Orange - Breach of Contract?

[edrobbo8]

Hi, looking for some help/advice.

 

Started a 24 month Orange contract at end November 2011, on a £41/month Panther plan, with £6/mth insurance through Orange Care, with a new Blackberry Bold 9900.

 

This phone had signal issues, but put up with them as didn't think anything of it. Had a fault with the phone within a month - put on charge one night and woke up in the morning and phone would not switch on, and Orange Care replaced handset.

 

Within another month, started having signal problems again, signal would drop to SOS when trying to make a call, again phoned Orange who organised a replacement handset.

 

That handset had exactly the same problem, so Orange changed my sim card. Still the same fault, and after many hours on the phone to customer service, they said it was down to the masts in the area having problems.

 

Put up with it for a few more months, until the handset started turning itself off when trying to take a picture or use other features on the phone, Orange again replaced.

 

Now, within two weeks of that replacement, the microphone has broken. This new replacement also has the signal problems that have plagued the phone since the contract started.

 

That is 4 brand new Blackberry Bold 9900s that have gone wrong in under 12 months, all with the same underlying signal problem.

 

I am normally quite easy going, but this has driven me insane, and I am at my wits end. Orange cannot replace with a 9900 as they are out of stock, so have offered me a 9360, a 9800 or a 9860, all of which are inferior to the Bold 9900.

 

I believe that Orange are in major breach of contract, as well as breaching the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, as does my legal adviser.

 

I would like to stay with Orange, as a past customer of Vodafone (who are ten times worse!). However, to do an early upgrade, they would like me to pay off the remaining 12 months of my 24 month contract, at a cost of £387.24.

 

I am unwilling to pay this, as I am already paying for a service I am not receiving 1005 of the time, whereas Orange say they are providing the service because they replaced the phones that have been faulty.

 

I am seriously tempted to cancel the direct debit, and go and sign up for a new contract on the iPhone 5 with Orange.

 

What are your views?

 

Thanks for any input/advice.

 

Ed

[Conniff]

If you stop your dd, they will hound you like a vampire after his prey and trash your credit record.

 

Their only interest is money and they don't care how they get it.

[Human Writes]

You have various rights against whoever supplied you with your phone in respect of the goods under the Sale of Goods Act, the Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations and others, these boil down to a repair of the goods, replacement of the goods, or a full or partial refund. They have no legal obligation to offer a different model phone to you. The contract you have with Orange is for the supply of network services only, it specifically excludes the phone and the accessories, see paragraph 14 of the contract, because the contract is for supply of network services only, they cannot be in breach of their service contract with you in relation to the faults you have suffered with the phone. In relation to dropped calls, you need to establish specifically whether the phone or the network are at fault for this, your post implies that it could be one or both of these factors, dropped calls due to a network fault could be a breach of contract, however, this would have to be of a sufficiently serious and ongoing nature that the service was highly unreliable to amount to a breach imo - you also have to remember that they never guaranteed your service would work everywhere and all of the time, the contract actually specifies that some interruption in service is inevitable. As the previous poster stated you should not cease paying for the contract, that's probably the worst thing you could do.

[2Grumpy]

Why not find out how much the blackberry is worth (a new 9900 bold on payg is £320) and ask for that to be taken off an iphone.

an iphone4 on payg is from £410. With some money off because of the blackberry that would be cheaper than buying out the contract. You can then swap the sim & insurance over ...