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Wanting to stay mobile

Today I spent about 2 hours trying to find out how I can transfer my existing Orange phone number from a Business Talk Plan to my own Personal plan.... you'd think that would be straight-forward?

Ironically, I discover not only is it easier to transfer my number to another network, but I stand to benefit from all the deals of being a new customer on a new network... huh? Orange offer me a bog standard tariff, oh good. How can that be?

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I'm about to investigate the options in moving from Orange business as well - it looks as though its not even worth considering Orange personal, someone in my area has recommended O2. Changing mobiles may be more exciting that I thought possible!

...yep, I'm off to 02..... even though their website is pretty pants and they suffer from enormous downtime. I just don't get it, these mobile phone operators receive huge revenue, enough to make a decent stab at producing a reliable and usable website.

At a party last night, I got talking to this guy that got me thinking about how much the phone companies have paid for the 3G licenses.... billions(??) - that might explain it.

I have been a Vodafone customer (1997 - 1999) Vodafone were rubbish, poor customer service, upgrades had to be paid for each year too. No thanks. Then I switched to one2one (now T-Mobile) for the year 2000. Rubbish, on leaving their network due to poor reception they managed to give BT Genie (now o2) my number incorrectly, resulting in my new BT Genie phone being transferred WRONG, my number did not transfer, T-Mobile sent 02 another T-Mobile customers number. It was crazy, I was making calls, some one else was making calls, and the poor bleep was being billed for everything. Eventually I got my number from T-Mobile over to BT Genie. In 2002 BT Genie became 02. Genie was great, unlimited free text messages....which they capped me to 600 after I sent over 1300 in a month! Oopps. Both O2 and Genie gave me a free phone each year. The problem with O2's customer service, is frankly, its a sham. Dial this number for this option, dial another number for another option, then speak to an operator and be transferred through to someone else. Pathetic. In the end, I got so fed up I told O2 I wanted to leave the network, (after speaking to about 7 people, calling various numbers, and listening to lots of music....they offered me a great deal to stay. All the phone companies seem to be pants. The worst bit, is that new customers get the deals, the old customers dont. Also, when my 02 signal dropped for 24 hours and I was unable to make calls, it cost me 50p a minute for 10 minutes on a landline to resolve the issue. Why should I have to pay 50p a minute to tell 02 their network is not working with my phone? Vodafone = Pants, T-Mobile = Pants, and 02 = Pants.....

But atleast O2 actually tried to do their best to retain my custom.

Thanks for your comments Matt.... it's not just me then!? I really do think mobile companies are offering us a bum deal... as you say, existing customers are treated worst of all.

I think you did better than me.... Orange didn't even want to keep my customer. When I told them that I'd change networks, they responded with.... "well that's fine - it's the best we can do"

I'd love to know if all Orange representatives would have done and said the same.

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