!!
I'm now getting seriously angry and demanded a migration code. I told her if they didn't waive the connection charge and give me it half price for 3 months they could keep it. She then went on to threaten me that if I cancelled now I would have to pay the remainder of the 18 month contract! That being the contract they changed without my knowledge or consent! After I pointed this out to her she again transferred me to another department. I had now been on the phone for over 30 minutes.
The next person I spoke to was a guy called Andrew at 'Orange Care'. He had been filled in by the previous person while I was on hold and immediately apologized for the problems and said he would give me 6 months free broadband as I was in an 18 month contract! Yippee! That's what I want to hear, Sorry and Free! He said that I would get a new email stating the new terms and conditions but it wouldn't say it would be free for 6 months but he assured me it would be. Hmmm, dodgy - I didn't like the sound of that. Am I going to be phoning back next month when I get a bill just to be told I was miss-informed (an AOL special). So that's why I got his name and department he was in just to be sure.
Well I expect you would have guessed a week later I got an email saying my bill was overdue for payment. This didn't even make sense as I hadn't even had the broadband for a complete month yet.
Again I phoned back (First Telecom making a mint here) to be speaking with another fluent Punjabi speaking operator. I explained that it should be free for 6 months to her as via Andrew at Orange Care Department and she said she would need to check my account. She said that she needed to put down her headset while she did this and asked me to hold the line. I said I would and began to wait. After the thud of the headset hitting the desk I then had to endure 21 minutes listening to a gaggle of Asian women in fits of schoolgirl laughter in the call centre before being cut off, dead!
I had got to a point now where I can honestly say I have never felt such anger towards any business I have ever dealt with before. Even when I have been given bounced checked that I have had to pay charges for from my own bank didn't upset me like this did. I went to the pub and downed 5 pints of cider before returning to my telephone and punching in the ever so familiar 0844 Orange number. I now even know the 4 options to get me through to the right department (if indeed there is a right department) and exactly at what point I can push the buttons to cut off that blood curdling 'welcome to Orange broadband' woman and get to the next option!
I'll cut another long phone call short here as this is turning into a Novel and say that they finally agreed that what Andrew said was correct and deleted the charges. So glad I got his name!
After this all was going fine. I had noticed a regular dip in my up and download speed but nothing I couldn't live with for 6 months free broadband. That was until last week, Saturday at 2PM to be precise when the DSL light started flashing red very fast on my now defiantly dead live box.
I honestly don't think now whatever happens in the rest of my life that I will ever forget Orange broadband phone number and options to India.
I was told that everything on my line was fine and that my account was active and that there should be no problems. This however was not the case so had to go through all the idiot proof remedies of unplugging my Sky box and extension sockets etc before he was satisfied enough that I wasn't a plank and conducted a line test. I did try to explain to him that I was an I.T engineer and ex-telecoms electrician but that didn't help to convince him that I hadn't tried to run my storage heaters off the telephone line! Besides I have over 30 brand new DSL filters here and several routers from Netgear to BT Voyager’s. None of them report any DSL active on my phone line which they should regardless of whether or not there connected to a computer or have the correct login information stored on them. I also disconnected everything from the master socket that BT Open reach replaced just last month as a matter of trial and error when they could find no fault.
I was told to wait 24hrs for an update and he took my mobile number and promised to call back. 24hrs later - no call back. 0844....Yes, there is a fault on your line, it is 'a core network fault' and you need to wait just another 24 hrs and I am humbly promising you this will be all resolved. 24hrs later - no call back. Now I'm turning red with anger, I have websites to build and update, I have computers for service that need to connect to Microsoft update, No wages, I have to go to the pub with my laptop to download email and system drivers for repaired computers, seriously not happy!
0844...I demand a migration code and blatantly tell them to shove there broadband where the sun don't be shinin' but I am met with, 'but I can honestly tell you Mr. Philips (Phillip is my first name- arhhhh!) in just 48 hrs (I'm not kidding you) your broadband will be all fine. There’s no point in cancelling now as it will be working most fine very soon so there will be just no need. I didn't care though, not now I got nothing else to lose so insisted he put me through to customer services for a migration code, which he reluctantly did.
A grumpy annoyed English fluent woman greeted me. Have you noticed that anything to do with billing is based in the UK but anything to do with technical support is based in India? AOL is the same, can't think why that might be! She had obviously also been filled in by Praticaca rahj the 3rd or whatever his name was before I spoke to her because she said, matter of factly, 'look. If you migrate your broadband during the 18 month contract you will owe us £200 odd quid. Obviously they weren’t her exact words but again it was threat time. I told her I didn't care though and that they wouldn't get a penny out of me and that I'd sooner go to jail than give them a brass farthing. If I were Bill Gates they still wouldn't get a penny out of me, hell they've made a killing out of my phone bill for God’s sake. 'Besides', I said you have breached the contract as you’re not keeping your end of the deal and giving me broadband. She then went on to inform me that in the contract (very small print) they are entitled to up to 30 days to fix a fault before you can cancel! This is true, I have checked it out, too late I know but even so I still don't accept that. Had the initial sales advisor mentioned that to me during signup I'd have slammed the phone down laughing.
Ok she says but I must warn you though, etc, etc..JUST GIVE ME THE GODDAM MAC CODE, I shouted, as you’re required by law! Well Sir, she says, I'm just about to if you let me finish. Right OK what is it? Well Sir (I'm no longer Mr. Philips, I've now been knighted!) you will have to wait 5 days for the code to be generated. At this point I'm looking for something to kill. If there was any way I could get down that phone line I'd be on remand now facing murder one. Fat chance of that anyway when I can't even get DSL on it!
Right fine then I said will you contact me when you've done it or should I call back? 'Oh, no Sir', she says, 'you will get an email from us with it!' My brain is hurting beyond belief now and my head is spinning like I'm 14 again and just necked a bottle of vodka and what's left of my cool headedness and manners that I was brought up with have gone for a Burton.
'I meant, Sir' she said as if she had made a simple mistake that she was well aware of the moment she said it, 'that you will also get it by post'. 'Good', I said, 'that's all I need to know, bye!’ 'Oh Sir, just one more thing', she interrupted as I was about to slam my telephone through the brick wall, 'if you request the migration code it may stop our engineers (let's use that word loosely) from working on the issue' she said just to have one last twist of the rusty old knife buried in the side of my head.
I swore and ended the call.

I sat alone for some time then in my workshop with my head in my hands trying to see a way of getting someone to help get me back online so I could earn some money to feed my kids and pay First Telecom. I was worried what that horrible old hag had said about the engineers stopping work on the problem and decided I couldn't afford to risk that as I needed all possible solutions open. I had a coffee and chilled out a bit and proceeded to call 0844...

I know I was starting to lose my mind now as it took me several minutes to remember the 3rd digit of my security code for account verification but I got there in the end and they were ready to assist me. 'Oh I see you have already called today and the @ light is still flashing fast on your router is it not?’ 'Yes', I said, 'nothing's changed but what I would like to say is that if you can get this broadband working before I get the migration code I will be happy to stay with Orange'. I had no intention of it but desperately wanted to get online so I can get some work done. Even now as I sit and write this I am surrounded by P.C's and laptops waiting to be updated and dreading the phone calls from angry customers.
I mentioned to him about what hag lady had said about the engineers stopping work and he said this was incorrect and that my account status would only change on the sign-over day with the migration code. So I was deliberately misinformed. He also said that I was due a callback tomorrow (now today) to update me on the progress. I actually thanked the guy this time, his English was good and he had a personality, not the usual pre-programmed Orange, 'Yes Mr. Philips I understand your frustrations but 24 hours..' routine.

Getting to the end now! I waited all day today for the call back but nothing. It dawned on me that although I was with Orange and First Telecom it is still BT that owns the phone lines and the exchange. I looked into this and found out that BT rent out the line to other ISP's for a low rate and provide no support. Both of my neighbors have BT broadband and they have no problems like I do and I live in a terrace. It seems to me that BT give priority to their customers and any line faults etc from any other ISP is pushed to the back of the queue. I think also they may be ranked for importance by their company profile. I.e. AOL is a bigger more popular (lord knows why!) ISP than Orange so gets support before them. Some of this is guess work so please feel free to correct me if you feel you need. So logic would suggest that being with BT would indeed be the most reliable ISP in the UK? Simply because they have no one to pass the buck to. I'm not saying they don't have faults but at least I think they are likely to know what is wrong and how long it will take to fix.
On this thought I phoned BT today and ordered BT Business Broadband and line rental. It's £26 per month for the broadband and £40 something a quarter for line rental. Ok that isn't really that cheap or is it? It's still broadband for less than a quid per day. They also send you a decent wireless router, not that crappy home hub thing and give you 5% cash back on your bill if you spend £500 a year with them in total. I don't think that's bad. The real selling point however is that because it's a business connection you have first priority for repair I am told, usually an engineer on site same day.
Great, it's sold. Spoke to a real nice young lady on the phone, friendly, helpful, non robot type who said I would need to get the migration code first before I could order. She suggested I phone Orange as they may have already processed it but not sent it yet. She said she would ring back in 15 minutes to see how I got on.

0844... Amazing, 'Yes Mr. Philips, here is your MAC code - EM1532183GH23J'.

BT phones back and I give it to her but she says it's wrong. She asks advice from her manager who states that a MAC code is 4 letters followed by 8 digits, forward slash then 3 letters followed by two digits. She agrees to call me back in another 15 minutes while I double check.

0844... 'Oh no Mr. Philips, that is not your MAC code it is as follows (I have changed this for security but the X's are letters and the 0's numbers) LYST0000000/XX00X. Well that's not what BT said it should be although I'm sure the first part (LYST) is right as I seem to remember this being the same from AOL. I verified it slowly with him 3 times and have since checked it in the email Orange sent and it is correct as they gave me.

BT phoned back but again it was showing as invalid so the only other option has been now to have a new telephone line installed (Free on a 5yr contract) on the 11th September and broadband activated on it by the 16th September.
Why? Because Orange have cost me loss of earnings, don't have a clue what’s wrong with my phone line and cannot give me a migration code that works. And they think I'm paying the rest of the contract. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Anyway at 6PM I got on the old 0844... Welcome.1..If Yo.5..For PC us.4...If you have.1.....Ring Ring.....Velcum to Orange my name is handyegwjdyyhejhdghh may I get your name please most welcoming humbly please be online thank you, gibberish! I'm getting tired now!
Apparently the call was booked for tonight at 21:45hrs! They gotta know I'm not sleeping too well! So again I waited. At 11PM still no call so I phoned them to be told that there is a 'core network fault' and that they are still waiting for an update from the engineers!
I still have no broadband, my telephone is fine and I can make and receive calls normally and have just paid the bill (this one doesn't include the 'tech support' calls but I will update this as to the cost next month if anyone wishes to know.
Now I will upload this on a 56k modem for you folks to read. I have been writing this for 3 hours and if you have read it all then I thank you and apologize for my bad grammar. But if this put's one person off signing up with Orange then it has been worthwhile doing it. I have been truthful in everything I said and as hard as it may be to believe, I have not exaggerated in any way.

Well here's looking forward to the superhighway again on the 16th!

Posted by Phill Thorne on the 5th September 2008

I also started with Freeserve which changed to Wanadoo before moving to Orange. I also didnt have many problems until Orange decided to cut my connection speed without giving me notice. I made phone calls to people who I could barely hear or understand. I followed their technical advice to the letter, and despite several emails and telephone calls, absolutely no change and was never given a real explanation to the problem. We gave up. Called and got my mac code, they asked me why and wanted to try to sell me a better package, but I was very polite and just said no thank you. Got the mac code no probs and have now moved to Sky, which is cheaper and so far so good. I agree that the call centres should be brough back to the UK and provide jobs for people living here. If I know customer service is in India for any Company, I try not to use them. Orange - its about time took these reviews seriously - do you think we are recommending you to our friends and colleagues?

Posted by Shazzer on the 1st September 2008

I started with Freeserve and then migrated to Wanadoo before moving to Orange. To be honest I never had any problems in all those years until last week. Since the 18th August I have not had connection for more than a few hours. First phoned the Indian Tech help line on the 19th, promised to sort it out and text me within 24hrs, no text was ever received. I have now phoned them 5 times in the past nine days. Yes have gone through the dreaded line test on three occasions. Finally got the call escalated on the 25th and asked to take to the escalation team as they were in the UK, informed by my Indian friends, as Im on first name terms with most of them now, that the escalation team would not talk to me. Oranges customer service is a disgrace. Sending this as the connection came back about an hour ago, but doubt if it will be here much longer.

Posted by Alan Della on the 27th August 2008

I run my own computer repair business, and a few years ago started to work with a company called microtechs, who had the jobs of installing orange broadband (for a fee) if a customer had difficulties. This fee was of course, their payment as well as a payment of £28.13 for the engineer who visited the customer. For the last 18 months, microtechs have not been making the engineers payments, but still taking money off orange customers.As with all other complaints, orange wash their hands of it, and the basic reply is tough. I would suggest therefore that if anyone had problems with orange broadband, DO NOT PHONE MICROTECHS, but call your local computer repair company, as they will do a better job and be cheaper.

Posted by jonathan gatenby on the 21st August 2008

after 2.5 weeks of no orange broadband, and a big loss of business because of it, I phoned today to cancel my contract. Apparently I renewed my contract with them in April! Which I know I didn't, as I've been pondering changing from Orange for sometime and would never knowingly renew. I'm sure they can't just renew a contract with your agreement? Anyway, I wasn't getting anywhere with the muppets in the call centre, and asked to speak to a supervisor, after waiting an eon on hold, I was told they were busy and would phone me back in 48hrs! I then spent 1hr looking for a head office / customer services address to write a letter of complaint. I've given them until then end of the week for a satisfactory resolution before I escalate it to ISPA and trading standards. I think I'll phone Orange mobile tomorrow and see if I magically renewed my contract with them anytime recently ;)

Posted by lol on the 11th August 2008

Customer Support - don't make me laugh. Until they bring back the call centres to England don't expect to get any support at all. Over 6 months ago I attempted to change from free broadband but didn't receive the router. After a very strong phone call I finally managed to negotiate 3 months free rental however during this time some numpty in Orange disconnected my broadband without telling me there was a problem. They then had the audacity to place a £72 charge aginst my account which they took from my bank - I thought taking money from someone's bank account without their consent was termed theft and three months later, despite numerous telephone calls and letters I still haven't received restitution. Orange have obviously bought up an small, inefficient broadband provider and kept the small, inefficient staff. I await repayment but think I will have to go to the small claims court to get it which is my next step.

Posted by Lynda Young on the 11th August 2008

My second line has been down for 2 months. 5 weeks ago they said they would call me when investigated. Nothing heard. No point in telephoning - different person answers each time - same old routine of doing this and that - all to no avail. And they will not respond to correspondence.

Posted by dogbrimble on the 5th August 2008

I could not agree more with the comments given below. I have been using Orange broadband for 3 years without a problem until last week when I lost my broadband connection. I have phone the so called Customer Support in India who are useless. After 8 days and 4 phone calls to them I still do not have a broadband service. They keep saying they will do a line test and will get a text message back but I never receive anything and have to keep phoning them up. They never contact me back. Urghhhhhh...

Posted by Dave on the 4th August 2008

Want high blood pressure? Then join Orange Broadband! Their customer service is the worst I've ever experience, it's just about making money on the calls to them and you get absolutely nowhere. I've been with Orange mobile for years, they were brilliant till they sold it off to some French company and that's when it changed, now they're just so tight and mean it makes me sick, its take take take.

Posted by barry on the 24th July 2008

My advice - please never go near Orange broadband, you shall regret it. (Deserves no star rating, but this website will only allow you to continue with at least 1 rating).

I have been with Orange broadband using their 8mb service for 10 months which was fine and on the 10th month,I received a letter from orange that my usage of broadband in 1 month has effected the FAIR USAGE policy! and they cut my speed of 8mb to less than 256kbs (Slower than dialup), it was also stated in the letter that this reduction in speed will only affect me between the hours of 6pm-midnight but I realised that wasn't so as I got less than 256kbs all day which was appalling. Realising that I was coming to the end of my 12 month contract anyway, I decided to play it cool and end my contract with them to go to another ISP. On calling to get my MAC code, the customer service agent I spoke to asked why I was leaving Orange and I told him that my speed was reduced due to their claim that I broke Fair usage policy rules and was glad it happened towards the end of my contract and HE (The Customer Service advisor) LIED to me that was not the cause of my speed problems but my line had interferance and if I RENEWED my contract he would get my line speed back to what it was. A few hours later my speed was back and doubled compared to what I used to get before this issue started, I started getting double the speed which I though was fantastic. I received a call from the same agent the following day and I expressed my satisfaction towards the service and then he LURED me into renewing my contract which I did ONLY to find out the next day my line was back to 256kbs (what I had when my line speed was initially reduced). I called the same number (which has now been discontinued) to complain about it and they said my speed problem was DUE TO BREACHING THE FAIR USAGE POLICY RULE. I was devastated cos that was when I realised I had been tricked into renewing my contract after being lied to that my fair usage policy breach was not the cause of my speed issues.

Now the cat and mouse game started, having been unsuccessful in getting hold of anyone, I finally got hold of the HomeCare Team which is a team of English speaking customer service agents and spoke to someone, he listened carefully to my ordeal and advised me this was going to be rectified and asked whenever I called 08448738586 to interrupt them and ask to be passed on to the Home care team. I was given a reference number.

I managed to get my MAC code and moved to 'o2' and was assured everything was ok, they sent a green bag to pick up their livebox which I sent to them , a few weeks later I received a letter saying I was owing £121.45 or legal action will be taken, this is after being promised that I will not incur the early opt out fee applicable to getting my MAC code as I was tricked into my new contract. I have been unable to get hold of anyone in Orange, and as my account has been disabled, the Indian customer service have been EXTRA RUDE and unwilling to help, no matter how calm I try to speak to them and uncountable times of explaining the WHOLE situation, all I get is Please pay up the balance cos you owe Orange... I wish to escalate this issue and hopefully get to the bottom of this.

Posted by Oladayo on the 23rd July 2008

I have been a happy Mobile phone customer of Orange since 1995 and a happy broadband customer of Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange since 2003. I had reason to call about my broadband this week, as my connection dropped and couldn't re-establish. In the past I've always spoken to a UK operative and they have been really helpful. This time I got the Indian call centre, who said they couldn't understand ME! They wouldn't check if the service was down locally because I wasn't using a Livebox (I much prefer my Netgear router). The service returned after about 20 hours. Last night the same thing happened, so I tried to connect using a Livebox and couldn't. The call centre did at least try to do a test on the line this time and told me I would get notification on my mobile. After the call, I just reconnected my router and the service came back about an hour later. 15 hours on and I still haven't been notified on my phone.

Posted by Jason on the 17th July 2008

These are absolutely the worst bunch of charlatans it has ever been my misfortune to meet.

I have had several promises that they will wipe the balance from my account, yet today i receive a letter from debt collection agency. This for the period where they agreed that they did not supply me with any broadband service and wasted my time (and money) on superflous technical calls. In fact the supervisor i spoke to in January advised me to send in a copy of my home phone bill so that they could credit me with the money that had been spent on the premium rate calls as in his words their service had been apalling.

Unfortunately by then i had reached the end of my patience as i just wanted rid of the whole company.

I will do everything possible to dissuade people from having anything to do with this company, and am in the process of moving all of our company phone users away from them .

Posted by CPS on the 12th July 2008

DO NOT USE ORANGE, i called them requesting my MAC Code to leave to Sky and they cut my line immediately. I had to call everyday several times with nothing. I was advised to call the Technical Team on 50p a min 4 times - each time they said they couldnt help and it was customer services i needed. The departments dont communicate, read previous notes, had to argue my case everytime i rang and was told to call the technical team. Having just checked my phone bill it has cost me £21.89 for them to do nothing an leave me without my broandband. The call centres are all in India, you can barely hear or understand the advisors. The males were very patronizing and the females very rude like u had disturbed them. DONT GO WITH ORANGE!!! They just fob you off rather than listen and deal with your call properly - if they had i wouldnt have been refered to the premium rate 4 times unnecessarily!

Posted by Rachel on the 10th July 2008

Got to agree with anyone who says orange are hopeless, constantly phoning to no avail 50p per minute to call their helpline costs you about £7 youst to get your name understood.
Neve ever use orange for anything again looks if a paid for a free laptop with the odd bit of broadband thrown in

Posted by Mark on the 9th July 2008

I've twice had them promise to wipe the balance from my account, and twice they have then said they have no record of the call! Now they have sent it to a debt collection agency.
The Indian staff are rude and the UK 'managers' just don't care about customer service.
Whenever I hear anyone talking about changing mobile/broadband or phone, I just say Avoid orange, they are rubbish.

Posted by Mark on the 8th July 2008

Our first livebox fell afoul of a power surge, resulting in us unable to use the BT line whilst it was plugged in, the ADSL did still work though. The replacement arrived dead, completely unable to connect or find an ADSL signal. I am a computer science student, and for the most part, I know what I am doing, so I went through the usual troubleshooting steps with the livebox, broke out a cheap router I had lying around, and that could connect perfectly. When I rang orange to tell them their equipment was faulty, they made me go through the list:
1: Is it plugged in?
2: Is the adsl cable connected to the correct socket?
3: Are you using the master socket?
4: Try doing a hard reset...
They completely ignored the fact that I said I'd done this, and that I could use a different router AND their old livebox to connect, and said it must be a line fault, so they'd do a line test. I told them there was nothing wrong with the line, but they did it anyway. 2 days later I called again, to hear (surprise surprise) there was no line fault. So what did they do? They concluded it must be a line fault, and they'd have to do another line test. Overall, we had to wait 2 weeks for them to get themselves sorted and send us yet another new livebox. Even this one resets itself every few hours.
Having finally got a replacement, and promises of a refund for the 2 weeks without internet ( no mention of the massive phone bills, but thats another story ), I've now run into the absolutely abysmally speeds that orange are providing sometimes. I'm writing this at 4:30 in the afternoon, and It's worse than using dialup. The livebox says I''m connected at 3.8mb/s, I'm getting latency's of over 1000ms when pinging google, and download speeds from various services and sites sometimes being measured in BYTES PER SECOND. I just hope I can get the contract canceled for them not providing the service they promised.

Posted by Iain Pattison on the 3rd July 2008

I am absolutly appalled at the lack of customer care service.I lost my second lie 12 days ago and despite making numerous calls onth 0845 number,about 7 emails and a letter to the head office the line is still not working.IEverone i speak to gives me a differnt ancwer and I have now had to cancel my direct debit in the hopes that someone will do something Right now I would not recommend orange to anyone

Posted by Phil Hughes on the 18th June 2008

I myself as with most people on here have been having problems with Orange but I managed to get my 18 months contract with them cancelled after 8 months and had 2 months worth of charges refunded without so much as a fight. I am now with a new provider and I didn't even request the MAC code either. All I did was write to the customer service dept copying the letter to their head office here in the UK detailing the problems I have been having. We had the 2 mg starter pack which we got with a free laptop but we kept experiencing the network dropping off especially in the evenings. But since the beginning of march we weren't getting any connection at all and after a few weeks we called customer support who referred us to tech support. I called them on their premium rate number a couple of few times but with no success then I decided to write. In the letter I told them I refuse to call tech support again and that I shouldn't have fork out money on top of my subscription to ensure that they provide me with the service they are contracted to provide. I told them to sort the connection problems out or terminate my contract. They phoned up after a few days asking us what we wanted to do so I told them cancel. They said ok and that the line would be free in 10 days. We are now with AOL. So it isn't impossible to get out of their contract. You can also try reporting them through this organisation:
http://www.ispa.org.uk/cgi-bin/complaints.cgi

These crooks don't even desserve a star. Don't waste your money contacting tech support. It's just another way of making money for them and they don't help you. Tech Support should only be referred to if you have problems setting up your internet - not for connection problems when it is down to orange to ensure that network is actually broadcasting a signal. Hope this encourages someone anyway. But best advice is to avoid Orange in the first place.

Posted by Henry on the 28th May 2008

I hate Orange! They are fine until you have a problem because their customer service is the worst I have ever encountered. They say whatever they can to get you off the phone or keep you on the line wasting your phone bill telling you useless information and not listening properly to what the problem is. I would advise anyone to not bother with Orange broadband and it has been a nightmare to switch from them. The only way to get a response from them was to report them to offcom. They don't even deserve one star.

Posted by Angry Gurtrude on the 16th April 2008

Had a couple of teething problems, after ironing these out I have been satisfied with the deal. Second line gives clear speech reception from others, although the transmission is occasionally poor to third parties. The cause is likely to be the difference in upload and download speed connections.
Live box is a clever piece of kit, well thought out, very secure wireless connection.

Posted by paul k on the 13th April 2008

What a bunch of liars these people are. I have been having connection problems for 2 months. Each time they say they have escalated then the engineers pass it back and close the fault. I have had more escalations than hot dinners. But they still don't fix the issue. They wont replace the live box. Now I am writing to there customer services. Hopefully they speak and understand more English than those people in India.

Posted by Dr_c on the 12th March 2008

In the last month we have been connected to the internet about two hours total. The livebox is driving us nuts with many useless calls to India, the second phone line is dead and it seems no one at orange has a clue or know that the service is bad and are just going through the motions to fob us off. Don't touch orange with a barge pole or you will regret it for sure.

Posted by r.grainger on the 12th March 2008

Absolutely agree with above comments. My Orange broadband gone to death since 12 December 2007; after 50 useless calls to customer service (call back in half in hour, call back in 24 hours, 48, 2 days, 5 days, 10 days we will call you back etc.) on 14 January I finally got my MAC code from them, I've been told that my contract is canceled, but amazingly they still took monthly charges from my account. By the way my BT phone bill flied to £150 pound, also today I found in my post box a green bag and letter from Orange asking to send them back Livebox. Stay away from this company as far as possible.

Posted by S. Dashdondove on the 8th March 2008

I have been with orange mobile for 9 months and 4 months with unlimited 8mb broadband... I watch and download music and movies.. After 3 months I receive a letter from orange that my usage of broadband in 1 month has effected the FAIR USAGE policy! and they cut my speed of 8mb to 0.4mb (half of 1mb). I have been with telewest (now virgin media) and aol; I never had any complaints. I didn't even know that I was violating the fair usage policy. ORANGE fair usage policy clearly says that they will inform me if fair usage policy is breached and suggest how to avoid it. If I don't obey they will warn me.
BUT what orange did - NO WARNING NO SUGGESTION. They sent me a notice saying my 8 mb speed is cut to 0.5mb for 3 months which is totally unacceptable. A simple warning would've been enough. Tried to contact orange broadband team they say the reduction of speed is only at peak hours from 6pm to midnight, but it's been 20 days!!!!! I'm receiving 0.5mb all day. It's just like using dial-up. Called orange broadband team again and again still same bla bla. The fact of the matter is ORANGE have NOT followed the fair usage policy by informing me that I am breaching the stupid LAW... I wish I never left virgin media. I'm going mad. I want out!!!!!!!!! I have sent the customer care team a letter regarding this... still no reply, let's see what happens.

Posted by khalid on the 2nd March 2008

Never ever go anywhere near Orange Broadband... Shocking technical and customer service!
Having returned from holiday to find that my livebox has decided to no longer allow me to connect to the wireless internet securely and that my internet telephone has stopped working, I had to call the technical support team.
What can I say? The technical team have been worse than useless and I'm sure cost me a small fortune in telephone calls. People with about as much knowledge as Mr Potato Head, who keep you hanging on the end of the telephone line to come back and inform me that it's my computer and not their modem!! After further calls back, I have been promised two call backs and surprise, surprise received neither of these call backs!
I will be leaving Orange as soon as I can, so please for your own sanity stay well clear of this truly shocking service.

Posted by David Bond on the 29th February 2008

Do NOT go near this company. EVER.

After 8 months of uninterrupted service from Orange Broadband I returned home one night to find no dial tone. I work in IT so did all the normal stuff but to no avail. Rang technical services who told me to do everything again. I did, it didn't work so they arranged for a line test. Fine. However, 20 days, five positive line tests, 26 support calls (50p a minute), a £130 phone bill later orange still have not sorted the issue. My contract states that I can not cancel they have 30 days to 'fix' the service unless a technical supervisor signs it off. Was there a technical supervisor available? 'No, we'll call you back later'. No call. I've been promised at least seven calls from Orange and have not received one. No one takes ownership or responsibility and the technical support (third party in India) will not admit they are defeated and just keep fobbing you off (I don't know if it is cultural or as they are a third party will get penalised by Orange, either way not a good business model). The only way I found to get a response from Orange was to write a letter. Apparently and engineer is coming out to test everything. If this happens and they fix it it'll be a miracle. I am not holding my breath. Even if they do fix it as soon as my contract is up I am leaving. CONCLUSION - please, please for your own sanity do not go near this company they have absolutely no respect for their customers. I really hope their MD / COE / COO is reading this and they sort their support and customer services model out. Appalling.

Posted by J. Dawson on the 28th February 2008

I wish I had found this before I took on Orange Broadband! I have been a contact mobile customer with Orange for almost 10 years. A month ago I bought a lap-top and signed up with Orange for the home Broadband. I'm still waiting to be connected to the internet. The username and password that was set up when I registered aren't recognised when I am setting up my installation to get connected to the internet. I have had numerous long, complicated and ultimately frustrating phonecalls with Orange customer services - the staff of which seem not to be able to speak or understand English. When told the problem I am experiencing the staff have, without fail, confirmed my username and password to me. When I explain (again) that I know my username and password but that the system isn't recognising it, they (again) tell me what my username and password is. Orange technical support is equally as bad and I am no closer to being able to use the broadband service which I am paying for. Anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do next?

Posted by Claire on the 25th February 2008

I have had the same problems. I've been with orange for a while then my net got cut off. They say something is wrong with the line and just say the same stuff. I always phone them, wait 48 hours, then they say other people are looking at it, wait 5 days. It's now been 3weeks! and they still say the same thing.

Posted by claire woollard on the 18th February 2008

I had Orange Broadband (unlimited) for a few months until they started blocking the SMTP port to force users onto their own E-mail service. This made their broadband service useless for work. Of course they hadn't bothered to inform their customers of the change in service conditions. When contacted their technical support, they insisted on running through their line checks, modem checks for something which was blatantly an infrastructure matter. I complained and eventually got in contact with a supervisor/manager who agreed to refund half of the £50 contract termination fee. When I continued complaining that I'd spent close to £50 on their national rate number trying to get to speak to a manager, he agreed (or so I thought) to waive the entire fee. I subsequently changed to Be and have since been entirely free from problems.

3 (yes, THREE) months later, I received a letter from Orange stating that they had closed my account and that I owed them £25. Basically, the manager lied when he said he'd waive the whole termination fee. I wrote a reply to the demand explaining all this. I may as well not have bothered. Not only do their technical support know absolutely nothing but it would appear that customer services can't read and understand a letter written in clear English.

I can't wait for the contract on our Orange phones to expire. They will never get any of my custom ever again.

As for Sky Broadband... they could never get their act together to connect us.

Posted by Keith Halewood on the 8th February 2008

Getting rid of Orange is a million times harder than even getting a connection. After being told that I had no connection because my wireless adapter was broken (when it wasn't - it was just easier for them to palm me off on Belkin) I was told that they wouldn't help me unless I bought a new router. I told them to cancel my contract - was charged a £192 cancellation fee (a cheap price to pay to get rid of them), two months later the £192 has not been taken from my account but they're still charging me my monthly direct debit. Useless. Do not touch Orange with a 10ft barge pole.

Posted by G Whitworth on the 4th February 2008

I too have been having orange problems. I am on home max, so I don't have to pay BT line rental (1 good thing??) My problems:
1. I moved 6 months ago, it took orange/bt 3 months to get my line connected. I then changed to home max!
2. Now when people ring my landline (if it works, which it does normally; at the moment, no landline but do have broadband???) it interrupts my broadband connection. Only a flicker, but the livebox then has to reset itself. GREAT!!
3. My broadband at the moment will not allow me to retrieve my emails although I seem to be able to go most other places?
4. I have no voip line and so get charged at the normal rate on my bt line.
After spending probably £30 in the last month it is becoming very very frustrating and expensive. Am I not paying enough for poor service that I have to pay even more for poor customer service.
I have no other choice now but to cancel my direct debit with them and wait for them to contact me. Telling them that I will charge them £12 for each letter and 8p for every minute on the phone to them until these problems are resolved. Half the problem is the lovely people who speak very politely but don't have a clue what they are talking about, except what the screen says. Sorry to moan so much, but hey, that's what you're here for. P.S. In their defence, before i moved I had nearly a year of uninterrupted phone and broadband, even if it was a bit slow at times.

Posted by Christopher Hurn on the 26th January 2008

Orange support have two rules.
1. The customer is at fault
2. When Orange is at fault, rule 2 applies.
My internet connection kept on dropping and then fell down for 2 weeks during which time, every time I rang they went through the same script of blaming my wireless modem. Eventually they escalated the problem after about 5 calls, and I have internet back which still drops frequently. Learn the SOS alphabet, you will need it, only 20% of the time have I been able to have a normal conversation. I hope the connection stays up long enough for me to finish this.

Posted by Daniel Prior on the 25th January 2008

Are all of you still experiencing no broadband connectivity? Have you thought of trying Satellite Broadband?

Posted by Steve Nash on the 24th January 2008

Had two phones with orange on one contract and told could use my tariff to call abroad using the given special number. One bill sent for both phones. Then got charged for calling abroad at full rate. No breakdown of bills sent so had to get PC access to check high bills. Told unable to use the international number so contract cancelled. Then found out when next bill came in that only one phone was cancelled and kept getting billed for the other one. Eventually told not able to cancel as not used for calls abroad, which was untrue but when I pointed this out told I was out of time in making a claim for cancellation. At no time did I receive any correspondence about these changes or in reply to any of my letters when I cancelled. Only response is a debt collection agency who unlike Orange seem to phone every day and do reply to letter.

Posted by Anna Holstein on the 22nd January 2008

I have free broadband with orange but they keep charging me 5 pound for late payment fees. Iknow what you think, no I did not make a mistake because they also tell me it's free but I had a chat for 20 mins to someone, the chat went like this... Malc: "You charge me 5 pound." Orange: "This is a late payment fee." Malc: "But it's free." Orange: "But it's a late payment." This went on for 20 min till I gave up. Anyone can understand Orange cos I don't.

Posted by Malcolm J on the 18th January 2008

My Orange broadband connection stopped working on Boxing Day. Both my router and the modem indicated that there was no ADSL signal on the line. I phoned Orange technical support several times. To their credit, they answered the phone immediately (no 20 minute wait like you get with some call centres) and did their best to be helpful. They went through the various things which could be wrong with my equipment (modem settings etc.) and concluded that the problem had to be with the line itself.
And this is where the problem started. They attempted on several occasions to run a line test, but the results were inconclusive. They said that they would refer the problem to Orange engineers, that problems like this typically took 5 days to sort, and that someone would e-mail or text me within 48 hours. No e-mail, no text; five days passed, then 10, and still no sign of a restored service.
I asked Orange for a MAC so that I could switch to another ISP. Legally, they are required to provide a MAC within 5 working days, but failed to do so. So I cancelled my contract with Orange and signed up with Virgin. Hopefully tomorrow, I will get my internet back.
Orange initially tried to charge me for a 30 days notice period when I cancelled, but subsequently backed down and indeed refunded my charges for the period of downtime. Two people telephoned from their contract terminations department, and were helpful and sympathetic. But it was too late by then - I was committed to a new ISP. My experience is that the key Orange weakness is that they simply do not have the systems (or perhaps the engineers) to identify and fix problems on their network in a timely way. Their call centre staff, in India and this country, do their best, but this is of little help if the systems actually to fix problems do not work properly.

Posted by Peter Carter on the 17th January 2008

Do not use orange bb: no connection, no service, no use, especially 'free' service with phone as doesn't even fall under normal ISP code of conduct despite paying £35 month. Can't wait to escape if I can get my MAC from them! Seem to be so many good ISP's out there that would be madness to join the generally acknowledged worst ISP provider.

Posted by Robert Gilmore on the 19th December 2007

This has veen a disaster from day one... A guy came from the company who orange advertise for £70.00 they will set it up for you... put your feet up etc. He hadn't a clue what he was doing. I have never had an internet connection for more than a couple of hours... since October 15th I have made almost daily calls to Technical support for a reset and it works for two hours and then goes again. It is always my fault... my filters, my this, my that... They cut one off for five days to check the BT line... it is unbelievable... a total farce. I WANT OUT... it is making me ill.... a disaster.

Posted by Mrs K M Watt-smith on the 15th December 2007

Sent this to orange:
I am getting rather annoyed at receiving letters demanding cash that I do not owe. I have now received a threat of legal action demanding an outstanding balance of £202.98 which I do not owe. I find the threat of strong-arm legal action rather distressing even if it is the result of incompetence within your organisation and no fault, error or omission of my own.

A very long time ago I signed up for Orange Broadband. Orange completely failed to actually provide me with any broadband coverage. Orange recognised their abject failure to to provide me with the services stipulated in the contract and their obvious breach of said contract (basis of breach: failure to provide services). Orange therefore agreed to refund my subscriptions and I returned the completely useless hardware. Orange agreed that as no services were provided that the contract would be cancelled ab-initio with no cost to me. My subscriptions were refunded. There is no contract. Ergo, there is no cancellation charge. To ask me to pay for your failures is just pathetic.

I can only assume that the billings section of Orange Broadband is completely incompetent. After some time on the phone to the call centre last night I can only assume that the lack of care shown by the call centre operation is a match for the incompetence of the billings section.
I was informed by the call centre that the invoice is for cancellation of subscription and the invoice cannot be cancelled so has to be paid. As someone who raises invoices through work I know full well that invoices can be cancelled and that therefore your call centre operators statement is nothing short of a downright lie. Does anybody in the call centre have any level of knowledge or competence?

The suggestion by your call centre that I should pay a cancellation charge for a contract that was breached by Orange and agreed to be cancelled from the start is nothing short of farcical organisational incompetence. Having been an Orange mobile user for over 10 years I am somewhat distressed to be the victim of such organisational failure. I look forward to your immediate apology and confirmation (AGAIN) that the contract was cancelled ab-initio with NO financial liability attached to me.

Got the reply:

Hello Marcus,

Thank you for your email.
We understand your concern and apologise for the inconvenience caused.
We have checked our records and can see that your Orange broadband account has been cancelled. There is an outstanding balance of £202.880.
We advise you to follow the link below for help to pay the outstanding balance on account.

Replied back:

Well done for "checking your records". Your records are wrong.
1. Your call centre has "promised" to call me back twice and has failed to do so on each occasion.
2. Their incompetence is as disappointing as your response below.
3. Your call centre tells me of a contract incepting in July 2007. I have never at any point agreed to a contract in July 2007.
4. If you believe there is one please provide evidence.
5. You have not addressed any of the points I have raised.
(a) I do not owe any money.
(b) I do not have an account.
(c) I do not have any financial liability for breach of contract by YOUR ORGANISATION for FAILURE TO PROVIDE A SERVICE.
Do you actually understand this?
6. The account was cancelled from inception and my subscriptions were refunded. NO LIABILITY ATTACHES TO ME for FAILURE OF YOUR ORGANISATION.
7. As you clearly either do not understand or do not care about the basic principles of law of contract in England, can you please immediately:
(i). Refer my letter to your management (copy below)
(ii). Give me the CONTACT FULL NAME and ADDRESS of your COMPLAINTS organisation to allow me to escalate this issue to the point where I can actually find somebody who cares and has the authority to stop this ridiculous threat of legal action.
8. Your response is nothing short of pathetic. It demonstrates purely that you have no knowledge of the contract in question, no knowledge of law of contract in England and Wales and does not answer a single point raised.
9. The account was cancelled through BREACH OF CONTRACT by ORANGE.
10. Under LAW I have NO LIABILITY for breach of contract committed by ORANGE
11. Cancel the invoice immediately.

Marcus

Posted by Marcus on the 14th December 2007

Orange are a joke. DO NOT USE THEM. I have been without internet access now for a month. Every time I call they tell me to wait a further 5 days. I was told to ring them today to check that they had sent the fault through to BT and then ring one of their advisers tomorrow to rectify the problem. The technical dept told me today that they have no facility to contact BT (Orange mustn't be able to get their own phones working!!), I gave them the extension number I am supposed to call tomorrow and they told me it doesn't exist!!!

They are a disgrace. If my broadband service is not back on by Monday then they are in for a shock. I will be blockading their Bristol depot until they get me arrested. Watch this space!!!!!!!

Posted by Dave Hayes on the 13th December 2007

I can only agree with the comments above. I too have made numerous phone calls to both Orange Technical Support and Customer Support and still have no broadband. It has worked once in several months. An engineer came and diagnosed the problem and several weeks later still nothing has been done to rectify the problem. I have spent an absolute fortune in premium rate phone calls, each call being an exercise in futility as you are continually advised to wait 5 days and nothing happens. Do NOT touch Orange for broadband services unless you would like a nervous breakdown. I am very close!

Posted by Victoria Crisp on the 3rd December 2007

I've had orange broadband internet for the last 5 months, I'm on contract with them. One year since I signed contract with them they have stopped my internet five times. First four times was only for few days (2 or 3 days) but since last month I haven't had internet connection for 29 days. It is so frustrating. I've been calling customer care 50 times and technical support only to be told to wait and to call them in 5 working days. It is a scandal. Whenever I call a different person answers the phone and they say that it's bt fault but it is not true and I will probably cancel my contract with them and I will also go to a solicitor. I will advise any future customers to think twice before they sign with orange. They don't care about us customers, it is scandalous.

Posted by Jovo on the 21st November 2007

Without doubt Orange is the worst internet provider. Orange took over from Wanadoo who was the original provider. I never had a single problem with Wanadoo. As soon as Orange took over the problems started.
1. Hours and sometimes days of no service.
2. Timing out all the time.
3. 50% of the time, the broadband delivery was even slower than dial up.
4. Useless help line with operators who were expert at saying the word 'sorry'.

My main trouble started in early October 2007 when the service failed completely. It took six weeks of inactivity by the Orange helpline that made me realise I had no choice but to cancel my account with them. Then they said I would be charged for a late payment! What, a late payment for a service I wasn't getting? All the time they were still billing me through a Direct Debit. They owe me at least six weeks which I know I have no chance of getting. I am not going to pay them for the late charge of course. In fact I hope they take me to court because I will drag it out so much that it will cost them thousands in legal fees. After it is over, I will start court action to recover (at at least £100 a day) my own lost revenue. I only rated Orange as one star because there was no option for no stars.

Posted by Stephen Tabin on the 18th November 2007

Where do I start with this? We have had 4 days service from orange in nearly 4 weeks. Firstly I would just like to say to you all if you have had no service what so ever in four weeks then you do have the right to cancel your contract with orange I was told this by offcom so please guys check your contracts. Offcom and trading standards advised me to write a letter of complaint sent recorded delivery but they told me that the letter should start by saying, this matter is to be treated as a formal compliant as outlined in your codes of practice and you must also put in a dead line date for them to reply to any questions in the letter. If orange don't reply by the dead line then trading standards will take on the matter on your behalf.
Every one should write a letter because they will just keep getting away with treating people like this. Also can I just ask a question, is any one having the problem where the inventell page just keeps telling you ppp server down? As that's all I keep getting. Thanks for reading.

Posted by Kelly And Dave on the 17th November 2007

I joined orange on Nov 7th this year, and that's when the trouble started; I have had no phone now for 8 days, either my normal landline or through my livebox. I have made countless calls (from my neighbours) trying to sort this have been shoved from pillar to post, given God knows how many excuses, and today because I asked to speak to someone who could deal with mt problem, had the phone slammed down on me. Orange customer service is rubbish, when I said I was going to cancel I was told I would have to pay £445. Why should I pay? They have broken the contract not me, I am seeking legal advice tomorrow.

Posted by Mr R M Thomas on the 15th November 2007

My Orange broadband fell over on June 28, 2007 and, despite £42 worth of phone calls to their technical team, was never resurrected. I asked for a MAC code and switched to a proper supplier. Orange then sent me some prepaid bags to send their equipment back and, some three months later, sent a demand for an outstanding balance 'or we'll have to take you to court'. Looking forward to it !!

Posted by Brian Bentley on the 14th November 2007

Asked for a MAC code, received it two days later. Now wishing I'd stayed after joining Post Office broadband.

Posted by Alastair Graham on the 11th November 2007

We moved house in March this year, getting Orange to move the broadband was in itself a disaster. It took ages and once it was finally connected the service was poor. We would lose connection all the time and sometimes have no broadband for days at a time. Each call to technical support was met with the same inept responses mentioned in many of the complaints on this blog. The 10 days wait seems to be the favourite (most probably just to get you off the line and get the operators call stats up). The fact that it would work and then randomly disconnect and stay disconnected for days was certainly a problem with the line. Router resets, which their rather useless technical support seem to think is the solution to all the problems never worked.
I have worked in IT Support and for over 10 years and can tell when a router is faulty, just looking at the admin screen should be enough, but a mention of this to the support person is met with a very dull response. Finally after 8 months of awful service, the last 2 months we have had no connection whatsoever we have had no choice but to cancel. We were told it would take 10 days to cancel but after a month its still not done and the Orange markers are still on our line. They are in fact blocking our line from getting connected by another ISP. They will also not give us our MAC code as they say the account is closed so we cant have it ... DUH, obviously its closed, that’s why we require the code!! Speaking to supervisors and or managers in customer service has got us nowhere. We have made so many calls its unbelievable and even written a letter to their support office and still we are no nearer a solution.
It seems getting rid of Orange is even harder than getting on their Internet service. At this rate we might as well just move house!

Posted by Craig Parker on the 6th November 2007

Absolutely agree with all the complaints above. Orange customer support is abysmal, broadband is ok when you make no changes but if you move home, as I have, re-connection is a disgrace. Customer service and tech support have no communication, they all pass the buck or tell you to call back in 10 days. Tech support don't email you as you were told, and I've been cut off from India 4-5 times, although they are far more polite than one particular English rep, who was downright rude when I complained that I'm still paying for a service I don't have. I'll be cancelling as soon as my contract is up.

Posted by Nina Cullinane on the 22nd October 2007

Here is the content of the complaint letter to Orange.

I am your customer for Internet Broadband connection and writing to you out of shear frustration and despair about the quality of Technical and Customer Service Support I am receiving from Orange. Please help me with my connection issues.

I registered for Orange Unlimited internet Broadband on 2 Dec. 2006 and was connected about 20 June 2007 and never had the broadband connection working ever since. I mean it has never ever worked.

I have made many many telephone calls to your Customer Service and Technical Service teams ever since with absolute no joy or meaningful support. I am a very patient and reasonable man and happy with someone telling me what the problem is and what you are doing to solve it and approximately how long it will take to get the line operational again. However after numerous calls and hours of sitting down and put on hold on the phone I still don’t the answer to the above questions. I have made more that 60-70 calls and logged it every time and date and the result of conversation I had with your team which will be available on your request. I am very tired to being told "wait for another 24 hours", then another 5 days, then another 15 days then another… After 5 months of that it gets a bit frustrating. (...)
Summary of some of the issues I faced:
• Never get to talk to same person on your support team twice which makes it hugely frustrating as you have to tell them the story again from the beginning every time I called. (I know you supposed to log the history but in practice it hasn’t worked for you). ASSIGN ONE SUPPORT CONTACT TO ONE CUSTOMER UNTIL PROBLEM IS RESOLVED. Yes it is possible. Dell is doing it to great effect. This makes at least 80% improvement in your support. Ask for help if you don't know how!!
• Support team make promises but they rarely fulfill them and there is no way to get back to that person again;
• They never put anything in writing so when you talk to next person they denied that this could have ever happened!!! Very annoying;
• Most of the time they don’t have the relevant knowledge to provide proper answer and they refuse to put you through to someone with the authority to answer the question properly. Very frustrating!!
• Technical Support passes your customers to Customer Service and Customer Service to Technical Support and they refuse to talk to each other. On 6 Sep. 07 when I called Tech. Support for follow up my account, after a long time of wrangling managed to get transferred to the Supervisor in charge (Called himself Sam Smith) who told me there isn’t anything else that Tech. Support can do regarding this account and you have to refer to Cust. Support for further advice. When I called Cust. Support on 11 Sep. they refused to help me and said I have to call Tech. Support. Do you understand the depth of your problems?!!
• Big mistake taking your support dept. to India. No disrespect to Indians but service was better out of your Middlesbrough office!
• I was being charged for Service that you never provided and had to push really hard to stop that!!

(...) I will be publishing this letter and also will be talking to Offcom on this. This problem could have been resolved much more amicably if your Customer Support representatives would have let me talk to someone in authority when I tried to do so in numerous occasions. Like I mentioned above, you are my last call and this is out of despair.

Thank you.

Your not so happy customer.

Posted by Jaz Dorcheh on the 18th October 2007

I've read the above discussion and can't help but feel a victim of the same issues as mentioned above. We signed up with Orange Broadband in August - only had it a couple of weeks and there is now some sort of ADSL fault on the line. After numerous line tests, modem resets and connection/wiring tests, still no resolve to the problem. We are locked in an 18 month contract and they want 350 quid from me to exit out. Does anyone know how to exit out based on poor service and not offering the goods they promise when you sign up? Please help...

Posted by Pradeep Jethwa on the 15th October 2007

Very poor service, can never get a solid connection. Installation CD requires flash plug in to work however the new flash player is not supported with the CD. Loads of interference on my home line. All in all a very poor internet service. I would strongly avoid.

Posted by Harjeet Singh on the 14th October 2007

Absolutely appalling "service" for Orange Broadband. After getting squeezed out of the appalling dial-up service, decided we should perhaps move with the times and go onto broadband, signed up with Orange, got the so-called easy to load CD with the modem, and have tried EVERYTHING, including ringing up the so-called helpdesk at Orange. Obvious the people on the helpdesk have no idea whatsoever, and are reading stock answers off a crib sheet. Website no good. Have followed absolutely everything I can. Doing this for disabled brother, neither of us mentally retarded, but a fortnight down the line, this is really too much to have to deal with. Will be very shortly cancelling direct debit and forget about connecting up to the internet altogether (and in absolute emergencies will resort to internet cafes). Not worth all this aggravation, and can put the money to better use.

Posted by Marian Rook on the 10th October 2007

Customer service is appalling. Broadband been down for 3 weeks. I've telephoned their call centre abroad 12 times. On 4 occasions I have been informed that they will contact us! Zero response. Problem with 'exchange' and fault escalated. DO NOT GO WITH ORANGE BROADBAND.

Posted by Mike on the 5th October 2007

I am deeply unimpressed with Orange so far. We signed up for unlimited broad band on the 1st Sept and are still waiting for "escalation" (whatever that is) to authorise the second line - which is the main reason we selected Orange. Their help lines are diabolical, they keep no records of previous calls, and ALL the promises of "2 days", "5 days", and "10 days" are bull.

We are stuck in a contract but I would strongly advise other potential customers to run a mile from this company. If only they had the sense to get their senior management to actually try to set up and run their own accounts with the company, I am sure something would be done to improve the situation. As it is, they probably just count the cash they are making from frustrated sucker-customers phoning their help lines. So far, I rate the company 1 out of 10.

Posted by K Rooney on the 3rd October 2007

I was previously a Freeserve customer, then a Wanadoo broadband customer & never had a problem. Since the switch to Orange the connection speeds have been up & down like a yo-yo, plus multiple disconnections. 8mps? Don't make me laugh! As I write this things are OK & my download speed is a little over 3mps (I'll be happy if it stays that way!) & upload is 243kbps.

I would switch provider but there are nightmare stories about blocked broadband by Orange etc, I can only hope that things will improve.

Posted by Mike Swift on the 1st October 2007

In my opinion, Orange Broadband has abysmally low standards of customer service. Here's my tale of woe: My Broadband contract expired with Orange in early August 2007. I wasn't able to use the MAC code they'd supplied to transfer because I was away on business. When I got back they coudn't provide another one, but they did "helpfully" put a "tag" on my phone line, which effectively blocks any other ISP from giving me broadband until it's removed. As a result, I can't get a new ISP until Orange stops blocking my phone line. The new ISP would like to help, but its hands are tied until Orange gets its act together. This has been going on for weeks and I'm becoming increasingly frustrated. As at 27th September 2007 I have phoned their call-centre (based in India) 5 times asking them to remove the tag from my line and received the usual "in 10 days time" routine. I have sent 3 emails asking them to stop blocking my line and each time received standard replies instructing me to phone their call-centre. I have even sent a snail-mail letter to Orange's customer service dept in Rotherham (Yorkshire). End result? I have now been without broadband for 6 weeks, and it's entirely due to Orange's incompetence and indifference. Basically, I'm disgusted and would advise people to avoid Orange like the plague, particular if they need internet access to make a living, as I do. Suffice to say I'm typing this post at a neighbour's house. He'd allow me to connect to his wireless network, but unfortunately he's too far away for that to work. My advice is to think twice before choosing Orange as your ISP.

Posted by Pete North on the 27th September 2007

Be careful with Orange Broadband, they are good with false advertising and breaking their own fair usage policy. They sent a letter out to a friend of mine and it was supposed to be the 2nd letter they sent out but the first one he received, threatening him that his account is suspended on 28th September due to 2 months running going over a bandwidth quote and the fair use policy, even though when he signed up it never mentioned any of the sort. Also, in their policy it is mentioned that will contact you 2 or more times to sort out any problems with bandwidth and then the account will be suspended; they ignored all that and decided to cut him off instead. And he spoke to 4 people in total to sort this out. Last night he spoke to a Chris and it seemed that he didn't want my friend to get disconnected and said he would do something to stop it being suspended. My friend called again today and the logs from last night does not exist, 2nd person kept saying sorry and wasn't helpful and hang up on my friend. The rest were not interested and couldn't help. Please be careful, they are not loyal to Orange customers.

Posted by Kevin Lea on the 27th September 2007

I am now disgusted at the customer service I have received relating to my Talk phone. As I have explained on many occasions, that since the power cut after the thunder storms of the 22nd June 2007 my Talk phone has not worked.

• I phoned on the 6th July 2007


• I phoned on the 17th July 2007


• I phoned on the 24th July 2007


• I phoned on the 1st August 2007


• I phoned on the 13th August 2007


• I wrote a letter on the 13/08/07


• I phoned today and I was again told that it had elevated to another department.

This means nothing!!!!! I have been told this every time.

It has now been 3 months that I have been paying for a service I have not received. They offered me one month free broadband (£5) I accepted but it's really an insult!

This is one of the incentives made me choose Orange and change my mobiles from Vodafone.

I am sending a copy of this to BBC Watchdog and the Web

Posted by Allan Ward on the 19th September 2007

It seems like Orange really do live up to what everyone says. We've been on their Internet service since they were Wanadoo, and Wanadoo were great. Since Orange took over we've had constant disconnections, very poor speeds - 82kbps is the record highest speed for this week! Constant phone calls and line tests later and we're switching.

The support was awful and I would certainly not recommend them at all. We're moving to Eclipse broadband.

Posted by Adam Bradford on the 15th September 2007

Orange really are very, very poor. I had been with Freeserve, then Wanadoo for several years before we were transferred to Orange. I was also an Orange Mobile user and when THEY sent me an advert about free broadband with mobile phone contract, I rang the same day and asked to sign up.

THEY HAD NO IDEA what they were doing. They didn't know what the deal was about, and the 'computer systems were not set up for it'.

After several more attempts to get for free something that, to my mind, was already set up in my front room, they eventually assured me it was all complete. Then for several months they charged me £4 for a free service. They had been charging me £21.99 for a service they were currently offering for £17.99, hence a remaining 4 quid. Nightmare.

I have never managed to make a call via my live box. I have given up trying, it simply doesn't work.

Today I lost my mobile phone. I have been with Orange since 1999 - loyal or what? And guess what? They wanted £30 upfront to replace my phone, and compulsory membership of their insurance scheme. The insurance deptartment said you can cancel after a month, complaints help desk says no it's a 12 month contract. Grrrr.

But I have a horrible feeling that getting rid of them the minute my contract expires in 5 months time, will be the moment my broadband falls over, and they won't be helpful in getting it moved elsewhere.

Posted by Sarah Brown on the 6th September 2007

Orange is THE WORST ISP to exist. We've had no broadband for nearly 2 months. All they tell you is to do a line test, call back in 48 hours, etc. They don't understand a word you're saying! We've spoke to the highest supervisor. ' We recommend resetting the livebox.' We are still waiting for a call back regarding our MAC Code to switch - I'll not get my hopes up just yet... remember - the future's bright!

Posted by Adz07 on the 3rd September 2007

Orange Broadband is by far the worst internet service I have ever had the misfortune to come into contact with.

After being on Freeserve for several years I got an Orange contract phone and, with it, was offered free internet. Thinking this was a good money saving idea I took their offer and as promised I received my full internet package within 2 weeks.

I set it all up on one PC and attempted to network 2 PCs wirelessly to it, something which I had managed without a problem on my previous internet package. I installed the software on the second PC and it took me 2 days to get the wireless network running - 48 hours to do something that could have been done in 10 minutes!

After doing this and feeling a sense of pride that I had conquered the beast known as Orange Broadband I was working when I lost my wireless connection. I reconnected only to lose it again, 3 times in a minute it went and came back.

I spend a ot of time on my computer - chatting, working and gaming - so of course to be impeded by a disconnect every 2 minutes is a nightmare, and to make it worse every time my internet disconnects my USB mouse for some strange reason also disconnects.

A word of warning stay well clear of Orange Broadband and while you're at it don't use the mobile phone service as it is impossible to get a signal in most places.

Posted by Allan Thomson on the 1st September 2007

My Orange Broadband was working great until I lost my wireless connection. I phoned yesterday 27Aug to report I was instructed to reset my livebox, connect cables etc but status was PPP server down, I tried this process again 3x and decided to call again! still the same process with no avail until a new word LINE TEST was mentioned - wow what a reprieved except that I have to cal back after 24 hrs... ok let's give this a try. Today the 28Aug I called and was told the LINE TEST results showed no problem... Ye hey! Finally some change but before I can celebrate I was asked to perform the reset process over again and the result... ppp server down now I'm angry, why? because the girl in the end of the line wants to perform another line test... a perfect escape... I told her I'm a telecoms engineer with Tmobile and I design microwave radios and fiber optics networks and needed to understand why another line test was needed and what difference will it make, she raised her voice that IT'S THE PROCESS!! and before I can respond she hang the phone up! I assure you this is not the end of this letter... not after 15 yrs of designing and troubleshooting...

Posted by Alfred Bacabac on the 28th August 2007

For Campbell Murray

Go to http://www.mail2web.com/

in "your email address" type your freeserve address that comes after the @ sign e.g. if your email addy is fred@bloggs1.freeserve.co.uk then you need to type bloggs1.freeserve.co.uk@pop.freeserve.co.uk into that box use the same password that you used in the past.

This should then give you access to your freeserve emails sat on the server. I use this to access my home emails at work and it works a treat.

Good Luck

Posted by Tracy Fielding on the 23rd August 2007

I have had an email account with Freeserve for 12 years and now Orange have decided they cannot find any trace of my freeserve.co.uk email address which I also require for business use.

Orange seem to think I have imagined I had this well used account for 12 years. Can anyone please help and advise how I can retrieve my email. Many thanks!

Posted by Campbell Murray on the 20th August 2007

All I can say is - stay clear of Orange, their SMTP server (the one you send your emails through) is banned by a number of web-based email providers, so be prepared that half of your post will go missing. Their "broadband" speed is low (1.2mb when my line is capable of 6.1mb) and their "customer care" people have difficulties understanding not just their own technology, but also plain English. And guess what - you can't get out of this contract.

Posted by Sergie Senine on the 16th August 2007

Orange customer care what a farce. Wanadoo and freeserve were fine. I have spoken to "Orange Customer Care" today the 6th of August in response to a threatening letter requesting £70.80 which they claim is an outstanding balance. The account was closed in DECEMBER 2006 and they still were taking £17.99 from my account for 4 months after the final payment had been made. I don't rate them at all.
I've moved to BT and that took 2 months !

Posted by David Murdoch on the 6th August 2007

I would like to add my comments on Orange.
I took out a contract with Orange 9 months ago and I'm still waiting for my 'free' broadband. Their service has been absolutely crap in every respect. OK I got a free mobile, but then got drawn into a never ending circle of phone calls trying to get my broadband.
First they told me to wait one month. So I did, no broadband. Then I was told to get a MAC code, so I did. I called Orange customer care and was told I did not need MAC and to wait another month, so I did. Still, no broadband.
Then I was told I needed a MAC code, got it and was told again I did not need it!! Then we had 3 - 4 months of Orange blaming markers on my line that they could not touch. I called BT, AOL (my current ISP) and finally after much incorrect guidance from Orange I was told to (you guessed it!)get...a MAC code, so I did.

Well the current state is that I have their starter kit, and (yes, you guessed it!) no broadband. I really like to waste my time calling their help line who takes 15 mins to establish that I have a phone number, a filter, one telephone, one pc. They suggest reloading software - 3 times, changing filter-3 times.
What really pisses me off is that each time I ring I hear a recording telling me that Orange are committed to excellent customer care. THAT IS GARBAGE! RUBBISH! Orange are the worst company I have every had to deal with in my life.

Posted by Jeff Barnett on the 24th July 2007

It would appear that Orange Broadband "unlimited" is in fact limited to apparently (some orange staff say) 40gb per month; others say 50gb, although no actual amount is detailed in their terms and conditions.

I only found this out when I received a letter form Orange stating that my account was being terminated due to breach of terms and conditions by downloading more than my usage amount ( which is supposedly UNLIMITED). I received no prior warnings of this.

By the time you have read this I would assume that I will no longer be able to connect to the internet.
Thought prospective Orange customers should be aware of this practice.

Posted by Walter Sloan on the 21st July 2007

I have been an Orange customer since February 07 - six months now. During this time, I was unable to connect for more than 3 months, but according to Orange everything is ok!
They say they will do another linecheck and the problem will be sorted out in 2 days - yeah I have heard that 3 months ago and nothing's happened. Right now, they are threatening me with the cancellation fee, if I wish to disconnect. I will wait for the broadband for another two weeks, and than I will contact them again, through a solicitor company. This will be nice.
Btw. Can someone explain this to me: Calling technical support:) from your mobile will cost you around 30p per minute, calling India from your mobile will cost you £2 per minute:)

Posted by Pete on the 19th July 2007

Why is it all these big companies are all useless, let alone unreliable? We've been with NTL for 2 1/2 years and have phoned to cancel so many times. We've been given loads of half price offers, which have suddenly disappeared a month later, we've had to disconnect and connect our internet 6-10 times a day because it stops working. We're getting really low speeds, too. Why do they make us pay for all this hassle? GRR.

Posted by Bethan James on the 25th June 2007

My mother in law got a phone call from Orange who bullied her into giving her bank details. She never wanted or connected to the internet. They sent the password to the wrong e-mail address. When you phone you are told to write to customer services, when you write to them you are told to phone the helpline. They won't let you speak to anyone in authority. I have had people swearing down the phone, had others hang up on me and others just refuse to listen. They will not cancel her account and are demanding £150 from her. I will be writing to Ofcom, etc. today to complain, have cancelled my own internet and phone services which were with orange and others are doing the same. Steer clear of Orange.

Posted by Gary Whitton on the 25th June 2007

Well I have at last managed to ditch Orange after trying to cancel for months by phone and by email. Lucky me though, they are so keen to keep in touch they keep emailing me saying I owe them money. The strange fellow with the really bad English (have you noticed) said it was because I haven't paid bills for two months - DUH, I cancelled two months ago.

Anyway, apparently the escalations department were asked to get back to me on 18th May but they haven't yet (see there was me thinking they had but I just forgot) but they will get back to me (when? I don't know sometime. What this week? I don't know)

In the meantime the email I received today said:

"We recently emailed you about the outstanding balance on your broadband account. We've not heard from you, and because you've now missed a second month's payment, we've taken another £5 late payment fee from your account. We've also had to suspend your service, which means you won't be able to get online at the moment.

To get you up and running again you'll need to call us with details of your credit card or bank account details straightaway.

If we don't hear from you, or if you haven't paid in the next few days, we'll have to close your account and take legal action."

For a laugh, try phoning the number - it won't cost you anything the number doesn't exist...

Posted by Mark Lee on the 17th June 2007

Ordered Orange Broadband on 22nd February 2007..... STILL WAITING!!

Keep getting fobbed off "it'll be connected within 10 days" rubbish or "Oh, your order has been cancelled!"

Today. 3rd June 2007.. still waiting

steve

Posted by Steve Brown on the 3rd June 2007

Had an awful time with Orange since changing from dial up last November. I am an old freeserve customer from 1999.

Have wasted so much money on the technical help line. The Live box is rubbish and I had to buy another router which works fine.

Now I am being cut off everyday for hours at a time. The answer to this, as with any problem when you ring Orange is for them to blame my computer. My settings are wrong.

This is a lie. I know it is them as I've become very knowledgeable on connecting a router!!!

Stuck in a contract now until November. Cannot wait to leave as soon as...

The future ain't bright if your tied up to Orange.

Posted by Sue Jago on the 29th May 2007

I had a daibolical service from Orange too. I am waiting already for 6 weeks for my internet connection (not 2 weeks as it was promised on their website), and they told me that it still some porblems with it and I have to wait for another 2 weeks!!! This is the answer I get each time when I call them. Each time there are some problems and exeptional circumstances, nobody knows anything, nobody can explain anything properly why I have to wait for 8 weeks for my broadband. I am completely cut off from the world.
The customer service is uwful. I wish I never changed my service from NTL (Virgin now), which was not good, but it was there most of the time! I would say: -2 for them if I could.

Posted by Natalia S. on the 28th May 2007

I have been a Freeserve and Wanadoo customer for the past 6 years without a hitch. Orange informed me that they could upgrade my broadband speed and announced that because of this superb offer, I would go from 2.2mb to 6.1mb free of charge!.....but I am signed up for another 12 months. Well this is not too bad, I thought. Freeserve and Wanadoo never caused me any problems, so I sign up.
I have gone from my trust 2.2mb to 0.2!

I am amazed that wanadoo upgraded me immediately from 1mb to 2.2mb but I now have gone through BT M.S.R. for 10 days and get downgraded!

I will be interested to see how the 30 day money back guarantee works. But I suspect that letting Orange mess about with my connection and sign me into a 12 month connection will be a costly mistake for me.

Don't sign up to Orange. The service is diabolical and so is the premium rate for phone calls. Yes, they do try and keep you on the phone for longer than is necessary.

Oh and they don't even recognise my old freeserve e-mail as valid!

Posted by Diane Mcintosh on the 23rd May 2007

We were told that we were getting cut off from Orange for using over 40GB on my unlimited service. So we called them up and told us we would have to pay a cancellation fee because we wanted to cancel the service ... which we didn't we thought we were forced to. Today, 23 March my dad called Orange about a phone matter and they said they cut our internet off on the 17th May. Yet somehow we still remain online everyday, having entered no new details and are having no problems. A few times in the past one person at orange says one thing and another person says something else. wish they would make up their minds. Hoping to be able to sign up to another ISP depending on if Orange has "actually" cut off our internet like they said they had... yet i am here now posting? so it doesn't look like it. Never get any help when we call really, when its all working though, the service is OK.

Posted by Michael on the 23rd May 2007

I couldn't agree more with these posts. Orange BB customer service is exceptionally bad. I've had similar problems to the other people on this page and have been in contact with Orange repeatedly. Their Indian 'Technical' support people are diabolical. Going around in circles would be how I would describe it. My internet has now been down for 2 weeks and I am certain that Orange are no nearer fixing it. Absolutely appalling.

Posted by Liam on the 14th May 2007

On Wednesday 18th April 1 received a call from a member of Orange to say the broadband package we have was no longer available which was BB WUK - Option 1 - £17.99. The Orange member of staff tried to sell me lots of different packages ones with free phone calls etc. but I told her we were happy with what we had and as the package we had was no longer available I just wanted the nearest to what we already had, she informed me that this would be their BB Starter 2Mb - £14.99 package. I told the Orange member of staff that we needed the Internet and she assured me there would be no disruption in service and the only difference would be the monthly charge.

On Wednesday 25th April I rang orange as we had no Internet service, this was at 8am. I was told there must be something wrong with my computer! Two hours later the Internet came on and stayed on for three hours then it went off and we have had no Internet since. I again rang Orange on Wednesday 25th April and 1 was told there was an error on the final line inspection, they told me to ring back in two days. I rang again two days later and was told exactly the same and was told to ring back in two days. This has gone on now for 10 days and I have called every two days to be told exactly the same thing.

When I rang on Thursday the 3rd of May I asked for my MAC Code and told Orange if I had no Internet connection by the time the MAC Code arrived I would be changing to a new ISP. The member of staff was very rude and he informed me that I had a contract and that I couldn't change providers. I told him our contract started with Wanadoo in 2004 and the new contract with them does not start until the changers are complete, he then put me through to a department that deals with the MAC Codes, they informed me it would be 48hrs till I received it through the post and I am still waiting for it. It is now 10 days and we still have no Internet and once again I have been told to ring back in two days. Orange will not tell me anything, they say they will look into the problem and get a supervisor to ring me back this never happens. 10 days later and I still have no Internet and Orange have told me to call back in two days, I think this service is terrible and it seems they are no nearer sorting the problem out than they were 10 days ago.

I was told today that I couldn't have a MAC Code as the migration is not complete with Orange, they informed me that I couldn't cancel as I have a contract with Orange, I told them that until the migration is complete I could cancel as the contract will not be renewed until then, He told me that because I had requested our broadband to be changed to a different package then the contract started then, I told him I didn't request it and that it was a member of Orange that called me and said the package was no longer available, I didn't get an option to stay on the package as she said it was not available any more. I can now see that this is Orange trying to get people on to packages that are more expensive, but all we wanted was something that we already had nothing more and certainly not the more expensive ones that they tried to sell me.
The Orange member of staff that I spoke to today told me that we could have stayed on the package that we were originally on and that it was only unavailable to new customers I asked if we could go back to the broadband package that we were on because we had no problems with this, he said because migration was in process that we couldn't. He looked for the information on who had called me on the 18th April saying we had to change packages but there was no information available. I cannot believe Orange are telling people that the broadband package they have is no longer available, I was never given the option to stay on the package! He told me that the difficulties they are having have been going on throughout April and there is no news when it will be sorted, he said it was a problem they are having with BT. He said when the problem is eventually sorted out with BT that all customers having problems will be connected in around two days but he had no idea when this would be.

This afternoon, a friend called Orange on my behalf, he has managed to get Orange to agree to release my Mac Code and they have also waived the cancellation fee of over £150! Orange have said it will be at least 5 days until they can issue the Mac Code. I think the service Orange has provided me with has been a disgrace and it seems I am not the only one having all these problems.

I have an internet provider that cannot provide a connection and does not have any idea when they can connect me, that tells me I can have my Mac Code in 48hs that then say no I cannot have it and then say 1 can have it in 5 days, that lies and says my Internet package is no longer available to get me to change to another package and says I cannot cancel my account.

Posted by Julie Yates on the 8th May 2007

How can Orange say they will give you unlimited downloads in their adverts and then when the have your contract they claim that there is a 40gb cap?

I have received my second letter for going over the 40gb limit and have been told that I will be cut off on 4th May 2007 and I have been authorized to get a migration code. Well, that date has past, I have been sent my Mac code, which also states that I have to pay them the remainder of my contract. The funny thing is that I'm still online two days after the deadline.

Are they waiting for me to use the Mac code so they can claim I breached my contract?

I'm prepared to wait until they cut me off and in the meantime, my high download rate will continue.

Posted by Hedley Barrington on the 6th May 2007

I've been cut off recently (after using peer to peer). My internet's been down for 11 days and I've been on the phone to them nearly every day since. I've tried to cancel but they say I have to pay until the end of the year even though they are not providing the service. Customer Service people are a nightmare. NEVER USE ORANGE - IT'S THE WORST!!

Posted by Jan Hall on the 1st May 2007

Does Customer Support exist at Orange???

After being with Wanadoo and the new avatar of Orange Broadband for about 1 & half years, IT's been 3 months of hell and in total at least 20 hours on line with the Orange customer support (or non existent support), couldn't bring broadband up at the new home, have just switched to Sky and they enabled the connection in flat 15 days. Orange needs to learn to have customer services in place, not a bunch of liars and useless folks at the other end.

Posted by Alok Roy on the 30th April 2007

Switched from Pipex to Orange since Orange were offering unlimited broadband for £5 per month with my mobile phone contract. Did not use their wireless modem, used the speedtouch one I had already, just typed in my new orange username and password and got connected within one week of changeover.
Have had no problems and connection has been great. Did phone customer service at the beginning, no real complaints. In fact I have been very pleased with my broadband access so far.

Posted by David Evans on the 17th April 2007

We had a daibolical service from Orange when we signed up to Orange unlimited Broadband service. Since January, the phone never worked properly, we had to carry out factory re set of the livebox twice daily, and three months later we were told there is fault on the line. After making 17 calls on a national call rate, they keep you waiting for a long time and its not in their polocy to call you back!! Advise don't use them- equipment supplied is cheap and rubbish.

Posted by Namir Rahim on the 11th April 2007

The worst experience ever!
I downloaded at night 2 files of 350mb each using torrent, and i got cut off the internet. You call the customer service who keeps you on the phone for ages, to at the end tell you that they need to run test on your line. 5 days later (if you are lucky) and unlimited number of calls and threats you get the internet back. Basically if you are using a peer to peer service be careful: they do not support it, and will disconnect you.

Posted by Guido Arslan on the 20th March 2007

It is a horrible experience to have orange broadband. I have to wait 4 months and escalated many times until they took action and fixed it last night.

Posted by Andrew on the 14th March 2007

You waist your time and your money. I have had a problem with them more than 4 months and for customer service you have to keep on the line for more than 5:38 minuets

It's not funny.

Posted by Amir on the 10th March 2007

Technical support at Orange is built around the concept that time is money. Unfortunately it's your money and they will do everything they possibly can to keep you spending money on lengthy calls to them (at up to 8p per minute) whilst doing nothing to fix your problem. They will keep you on hold for hours, never ever call you back (company policy) and generally have no record of any of your previous 15 calls. They don't care if you've had no Broadband for weeks, it's all money in the bank everytime you ring. When they say they have to do a line test, you know you're in for the long haul so get out quick.
See www.orangeproblems.co.uk and if that's not enough to put you off then go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmmpc9heCJw to see how frustrated some people get with their Orange equipment.

Posted by Karen Thornton on the 2nd January 2007