How weird is this?
My mobile rang this afternoon and a smiley sounding lady announced that she was from Orange and could she ask me a few questions with a view to getting me a better mobile deal.
“Sure.”
I was quite chuffed because it had been on my mind to go back to Orange. I huffed my business away from them a year or so ago because they started charging for me to get itemised bills.
At the time, O2 couldn’t have been more accommodating. They flogged me an almost entirely unworkable phone/computer hybrid – a sort of poor-woman-with-minuscule-fingers-and-infinite-patience’s BlackBerry. I have neither.
The XDA Mini, for this is what the infuriating gadget was, lasted about six weeks and two of those were on account of it having a rather nice bubble popping game.
Apart from popping bubbles, the thing had no redeeming features. It didn’t do calls very well (it was slightly too big and flat to fit between gob and ear properly) it didn’t do emails because the connections were invariably rubbish and everything else it did was entirely at the whim of the things in my handbag pushing the buttons in the dark.
Its tiddly little pen thing kept falling out and when you did slide the microscopic keyboard out if a crumb or an ant should get anywhere near it, it didn’t shut again.
You could say it was a cathartic moment when I realised I didn’t have to put up with it and dug my old phone out after a half hour of jaunty burrowing in the kitchen clutter mountain.
How happy I was to see its ordinary flippy lid and grown-up sized buttons.
I did have to go through the slightly illicit process of having to get it ‘fixed’ for £20 by some very helpful chap in a shop in Partick called Fonetastic.
Soon, however, I remembered why I’d picked Orange in the first place. Apparently they put their transmitters a few feet above anyone else’s consequently it’s the only company which transmits successfully into my house.
Plebs with Vodaphone or Three or O2 have to stand on a chair at the top of the stairs to get any kind of telephonic satisfaction.
Now after more than I year on the chair I think it’s time to slink back to Orange – they’ve probably learnt their lesson now anyway.
So it seemed smiley Orange lady had read my mind.
“Sure,” I said.
She asked what I paid and how often, then “Do you think I could look at getting you a better deal?”
“Yes please,” said I. “I’m sure you can.”
“Thanks very much, good bye” she said and hung up.
I stood there – on one leg on the chair – for ages listening to the buzz and hoping she’d just gone to get someone from the better deal department to help me.
But no.
Now I’m in a quandary, on a chair and not sure which way to leap.
..beware the people who say that they are from orange when they are most definitely not. they will say something like, we’re working for orange or we’re acting on behalf of orange. they then try to flog you a new deal. but this new deal is not with orange and it does not mean your old deal will be cancelled and what actually happens is you will end up with two deals. youe actual one from orange and another one you’re paying from another company. it’s a nightmare. i think which? did a report on this. in any case, you need to make sure the orange person is indeed orange. one clue is that they usually phone from britain. if you’re already with orange ask them to tell you what your current deal is, what your last phone call was or something to ascertain that they are phoning from the real orange. also, they will not need to ask for your bank details for a direct debit as they’ll already have it..as an aside, i’ve found that 3 has good reception and has cheap deals. i’m paying £20 for a 12-month contract (would have been £18 per month for 18-month contract) to get 750 mins voice and 1000 texts. nice shiny black nokia handset too that isn’t too bloody difficult to work.fi