The polls are in, and Yodel.......

... well quite frankly they suck !

A recent poll from a reputable source, conducted in the UK about domestic parcel delivery put Yodel dead last.
In fact they were SO last, they actually had almost double the amount of BAD votes to the next placed carrier. Now that really says something when it comes to customer DIS-satisfaction.

Good		592 votes (18%)
OK		654 votes (20%)
Bad		2104 votes (63%)

As the boss of a company scoring THAT badly, surely you would start to look for ways to improve.

As the boss of a company USING a company that scores this badly, surely you would be looking for alternative carriers to keep your own customers happy.

But thats not how business works, we all know that by now. 

Most people complain about foreign call centres, but more and more companies are outsourcing their customer service centres by the year.

So, all my moaning, all my complaining and blogging. It seems I was far from alone in my bad feeling towards the company. Even more reason to maintain my stance that I will NOT order anything from a company in the knowledge that they use Yodel as a delivery agent.

Dear Yodel..... (again)

OK, so im calling to speak to someone, but can only get as far as the automated service. The parcel ID only gives me an update then hangs up, and the courier didn't actually come here so I don't have a card....So there is no option to speak to a human?

Yodel... the final curtain

So after much messing about with Yodel over the past couple of days, and many stories exchanged on Twitter and Facebook about the amazing behaviour of what seems to be the biggest useless company in the UK...... I finally got my package!! Woohoo!

How you may ask. Well here goes. The DELIVERY company were meant to deliver Tuesday, pretended they had, put a false scan on the package, stating they could not get into an open, functioning business during our business hours... while I was sitting outside and saw no one show up.

On Wednesday after lots of complaining to @YodelOnline and @SpirtsDirect_CS I was told the package would go out.... Then by 2pm with no scans on it, and no movement I was told it was staying at the depot and could go and collect, from the DELIVERY company. By this time SportsDirect had refunded my postage costs much to my delight, so it wasn't too bad. But as I was at work, it wasn't practical.

At just after 4 the package suddenly showed it was out for delivery. With business commitment of 5.30 it was never getting to my work on time. Yet faithfully I waited til 6.45 (past my finish time) As expected, nothing showed. And as expected, a short while later it was coded as no one in again.

Today I had reached the end of my tether and told SportsDirect to just cancel it, but didn't hear back. Frustrated I tweeted again at both companies, only to get another reply from Yodel inviting me to collect it. This would mean heading in the opposite direction to work, and being late for work!

Fed up of the whole thing, I gave Yodel my eta as 30 mins, and left home. Exactly 30 mins later I arrived there, told them who I was, gave ID and began the wait.

The guy at the counter thought the package might actually be out for delivery, so it took longer to find out where it was. Turned out it was in the warehouse anyway, where it had probably been since Tues. While I waited another lady came in, she had been waiting 5-6 days for her parcel, and like me had seen lots of activity on the tracking website, suggestions that it had been out for delivery, that no one had been home and other comments.

When the guy finally found her package he pointed to the address, telling her this was the problem and it was wrong. She said no its not, that's exactly where I live, he didn't accept it was right. When she said she would never use Yodel again, he replied 'please don't madam, please don't ' 

Finally my package arrived at the counter, and as it was put down, it was quite clear there was a slash across the front of it. Quite purposeful, and carefully done so not to damage the contents. I would go so far to say done to check what was in the package and if it was worth stealing. Done with a sharp object, cutting right through, but not touching the contents. As you can see I took a picture in situ on the counter.

Asking them to record the damage, the first guy didn't have a clue, the second said 'yeah mate, I'll put something on the system' and asked if the good were damaged. I pointed out they were dirty, he said 'ok'.

With that I took my package and left. Needless to day I tweeted my dis-satisfaction to Yodel, and after a response asking if anything was damaged, I have not heard back since.

With that, I have now vowed I will NEVER buy from a company who uses Yodel again. Along with a growing number of people I believe. Working in the parcel logistics business I am fully aware that problems happen. But I am yet to have a simple transaction with Yodel, and have never know SO many other people have such a foul taste in their mouth about a company also.

Given the volumes that Yodel deal with, I imagine even a huge number of complaints still leave a high satisfaction rating. God only knows they tweet all the positive responses they get. But you only have to search twitter for Yodel + shit / useless / crap / rubbish / bad etc and you will see just how many people complain about them daily.

In fact they are SO reactive to negative comments, that even when a friend tweeted to me, mentioning I should not be surprised how shit Yodel were, they asked him to DM them with his tracking number. 

So, I now have a dirty orange jacket, collected myself from the delivery company it was assigned to. I do wonder if to save money during a peak period, they are simply bullshitting delivery attempts and getting customers to collect. Thus keeping the shipping fee, but saving the delivery cost.

Food for thought! 

OK Yodel.... seriously now....

Where the hell is this package?
After speaking with SportsDirect earlier they kindly refunded the delivery charge for the parcel that Yodel don't seem to be able to deliver.
Yodel then tell me this morning that the package will go out for delivery today.... Shock horror, 3.45pm and the tracking still shows the package sitting at the station, well I never.

So here we go again, another day without the package arriving I wonder?

Time to call Yodel again and see if I can get through this time..

Yodel you f**kin liars!

Fed up of this bullshit now, I lose track of the number of times I have dealt with Yodel, but they are yet to deliver a package without problems. From saying it was the wrong address, to tonight's 'unable to gain access' to a reception desk of a courier company that is open beyond 7pm? Seriously? 

Or was it the courier could not be bothered to deal with the traffic on Southwark Park Road, so just waited til past regular business hours, bullshitted and just coded it as business closed.

So once again I pay for faster delivery, only for the company delivering it to let the supplier down. Why people still use Yodel I don't know, I sure as hell wouldn't out of choice!

So I await some twitshit about how sorry they are, and some pointless apology which neither gets me my jacket for tonight when I wanted it for, nor the money back for paying for a delivery service that failed to deliver.

If there is one thing Yodel does do well, it's continue to survive in an environment where SO MANY people think you are utterly useless.

Thanks for nothing Yodel, the only guarantee you keep is the guarantee to fail and disappoint every time!

Yodelayheehoo... Parcel for you ..

After getting an email from SportsDirect to say my package was out with non other than Yodel, I panicked and Tweeted asking if I would ever see it. They replied and offered assistance, so I asked roughly what time the package would be delivered, as its coming to my work address.

Knowing its a 9pm commitment I was aware that it might be after I left, but then I got this reply from @YodelOnline
Hi Michael. The driver will know to deliver before 5 and I can safely say your parcel is out to you and will be attempted today :-)

Needless to say I was delighted to hear the news. However with the clock fast approaching 6pm, there is no sign of the said package, nor any replies from the @YodelOnline team. Shocker I know.

So as the clock ticks on, and the courier has still not shown, the excitement of the day moves onto another game. Away from 'look out the window' and on to 'which excuse will it be'

So here are the options.

Will the courier...

A/ Attempt the delivery just before 9pm, when the building is finally all locked up. There is someone on reception til gone 7pm.

B/ Scan the package and say the address was closed (before 7)

or
C/ Scan the package as 'wrong address' minutes before returning to the depot and scanning it back in. As has happened in the past.

If it is C I wont be too impressed.

Working for a courier company I understand how much pressure couriers are under, but as someone who works between the courier and customer, I know how important correct and clear communication with the customer is. Rule #1 DON'T promise things that won't or may not happen.

My faith in Yodel wavers from day to day.  My last experience with the online guys was great, faith restored. But then having a package delivered to my address the other day, the courier hurriedly confirmed it was the right address, and left it with me upon me signing. Only to return 20 mins later as he had left the wrong one.
YES, I know I signed for it, but I was taking the dogs out, and he told me who it was for and what address. Just gave me the wrong one.

Either way, its 5.55 now, and the tracking website says....

Current status: With courier

Your parcel requires a signature.

Well done Wonga.com ..... Almost !

After my last rant about Wonga.com and their failures to bother to contact me or respond to my emails... They did !!
Imagine my surprise when Andrew from Wonga called up and said he was aware of a serious issue and complaint I had made, and he would like to look into it to get it sorted and stop me having any more problems with my payment.
We spoke about the issue, how it had been escalated to him, and what the cause seemed to be. Andrew told me he would like to get some information then have time to look into it, and get back to me with the fix. I agreed.
As we spoke, it became apparent for a while that he thought it might be a problem with my bank account or card, and not an issue at their end. So after collecting some information from me he started to tie up the call. Before he could continue I asked him if he could take the payment there and then to stop me having to go through the hassle of sorting it out later. He agreed but with the added line that it might be a problem with the card, so a payment might not be successful.

Having spoken with my bank earlier in the day, and confirming that there was NO issue with my card, account etc, I was positive it was an issue with Wonga.
Sure enough, seconds after agreeing to 'try' and take the payment, a somewhat surprised Andrew came back on the line and confirmed the payment had gone through, no issues, and it must indeed be an issue with the system their end. No shit Sherlock !

With my mind at ease, and with the payment made, we ended the call there and agreed that he would call back later that evening after he had heard back from the IT dept.

7pm came around, and as promised the phone rang and it was Wonga again. From the offset it was made clear that there had been an issue with their system, and it was explained that my card, even though the ONLY card on file, was not set as the 'primary' card, therefore was not being used to collect payment. So in reality, rather than all the stupid emails I was getting, someone could have checked and spotted this months ago, or the system could have just spat out a 'no primary card' error. But instead its always better to blame and harass the customer, of course !

With that resolved, I was assured that it had been corrected now, and that the future payments would not have issue with them, as long as my funds were available and card didn't change. Once again rushing to end the call, Andrew again apologised and started to say his goodbye's. Stopping him in his tracks I asked if I could have the contents of our discussion in an email, as written confirmation of what had actually happened, and of the action they had taken to prevent it happening again.  This was agreed to.

20 mins later the email came through, and indeed stated all the required information for my own records.
Problem solved....................... but not the end of it.

On the day all the emails were sent to Wonga I had received the automated 'thank you' email, but none of the patronising 'better to call us' rubbish that they seem to send out when they just don't want to deal with the matter themselves. At least that's how it comes across. Every email I sent that day had all the information they usually ask for, name, email, DOB and address. Given that I had supplied all this, and received a call back, I assumed that was that.
So imagine my surprise, when 2 days later I get two more of the 'we don't know who you are, please call us' emails.

From this I can only assume that the left hand doesn't have a CLUE what the right hand is doing. Notes are not put on customers accounts, and information is not shared. All this comes together to make quite simply a piss poor customer experience.

So... Wonga, thanks for starting to sort my issue out, now maybe take a deeper look at how your contact system works, and stop sending stupid emails for no reason. Especially when you are asking for information which was contained in the email you are replying to ! DUH !

We shall tell next month if the issue is REALLY resolved or not. Watch this space on Dec 18th.

There is hope for Wonga yet

But its not quite that clear cut...

It seems my email finally struck a nerve, and I received a call from the complaints department of Wonga this afternoon, stating they were aware there was an issue, and it was clear I was upset and frustrated with the whole matter.

We spent some time checking all the things were in place, I advised them that the bank had informed me there are NO issues with the card, payments to Wonga, and that NO attempts have been made to charge my card for any amount.
Using the details on their system, and adding my CCV code, a phone payment went straight through, demonstrating there and then that there is nothing wrong on my end of the deal.

So Andrew has referred the matter to the IT department for them to look into, and hopefully they can overcome what ever glitch it is THEY are having. In the meantime I wait and hope that they can sort this out once and for all.

I have no intention of being caught in the web of debt with them again, but just hope this matter can be sorted so they don't continue to rank so highly in my list of UK's most useless companies.

So, fingers crossed eh.

For now though I can relax a little, safe in the knowledge that I was NOT at fault at any stage of this nightmare process, and that Wonga have FINALLY after a couple of months bothered to get back to me and help solve the issue.
Just a shame it took a threat not to pay, and the involvement of the Financial Ombudsman to get to this stage.

Thank you however to Andrew for getting in touch and getting the ball rolling.

Dear Wonga.... YOU FAILED !

I would like to openly discuss my experiences with Wonga, and go into some more detail about how its all worked out.

Many months back, in desperate need of a quick injection of cash, I resorted to Wonga. A friend had kindly helped me out of the bog of financial despair with them once, but I fucked up, plain and simple. Even more stupidly I missed my payment / renewal date, and was faced with paying it all off in one hit, or entering a 'payment agreement'.
Settling for the payment agreement I spoke with the team about it, and was very pleased with the experience setting it up. 2 months down the line my debit card was renewed and I screwed up and forgot to tell Wonga, so the payment failed.
I contacted them, apologised and gave them the new card details. Crisis averted, or so I though. The following month I recevied an email saying the payment had failed. I called up again, the agent had forgotten to save the card details. No big deal.
The next month, payment failed email again, I call up, this time its a system outage and the payment HAD gone through, but one system didn't tell another, so the email was sent.
Next month, payment failed, month after, payment failed.... I tried in vain to contact them to sort this out, emails, phone calls etc all covered in previous blog entries, but nothing worked.
On calling last month the agent took a payment over the phone without my authorisation, I complained but Wonga failed to get back to me, so with this I approached the Financial Ombudsman who have taken the matter on.

This month  I decided to be proactive, and called Wonga a week before the payment was due. Went through it all with the agent, and confirmed they had all the right details to take the payment on the due date.... This morning I get an email... PAYMENT FAILED! So this time, paranoid that something was wrong at the banks end, I called the bank.

First up  THANK YOU NatWest for having such a coherent bunch on both Twitter and phone banking, they are amazing to deal with and answered all my questions faultlessly and promptly.

In this conversation with NatWest it was confirmed to me that not only had no payment failed, but no payment has even been presented to them for authorisation.
Seriously Wonga, you are hassling, harassing, and upsetting me with emails saying I have in some way failed to keep up my end of the bargain, and YOU have not even asked my bank for the money.

As per my emails, YOUR MOVE !! I have called you, emailed you, tried to work with you to give you my money, the money I agreed to pay you after my own slip up..... Now its up to you. I will make NO further efforts to make payment this month until YOU contact me. I realise that you will probably ignore my emails about the matter like you did last month, and that the next things I will get are emails or letters saying you have cancelled the agreement, are going to add interest, and all other sorts of financial threats. Thats fine. IF you can't be bothered to engage with a customer to resolve matters of you OWN failures I will quite happily wait for this to reach County Court level, then explain to them the poor levels of customer contact you have, and produce the emails, and call logs of when I have tried to make payment and resolve the matter.

As a matter of principal I am no longer willing to waste my time trying to sort the matter out, and if it does require any further input from me, other than answering a call or email from yourselves, I will start to add admin fees.

So Wonga..... YOUR MOVE! I look forwards to hearing from you.

The great Blackberry outage.... Day 3

And so it continues, or so it seems..
Late last night RIM / Blackberry issued a statement saying the issue had been found, and was a core switch which had failed, and that they were working on the matter. The failsafe had also failed.
Users should expect slow service until the data backlog was cleared.... However, most woke this morning to very little more than one or two BBM messages that had slipped through, but very little more.

People in the UK are having a range of issues now, from almost full service, to nothing at all. Even big names like Sir Alan Sugar are getting on the action, questioning the information flow from RIM, and the resolution time. It was pointed out by a friend last night that he was pretty sure RIM were not taking their time on purpose, and that they would no doubt have their best people on it. Not forgetting that when the Playstation network went down, it was down for over a month.

It is fair to say that times like this make us all look at our mobile phone usage and dependency, and question has it all gone too far. For me, I am more annoyed at the failure to let me know what was going on, but now I know, I am happier about the matter. Now I am left thinking what impact not having BIS really has on me. Sure I have no BBM, and no email, and browsing is crippled, but my life still works fine, im breathing, and I can still walk. So all is NOT lost. I am however paying for a service I cannot use. So I am left with a simple question.... Do I NEED this service, or while I have the opportunity, do I contact my carrier and arrange an alternative device, contract or even cancel.

I did consider last night ordering an iPhone 3GS, but was subsequently told by Apple fans that it was basically a piece of junk and that I should go for the newer shinier iPhone4 or even the 4S.... So last week it was still a great phone, and this week its crap.... That view alone has quashed the idea of entering the Apple folds, I just cant follow something that is binned so quickly after a new product comes out. To me the Blackberry 9700 is still a very good phone, and I would own another if I needed to, same with the 8520 too. But apparently this does not apply in Apple circles.

So another afternoon of WTF is going on begins, and Blackberry owners will wonder how long until 100% service is restored. Hopefully however we can all look back and remember the great RIM outage of 2011 and respect the technology we all take for granted just a little more.

EMEA wide RIM server outage affects Blackberry users

OK, I will be the first to admit that it has been amusing to see the over the top reactions that some have been posting on forums and Twitter etc. The hatred and anger experienced by some is laughable, but at the same time the BES side of things is somewhat more serious. Losing a whole infrastructure like that in one hit is not good for business on the best of days, and to be honest I would not be surprised if a few people/companies reconsider their loyalties to RIM/Blackberry. It is one thing to have a problem as a service provider for a short period of time, but its something completely different to have a 24 hour EUROPE wide outage, and to say nothing more that a couple of little tweets on Twitter.

Why was it down, how long will it take to restore, what is affected, what action can users take, when it does come back on will there be lag... And so on. A multitude of questions people had, and bombarded their network carriers with, who were sadly as in the dark as the rest of the RIM users. Its somewhat ironic that a company who prides themselves in revolutionising the world of wireless communication failed so badly to in any way communicate what the hell was, and still is going on.

An outage apparently starting at 11am Monday, but my carrier Orange UK was already having issues communicating with the RIM servers on Sunday afternoon, hence why my device swap has been in limbo now for over 36 hours. At this point there were already lag issues, maybe this would have been the right time to contact users to notify them of service issues. I'm sure RIM can do this somehow.

OK so I guess I should show my hand at this point, and say, as pissed off as I am, I still remain 'loyal' to Blackberry at this point, as the device and services are what I am used to using, and as a whole until yesterday was more than happy with. But it raises questions in my head. How the HELL did something like this happen, and why in god's name has it taken so long to get anywhere near to resolving the issue.

Dear RIM, Its a bloody joke! I don't get it. Twitter was working fine yesterday, so fine in fact that 'blackberry', 'rim' and 'BB' have become trend topics. The outage is all over the news, forums are full of anger and upset at this poorly managed outage, yet the official websites say NOTHING about it, not so much as a link to some info if you don't want to splatter your front pages with it. Poor show I say.

The worst part for RIM at this point, is how much of a laughing stock they have become. And speaking of stocks, I wonder if they have been affected by this total failure of service and customer service. Apple will be laughing their socks off at this gift thrown towards them. While the two are not comparable, it has certainly spiced up Apple's argument for which is the superior device. BBM failure just in time for iMessenger to be launched. Free advertising if I ever saw it.

So what now? When will the service be up to 100% again, when will I finally be able to finish my device switch, when will I be able to reply to people who BBM me, that RIM has decided I currently cant contact.

I really hope serious lessons are learned here, and that a repeat of this is impossible, but lets wait and see eh. Will we ever know the real reason for the outage, and reason it could not be restored using back-up servers quickly? All I want is a rough explanation of what happened, how and why..... But I'm not gonna hold my breath for that.

My experience with Orange UK customer services

OK, so I know I have already blogged about this, but wanted to get it all into one entry. Reason being is, I want to copy it and send it to any organisation, governing body, or media body that wants to read it. As a whole I feel the way Orange have dealt with this matter is ridiculous, so it deserves as much attention as it can get. So here goes.

On Thursday 25th March I awoke to find my Blackberry was not sending or receiving data. Its not the first time it has happened, but usually a battery pull or re-registering it on the network solves the problem. However on this occasion it didn't.
After doing all the usual things I decided to call Orange and report it as a fault. I called them at about 11am, and spoke to the handset faults team, who after running some basic diagnostics were unable to resolve the issue. The matter was then escalated to the next level, and I spoke to someone else who ran me through a whole host of diagnostics, including deleting settings, resending things etc. None of which worked. At this point he suggested purging me from the network was the last resort, and set about getting this done. Sadly this didn't work either. He then said he had exhausted all the options and needed to speak with someone about replacing the handset, and he would call be back..... The call back never came.

I made a couple more calls to Orange, that day, but nothing was resolved. I spoke to another guy that evening, who again ran through some ideas, but was unable to resolve it either. He too said replacement would be the best call on the matter. Just wanting to be sure it was a handset fault and not a network fault, I asked if he could call me back once I was at home, so I could try and alternative SIM in the handset. 30 mins later he called back, and I tried the SIM..... Nothing.

The strange part in all this is, both my BIS SIM's work fine in my other Blackberry (8520) Full BIS service, no issues. But when put in the 9700 neither can use the data service. Giving him this information he too was satisfied that it was the handset, and requested a replacement be issued. To my surprise the request was denied, and the matter was passed to networks as that is where is was now believe the fault lay. Quite how this could be the case, with both SIM's operating fine in another handset, I do not know, but then who am I?

I was told it could take a couple of days, so left it until Saturday afternoon to call back. When I called back I was told network were aware of the issue, but had not finished with the matter yet, and I would have to wait until they have made their decision on the matter until it could progress any further. Over the weekend I was told networks work normal hours, networks work limited hours, networks run a skeleton crew, and finally networks don't work at all over the weekend, so nothing will be done with the case til Monday.

Sunday comes around, I call Orange to ask what the outcome is with network. They tell me that its just being looked at now, and hopefully I will get a call back that afternoon, but to give them til late, as they work til 10. 10pm comes and goes, no call back. By this time it is about the 4th time I have been promised a call back, and it has not come. Monday now rolls around and to my shock I get a call. A voice says "hi I'm from customer relations, I have someone on the line who can help with your faulty Blackberry", seconds later I am connected.... To level 1 tech support, in what sounded like India. I don't make that assumption from the fact I am speaking to an Indian guy, but more to do with the loud native chatter in the background drowning out his voice as he tries to speak to me.
Now at this point again I get a little wound up. Firstly, I have been through level 1 over and over with numerous people over the last few days. And secondly that the instructions he is giving me (screen prompted of course) are wrong. Telling me to "press the trackball" errrm, the 9700 has a pad, not a ball. Eventually, as expected he admits defeat and passes me to the next level.
I am now connected to a guy who says he hopes he can help me, as its his first day. GREAT!
After a few mins of explaining that the SIM's work fine in other handsets he also states that its not a network issue, but a handset issue. However they cannot replace it at this point.
I ask for an escalation and a call back as its now getting stupid.

Somewhere along the line, I forget where now) the matter is passed to RIM themselves. As it is now believe this is where the real issue lays. (I will come back to this in a bit)

(at this point, forgive me if I contradict myself with dates etc, with the hours of calls I have honestly lost track of time)

On Tuesday, its now been 6 days, no data, no replacement handset, no sign of an answer to it all. I am getting fed up now, so I place another call to see what is going on. I also ask for the matter to be escalated to a manager or team leader the day before. This is the second time I have done this, and for the second time, surprise surprise the call back never comes. I also called retentions to see how much it would cost me to leave Orange. By this point I am really starting to get fed up of messing about with a broken phone, pulling the battery out etc to satisfy the curiosity of a tech support guy who is sure he can fix it.
The guy at retentions was very nice and polite, disappointed the Orange have dealt with it so badly and says he wants to make some calls and get back in touch with me and hopefully he can speed things up for me. No shocks, but no calls back, no resolution, nothing. Yet another department full of empty promises.

Tuesday afternoon rolls around and I am searching the web to find a way to speak to someone more senior, who can maybe just over ride the ongoing stupidity, and agree to replace the handset. I find a complaint site about Orange (seems there are a few of these now) with the email address executive.office@orange.co.uk so I give it a go.
I fire off an email of annoyance, explaining the situation in a much detail as I can, and cross my fingers. An hour later I get a call from the executive office who want to discuss the matter further. My hopes rise for the first time in a week.

On speaking to the guy all seems well, sounds like I have someone on my side finally, and the name "executive" would kind of indicate that the matter is finally serious. At this point I should mention, I have been a loyal customer to Orange for about 6 years now. With 6 contract with them, and an average annual spend of £2000+. While I don't expect "special" treatment, I do hope that they will take the case seriously, and try and look after a good customer. Apparently this has no bearing and they don't give a toss.
The call ends with me agreeing to give Orange and RIM til Thursday afternoon to try and decide on the matter, and get my phone working again. I wait all Thursday afternoon with baited breath, hoping to see GPRS appear in upper case..... it does not happen.

I call the same guy at Orange back, and tell him the bad news. Now at this point its day 8 (yes EIGHT) of this charade, so surely with Easter holidays looming (the next 4 days) something is going to be decided now. We start the conversation, but I can tell its going nowhere. As he continues to talk, I can tell there is NO intention of replacing the handset for me. He goes on to explain that they will use this to learn from, and will make changes if deemed necessary to the way they handle these matter in future. Now I'm all for change, and improvement, but how the hell exactly does this help my case right now. Eight days without my 9700, and I'm meant to be impressed about promises about the future?
I explain that I am frustrated beyond description now, and just want the Blackberry away from me. I am sick of being the test dummy for the tech guys asking me to go through menu's and pull the battery, and just want the phone out of my sight until they have fixed it or replaced it. The response I get to this is amazing. They refuse to take the handset back until RIM have made their decision of if the fault lays with them, just in case it can be fixed over the air. The funniest part is the reason for this... Apparently Orange would not want to cause a delay getting a working phone back with me!! Are you freakin kiddin me or what. Its been 8 days, when exactly did you start caring about that !
Then the killer blow. Now I don't expect to speak to a nerd with knowledge of every handset out there, but I don't expect to be spoken to like a complete a-hole either. He starts to tell me what they believe the fault is, and why they cannot replace the handset at this point. Its something like this.

Exec: The fault is with the account, so even if we send you a replacement handset out, it would still not fix anything.
Me: Yes it will, both accounts are working fine on my other handset, so replacing the handset clearly does work.
Exec: No it wont, the problem is with the PIN, so if we replace it the problem will remain.
Me: The PIN is tied to the handset, if the fault is with the PIN, then its a handset fault, and replacing it will solve everything.
Exec: No, the account is the problem, you wont be able to use another Blackberry on that account.
Me: I already am, I'm using my 8520 just fine. I can log into either of my Blackberry accounts, and assign them to the 8520, and they both work perfectly, data, email, BBS etc. So its nothing to do with the account, its the handset, so replace it!
Exec: The issue is with the PIN......

I give up trying to explain at this point as its becoming very frustrating now, to be insulted, to have your understanding of the way it works questioned, and to be messed about to such an extreme.

Now from what I have learned from places like Crackberry (thanks guys for all your help) the PIN could be the issue, as RIM could have a block on it for some unknown reason. Which is unfortunate, but Orange know that they CAN issue a replacement to me, to get my service back up and running, then take the issue up with RIM about why it was blocked. But instead I have to sit around for 2 weeks with a bricked phone sitting on the side, waiting for someone to finally decide I can have a new phone!

So, its Thursday night now. The end of the 8th day of no phone (thank god for keeping my 8520). The outcome is I have to wait for RIM to contact Orange to tell them what next. Then at that point Orange MAY finally decide to replace the handset. But with my luck the whole matter will turn another corner. I mentioned 2 weeks without a phone earlier as tomorrow is Good Friday, so all customer services are closed. Then its the weekend, then Easter Monday, so no services resume til Tuesday. So days 9, 10, 11, and 12 are wasted. Who will day 13 be unlucky for.... Somehow I think me!

So my sincere thanks to Orange, for taking 7 hours of my life, wasted talking on the phone to people pretending to give a damn, promising to call back, then not bothering. I am now left with a talk plan WAY over its allowance, due to the hours spent on the phone to your tech support. A seriously bitter taste in my mouth over how you treat big spending and loyal customers, and a ticking timebomb in my head about if I bother to remain with Orange or not. Although grasped by the balls due to the dates on all the contracts, I am not going to be had over a barrel and will not stop until I have told this story to anyone and everyone who will listen.

Letters have been sent now to all the appropriate bodies, as well as the customer services, and head office of Orange. I have contacted RIM directly to ask their opinion on the matter and their part in the issue, and will just keep going.

The chances are I will stay with Orange if this gets resolved soon, all my expenses are reimbursed, and we talk hardball about where we go from here.

After so many years of loyalty, and singing the network praises, I am left with just one thing to say..... Orange UK, right now YOU SUCK!

PS I have missed out lots of things here, most of which can be found in earlier entries, but I hope it gives a rough idea of the crap I have been putting up with for over a week now.

Today is D Day, for Orange that is.

Well after a couple of days of grace for them to sort the matter out, today is the last day that was agreed I would wait for them to sort the issues out.
Its 8 days now, this all started over a week ago now. After loads of diagnostics there is still no joy with the matter. Suggestions have been that maybe RIM has accidentally blocked the wrong PIN as the phone seems to be behaving as if its data is blocked on purpose. (or its just bloody broken!)

Either way, I agreed with Orange Executive Offices that I would wait til this afternoon before chasing them up again, and its coming up for 1pm. So in a couple of hours time I will be calling them back and asking what decision they have come to. Either way, with Easter just around the corner (tomorrow) I am likely to be without my Blackberry for a few days more until a replacement is sent out, if they even agree to send one out.

If there is no resolution agreed today its gonna get a little bit messy. I understand that networks have grace in-built into the contracts to allow them time to sort stuff like this out, but I am not sure it is quite this long, certainly not without them even having diagnosed the issue.
So if I am told they are still waiting on RIM, the response will be something along the lines of, breach of contract, failing to provide a service or reasonable timescale for resolution, and so on.
My solution offered to them will be, I will return the phone in the next available mail service, they can keep it and sort the problem out at their own leisure, and either replace it or return it to me repaired. In the meantime they can suspend billing on that account, reimburse me for the calls made to tech support, and discuss how they are going to convince me to remain with Orange as my contracts begin to run out.

I will update as it all unfolds, but either way, I am past caring too much about it now, the whole scenario has dulled my enthusiasm for Orange by about 90%, and if they are not willing to talk about it, I will start to pull the contracts as soon as economically viable.

Is this what they call "progress"?

Well after another entertaining day speaking to Orange over and over and over, I have made I believe what some would call progress.
After an earlier encounter with a call back from Orange, which just put be right back at the beginning, I searched the web and found an email address for the Executive Offices for Orange. The address is executive.office@orange.co.uk . After emailing them I was expecting the same sort of response as most other promises of call backs etc. But to my amazement, after a trip to the loo I came back to find a missed call and a message. Michael from the exec offices had called back to discuss the matter, and see what they could do to sort the matter out.

After a long call to the techs, he came back with almost what everyone else had said, that tech were SURE it was a problem with RIM now and not the handset. The issue has been passed on to Research In Motion for further investigation. Unfortunately as they are a 3rd party Orange are unable to give or enforce timescales for these matters, so it is simply a matter of waiting again now til RIM contact Orange.

So really I am no further down the line. Although on the other hand I am, as I have a single point of contact now, who is going to see the matter through to resolution. We have also started discussing reimbursement for time wasted, calls placed and services not provided.

One comment made me chuckle though. He said he was happy to make such a credit to my account but would do it once resolved "in case" it is another week of no service". My response was to laugh and politely inform him that if it drags over to next week I wont be an Orange customer anymore. He understood this clearly.

So onwards, and nowhere for the time being lol. I am in higher spirits about it now, thanks to a settlement cheque arriving on my mat this morning, but that's about the only thing keeping me from driving to Orange HQ and having a word in person.
IF..... and I mean IF, this turns out to be a handset fault after all, the whole thing will become VERY messy indeed. As I explained to one of the call centre guys, I am not a guinea pig for them to experiment with their theories on. I am a paying customer, and a high paying customer at that. I expect to be treated like an individual, and not someone they can mess about, just so the geeks in the basement can prove they can fix the phone.

Thursday afternoon is the cutoff for this whole matter now, which was made clear to the exec when we spoke. If I have to call them back that afternoon as its not resolved, then I will be asking for an address to send the phone to, and will be rid of it once and for all. At that point I want nothing more to do with it until it is fixed, working, and I don't have to call Orange again. Renewal time is nigh, but I am having serious doubts about it all now, unless they can do something really special. REALLY special.