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  I'm (for my sins) employed by Orange UK in the Business Solutions Team. I'll try to answer any questions you may have about Orange, what is going on, and what is coming up.
  
  Oh dear - let the flood gates open!!
  
  Ok - heres mine!
  
  Why do Orange seem to think more of their PAYG customers than the Contract ones? As a contract customer of 7 years, I appear to be able to get a much better deal by leaving and rejoining than I can ever hope to get by extending!
  
  Any comments on that one?
  
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  Why do Orange seem to think more of their PAYG customers than the Contract ones? As a contract customer of 7 years, I appear to be able to get a much better deal by leaving and rejoining than I can ever hope to get by extending!
  
  Hi. I don't think they do. Prepay is not a lucrative part of the market. Contract is where all the money is made. It will always be the same, whereever you go, that new customers get a better deal. Because the market is flooded now the only way to win in this game is through churn. Taking customers from your competitors.
  
  Have you tried speaking to Retentions? You can reach them on 0800 079 2288. Depending on certain factors such as monthly spend and contract length, you will be offered different things. For example, a friend of mine called through and got 400 mins and 1000 texts a month for ?30. I won't say you will get the same deal, but you do not know if you do not ask.
  
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  Hi. I don't think they do. Prepay is not a lucrative part of the market. Contract is where all the money is made. It will always be the same, whereever you go, that new customers get a better deal. Because the market is flooded now the only way to win in this game is through churn. Taking customers from your competitors.
  
  Have you tried speaking to Retentions? You can reach them on 0800 079 2288. Depending on certain factors such as monthly spend and contract length, you will be offered different things. For example, a friend of mine called through and got 400 mins and 1000 texts a month for ?30. I won't say you will get the same deal, but you do not know if you do not ask.
  
  Hope that helps.
  
  Really!
  
  i was a customer for 8 years, on the last year i was on a Orange Premiere account with a 8MB? GPRS bundle and a text bundle with a spend of beteween ?70 to ?140 a month and when i left in jan they did not care... not even any nice offers like i have recieved in past years... somthing is going on for sure!?
  
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  I'd like to know why Data rates are rediculously high. I have an M5000 and have been using the 'try 3G' for two months now, and have found it great but it will be too expensive after the try ends.
  
  I think the UK operators are making a mistake pricing data so high, sooo many people I know are scared of touching their "Orange World" button or "Vodafone Live" button on their phone cz they link it immediately to high costs. So there'll be people out there who'll never even try it.
  
  I'm gonna be worried when my try period ends because my M5000 has a nasty habit of connecting to the net without me knowing despite trying to close programs that would automatically try to connect. I think there should be an option in the phone to disable it or allow it to ask you 'do you wish to connect?'
  
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  Have you tried speaking to Retentions? You can reach them on 0800 079 2288. Depending on certain factors such as monthly spend and contract length, you will be offered different things. For example, a friend of mine called through and got 400 mins and 1000 texts a month for ?30. I won't say you will get the same deal, but you do not know if you do not ask.
  
  Hope that helps.
  
  I'm in a similar situation. Have been with Orange for approx. 7 years on the same number. Tried retentions for an upgrade from a C500 to a C600 and the best they could offer me was ?80 (?30 more than the website and exactly the same as upgrades!). No minutes or texts or anything. My monthly spend is ?29-?30 and I've had my C500 for 14 months. :)
  
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  There is no "Win", and the way to get ahead is to take customers from your competitors, whilst keeping as many of your own as you can
  
  It's the second part that Orange in particular dont seem to get.
  
  That is soooooooooo true chucky.egg. The key to it IS also keeping your current customer base!!
  
  They had the adverts on the telly with the wise man telling the big execs at Orange how to keep the customers happy, obviously the real directors are as brain dead as the actor portrayed because they do not practice what they preach.
  
  The tech support is my main bug bare, they are totally uselesss. How many times do you have to remove your SIM card, do a dance, pat your head, whistle a tune and reset the phone before they accept it's got a fault! It's also hit and miss to weather or not you get a helpfull / knowledgable CS operator. Come on Orange (and all other operators as I suspect your all the same) sort it out, directors - Listen to what customers are saying!
  
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  1) Just to repeat what others have said - I'm a customer of approx 6 years, right from PAYG to contract when the first SPV came out. Orange as a network seems pretty good, good quality/coverage etc, but WHY NO ULIMITED GPRS FOR CONTRACTS. It's so frustrating!
  
  2) Does anyone know how the trials work? I did a fairly high profile trial with a free 3G card (thanks orange) and also the video trials. Then nothing since, despite completing all the trail surveys,and making sure I gave lots of feedback.
  
  Even on Liberate (staff talkplan) we're charged a fortune after the free 4MB we're given.. considering Orange's lead handsets are supposed to be the SPV line, they're not doing much to subsidise the data charges at the moment.. so a refresh in that dept would be greatly welcomed.
  
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  I don't mean to take this out on you personally, but maybe you could pass my comments on to some senior person in Orange to help them understand some major things about they way they work and how to keep customers!
  
  A little background, before I left Orange last August I had been a customer with them for 7 years, for a couple of years I was running 2 phones with them too (Seperate accounts) spending a fair amount of money every month.
  
  So, to my list of whats not right with Orange -
  
  Orange Care - I had this as part of my original contract, I upgraded my phone each year and renewed my contract, then out of the blue, Orange took this away from me - No explanation, just being told I needed to pay ?5 per month for Orange Care.
  
  Faulty Handsets - I had a Samsung E800 which after 7 months developed 2 lines of dead pixels, so I phoned customer services and was told there was indeed a fault with the handset, but they weren't going to deal with it because it was over 6 months old and Orange's policy is that after 6 months I had to send it back to the manufacturer. I explained to them about the sale and supply of goods act and how it stated that Samsung gave a 1 year warranty but as Orange sold it to me they were legally obliged to honour that warranty - to which I was told "We are Orange and we don't do anything illegal" and that I was wrong. After several phone calls I ended up writing a letter, only to have it ignored, so the only thing I could do was to buy Orange Care (Going back to the previous point!) and have them swap it out for Free. The only upside of this was by this time (After many phone calls, non returned letters etc) it was month 11 of my contract (yes it took 4 months to sort out!!) - Now you don't get any prizes for guessing the next bit!
  
  A new handset was sent out, I inserted the sim card, rang up Orange and cancelled my contract - No fight from them, they just let me go - 7 Years of being a customer forgotten.
  
  Upgrade Rules - So I had another contract running at the same time, and it was month 11 of the contract, I look on the website and see a good deal, I read the small print and find the following -
  
  Existing Customers can upgrade to a new 18 month contract with a new handset and double talk and double minutes for the first 6 months provided they meet the following criteria
  
  - In month 10 - 12 of 12 month contract
  
  - On one of the following talk plans, X,Y,Z etc
  
  Well I checked and I was in month 11 and had a qualifying talk plan, so I ring them up and was told "No" I can't upgrade to the 18 month contract with a new handset as I wasn't at the end of my 12 months, I explained the small print and was told that I could upgrade my contract to an 18 month contract without the handset and without the double talk/text.
  
  So yes, I cancelled my contract and when asked why I gave the upgrade reason, they noted it and that was it.
  
  So all in all, a long time ago Orange was great with excellent customer service and some really good deals - Now they seem to have lost touch with the market and don't seem to care about existing customers. Oh well Orange, you lost my business which I gave to Vodafone, who have been great. Nor do I recommend Orange anymore.