I’ve been on Pay As You Go for a couple of months now, after being on various contracts since I was about 18.
I used to pay around £20 a month for 500 texts and 200 minutes (and I had a “stop the clock” thing too – I could call someone for an hour and it would only use up 3 of my minutes).

Since I’ve been on PAYG, I’ve been spending about £10 a week, even though I get cheaper calls and free texts.
Nice little goodies aside, I cannot afford to stay on PAYG.

Last week, I ordered the Pay Monthly / Contract equivalent from Orange. My new SIM card came on Thursday and I set it up when I got home on Friday.
It activated alright but I couldn’t make calls or send texts from my new phone; I couldn’t even ring customer services from it! I checked the diagnostic on the Orange website and it said that a 3G SIM card won’t work on a non-3G phone. I don’t have a 3G phone.

I went into the Orange shop yesterday and told them my troubles.
I was told that they bar the SIM card from making calls and sending texts, in case someone else picks up the card.
Within a few minutes they had me on the phone to a customer service rep who could fix everything for me. It was all over and done with within another couple of minutes and I was asked if there was anything else. I said that I would like to keep my old number; that I was migrating from a PAYG package with them to Pay Monthly. I was put through to another department and they got everything set up for me.

Was told that I would have to wait between 2 and 24 hours for my old number to work for the new SIM card and within 2 hours, everything was working perfectly.

I’ve heard nothing but bad stuff said about Orange’s customer service but so far, I’ve had no problems with them; all issues I’ve had (I had a few problems when I tried to set up my last SIM card too) have been resolved quickly and all of the members of staff that I have spoken to, have been very nice and chatty. The bloke who transferred my old number for me was really funny and had me laughing out loud in the middle of the shop!

Niceness aside – I realise that, as I am still a pretty new customer – they’re going to try hard to keep me as a customer. I also realise that, right now, no company can afford to lose customers, so excellent customer service is a top priority.

And hey – at least I got to speak to someone! While I was with Vodaphone, I think I spoke to a human only two or three times and that was when they phoned me!

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Tags: Spending