Orange - The debacle continues

You might remember a few days ago I blogged a situation I was enduring with Orange. To re-cap briefly, they believe I owe them £30 from a broadband account I held almost three years ago in Scotland. I dispute the debt in the first instance but rather than discuss it with me, they emailed me the notification on the email address they had closed when I terminated the account and when unsurprisingly they got no response, they 'sent their boys after me', despite my having already furnishing them, on a number of occasions, with all the legally necessary information to prove that regardless of whether or not the debt was valid, it was dated prior to my being declared bankrupt and hence I wasn't liable!

But the saga continued. Orange (and their heavies) wanted hard copy but as a small act of defiance I refused to send it on the grounds that none of my real or significant creditors had required it and that the law doesn't require that I provide it either, only the details of the court and case number etc.

Not put off they continued to hound me two or three times a day, including Christmas eve and boxing day, I reminded them that to hassle me 'post bankruptcy' is contrary to the bankruptcy laws, but still they continued, so finally I just stopped answering their calls.

Next, given a few weeks to calm down I decided that to capitulate was probably the sensible way to resolve the situation....and sent them hard copy, with a covering letter expressing my feelings regarding their behaviour and requesting confirmation in writing that the matter was now closed.

No response! Well actually there was a response....a company of bailiffs contacted me....may I remind you this is all over just £30! They however acted within the law and once I had given them the bankruptcy case details they backed off, almost as confounded as me by Orange's actions.

Enough already! With my hackles raised once more I contacted Orange's bully boy company again.....and it will come as no surprise to you to discover they deny ever having received the hard copy! Any degree of patience I had retained was lost at this point and whilst I stuck to the basic rules of remaining polite and calm I 'let them have it with both barrels' so to speak and then requested that a manager call me back, pronto.

She did, though of course not pronto, and finally, much haggling later, she agreed to accept hard copy by fax. Easy?Of course not, their fax machine was buggered and my 'manager' didn't have access to the office to deal with it! Jeez!

I suggested I email a copy, this was met with some degree of confusion because she was concerned it would arrive in a format she couldn't open!!!! I promised it in a common format and she eventually gave me an email address....which didn't work either and bounced back at me countless times!

I called her again, each call I might add involves all the usual phone menu frustrations and then the inevitable, "she's on another call, I'll get her to call you back" in three days time response! Eventually I got hold of her again and she gave me another email address, with a promise to confirm receipt of my mail by return.

This time success...... Of a sort......at least my mail didn't bounce back but I can only assume it arrived because thus far, which is three days later, I still don't have any confirmation! In fact I have had no contact at all, so my assumption is, that as they appear to have got off my bloody phone line on a thrice daily basis, something must have worked and got throught to them at last!

You will understand though why I am more than a little sceptical and why I still anticipate having to deal with the bailiffs at my door.

This is outrageous behaviour from a national company. Firstly it's appalling that these companies employ debt collecting factors that they are very well aware operate outside the law. Secondly, every aspect of their administration systems appear to fall down spectacularly, which from a company in a hi-tech business isn't very impressive, thirdly, do they really think anyone goes through the nightmare of personal bankruptcy without familiarising themselves with the legislation and rights, fourthly I am sick of being blatantly lied to by fuckwits who assume I don't know the law, and consequently they can do as they please and finally....can anyone really believe they have spent so much time and money chasing a disputed debt of only £30 from a bankrupt that they know ultimately they can't collect from!!! It's no bloody wonder the country is in the state it is right now!

They now have one more item of hard copy, a letter stating my dissatisfaction in a very specific manner and a promise that should this continue any further I will go to law to stop them, if only on principle.

I can deal with these situations without too much bother, albeit a lot of stress, I'm not easily intimidated and I know my way around but Lord help anyone who is less able, it horrifies me to think just what these companies might inflict on some!

ORANGE....the future is bright, the staff are not!

Oh, and the bully boys if you are interested....Buchanan Clark and Wells a subsidiary of The BCW group, who interestingly seem to have a lot of negative google returns!

Orange - New heights of stupidity

I find this hard to believe, well actually I don't and that's the sad thing, we are so used to the idiocy of large corporations and their inefficiencies that we now accept almost any degree of stupidity as no great surprise!

When I lived in Scotland my ISP was Orange, yes that's ORANGE if you are in any doubt who I am talking about here! They were 'Wanadoo' at that time but it's all the same.

When I left Scotland I closed the account, cleared it and that was that. That was almost three years ago. Simple? You would have thought so...or maybe you know better!

In all that time I have heard nothing, I repeat nothing, from them, the account was closed, I couldn't access the email address etc. all seemed well, history.....that was until yesterday.

Yesterday I received a little missive via snail mail from their debt collecting factors telling me I owe them money, £31 to be precise. Not much I grant you and maybe I should have just paid it, but I dispute that I owe it in the first place and I was so incensed by the whole issue I decided this time I would dig my heels in. To that end I called the debt collectors, explained the situation and that I had subsequently been declared bankrupt in any case, so they could no longer make a claim against me.

As these companies do (I know from bitter experience during my bankruptcy proceedings that even the big boys, those high street names we are supposed to trust, are more than capable of lying to Jane Doe in their efforts to secure payment) they assumed I didn't know the laws surrounding bankruptcy (like one would go through all that and not know!) and lied to me about the powers they had. As a result they threatened to carry on chasing me until my dying day, yada, yada, yada. and said only Orange could call them off.

So, when I could eventually found a number for them, I called Orange..... and at expensive rates was left hanging on for almost an hour while they 'couldn't find any trace of me'. You don't say!. I tolerated two individuals with a joint I.Q. of a small peanut as long as my patience would allow but eventually I lost it and asked to speak to a supervisor....she turned out to be only marginally brighter but with the customer service skills of a rhinoceros.

To cut what became a very protracted story slightly shorter, I got nowhere, absolutely nowhere and so incensed further I really dug my heels in, probably immaturely but hell, I'm sick of it all, it's my turn to play stupid I figure!

She just didn't seem to grasp the principle of personal bankruptcy and that no matter what she did or threatened me with it would only cost her company money, and it would be her company contravening the law, not me. Neither could she understand why I might be ever so slightly miffed that the first and only thing I had heard in almost three years was from a debt collecting company, or that I maintain that I don't owe them the money in the first place!

So, I explained that I wouldn't be paying on principle and nor would I be jumping through their administrative hoops proving my case when I don't believe I have a case to prove in the first place and nor would I be intimidated by their threats, let's face it, I have dealt with my fair share of that these last few years and they can hardly destroy my financial status any more than it already has been. I won't ever realistically be in a position to obtain a mortgage or credit again whatever I do, so if they wish to keep spending their shareholders money chasing thirty quid, they can be my guest!!!

I know, I know, I probably should just play the game and had any one of them been remotely reasonable or behaved with common courtesy or common sense I would have, but I'm fed up to the back teeth with this kind of stupidity and this time they can go to hell, I can be stupid too!

Did I mention this is ORANGE?

So sue me, I repeat, I am bankrupt, I have nothing!

*And as a general footnote for anyone who considers bankruptcy the 'easy way out', something we bankrupts are accused of from time to time, I promise you, it is not!