# Getting out of a phone contract if the signal in your area changes



## Mojofilter (Jun 8, 2013)

I know this is probably a long shot, but does anyone know if its possible to get out of your phone contract if the signal in your house (and the surrounding half mile radius) just disappears?

About a month a go mine and the wife's phones dropped from 5 bars to nothing, I called Orange and they said that some equipment had been stolen from the mast and that it'd be fixed in a week. A week later and it still wasn't fixed and they said another week... And so on for 4 weeks now.

We're both fed up of waiting now, we can use our land line but its no use for texts, plus it costs us to use it when we could be using our bundled minutes & everyone knows not to call it after 7 because it wakes up the baby.

Anything we can do, other than just wait?


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## geminisnake (Jun 8, 2013)

Get in touch with Trading Standards or whatever they are called now. Orange are not providing you with the service you are paying for and afaik this means they are in breach of contract so you should be able to drop them. CAB might also be able to help.


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## Pingu (Jun 8, 2013)

have you asked orange?

in your contract will be a bit about their obligations under the contract. if they have breached these then you should be able to invoke the penalty clause or to terminate the contract

this is the bit that seems to apply



> terminating your Contract because Orange is no longer able to provide access
> Version 15 PAYM Terms and Conditions for the supply of Orange Network Services –  October 2012
> to the Network 4.4 If, for reasons beyond our control, we are no longer able to provide the Services, we will at our discretion either: 4.4.1  make arrangements for you to be supplied with equivalent Services by another network at no extra cost to you, or 4.4.2  accept written notice from you that you wish to terminate your Contract. In such cases we will refund any pre-paid Charges that have not been used up.


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## Mojofilter (Jun 8, 2013)

It seems that the problem is down to them switching off the mast that's closest to me.
After me kicking off a bit they investigated it and found that there is another mast that should cover my area, but looking at the error reports there seems to be problems with it - just not enough for it to flag up on a report.

They're going to investigate and it should be sorted inside a week. Apparently they can send me a box that plugs into my router and acts as a mini mast if for some reason they can't restore signal to my area - which would be fine.

I'm just pissed off now that for the past month I appear to have been bullshitted because they must have known why the mast wasn't working - because they'd switched it off!


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## geminisnake (Jun 8, 2013)

Tell them you want compensation then. They've mucked you about and you've not had the service you should have had so I see no reason why you should get some.


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## purenarcotic (Jun 8, 2013)

This was raised by watchdog a couple of weeks ago as it's happening a lot. Tell them you'll be going to watchdog too and they should release you from your contract at no cost.


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## Mojofilter (Jun 9, 2013)

Cheers folks.

They've said that they'll refund my charges for the duration of the problem when / if they fix it and if they can't, letting me out of the contract is an option.

I just need to "let the tech guys do their thing first" although they refuse me a time scale.

I think the next step is to give them notice in writing that if its not sorted inside a week I'm going to consider the contract to be over - although my worry is that I'm moving house in a few months and can't afford to have anything show up on my credit file if I just start refusing to pay my bill.


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## Piers Gibbon (Jun 9, 2013)

what are these "box things that plug into a router to  act as a mini mast"? Do they really boost mobile phone reception? I reckon they'd sell well on ebay!


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## peterkro (Jun 9, 2013)

Piers Gibbon said:


> what are these "box things that plug into a router to act as a mini mast"? Do they really boost mobile phone reception? I reckon they'd sell well on ebay!


Femtocell, I been using one from O2 for a while they work really well.In a house with three foot thick walls it covers all areas of the house.I think Orange are trialling them at the moment and anyone whose signal suddenly disappears would have a good case to be given a free one.(it's in a valley with no mobile/terrestial TV at all)


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## Citizen66 (Jun 9, 2013)

This happened to me with mobile broadband (t mobile). A mast went on the blink for a few weeks and they ended up refunding me a month's credit but my demands to terminate the contract fell on deaf ears. Seems they can not deliver and just get away with giving you a sweetener. Didn't fucking help me get any internet that month though did it.


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## abe11825 (Jun 9, 2013)

If you know exactly when problems started, when you contacted them, and now what they've said to you, I don't see any reason to not have it all in writing and send it to some big corporate place and letting them know you consider the contract over if they can't rectify the situation. It's all good they are willing to credit you after it's done and fixed, but to not give an estimate or even offer something small now, defeats the purpose. They're just giving you the run around, stealing your money and not doing anything about it. 

Keep on them, though, and keep track of what has been done and said... sounds like good information to take to higher authorities (consumer affairs, trading standards, ecc).


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## Mojofilter (Jun 10, 2013)

I've email a complaint documenting everything that's happened... Given them until the end of the week to resolve the issue otherwise I'll consider the contract to be over and move to a provider than can offer me a usable service.

Think that's more than fair, the first 3 weeks of the problem they just fobbed me off and did zilch to fix the issue. Plus it's a problem entirely of their own making - they can't spect to cut costs by switching off masts without losing customers.


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## Mojofilter (Jun 13, 2013)

After an hour and a half on the phone and me wanting to punch them every time they called switching off the mast "network optimisation" they finally let me out of my contract.

Looks like I'm going phone shopping on Saturday


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## Mojofilter (Jun 18, 2013)

Much better experience with Three after a bit of an epic fail moment.

Got my new phone home and despite their coverage checker saying that I'd get a good signal, I had nothing!
But 1 painless phone call later and they'd apologised and offered to take the phone back or send me a signal booster to plug into my router - which I'm more than happy with and let's me stay on all you can eat data


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## Supine (Jun 18, 2013)

Weird man, I just planned to start a thread about this.

Since joining Three I have had very bad reception in my house. I was going to ask about exiting the contract but will try and get a booster instead


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## dervish (Jun 20, 2013)

Be careful with the "signal boosters" if it is a femtocell that's fine but if it is using UMA it might take data you use while at home from your mobile allowance even though it is going through your wifi. I don't know if they still do it, but a few years a go when I worked for orange we had quite a few customers get stung by this.


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## Mojofilter (Jun 20, 2013)

Cheers, but its femtocell & I'm on Three all you can eat data anyway.


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## Supine (Jun 21, 2013)

After answering all of the questions I was put on hold for ten minutes. Then asked to try turning the phone off and on again. Honestly!!!

They are now "investigating" for 48 hrs. I'll get that damned booster eventually


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## Mojofilter (Jun 22, 2013)

I suspect that still being in my cooling off period helped my cause a little.
Done a bit of reading online and it seems that they're quite easy to get, but they want to give the impression that they're not.

Not sure why because if they publicised them I reckon quite a lot of people in dodgy signal areas would see them as big selling point.


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## killer b (Jun 22, 2013)

orange appear to be fucked atm, loads of people are reporting issues with them. my bro reckons they're skint and having to turn masts off.


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## wayward bob (Jun 22, 2013)

killer b said:


> orange appear to be fucked atm, loads of people are reporting issues with them.


 
my phone's been fucked for calls for weeks now. dude in the shop said it's a reception issue loads of people are having problems with, something to do with them merging with t-mobile  anyway he reckoned some people have been getting compensation, will report back when i can be arsed to call customer services.


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## Supine (Jun 24, 2013)

Booster will be arriving tomorrow


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