We recently moved (or rather are still trying to move) from O2 (who only provide premium rate numbers for you to call when they screw things up) to Orange who apparently have their systems 'go down' nearly every afternoon. The plan was simple, 2 phones, 2 tariffs, 1 account - as reccomended by the salesman because it would be 'easier for us'.
Nearly a month after ordering the first phone, we are still calling orange every day attempting to get the phones, and now we have both phones, one has been registered this morning (but we have been paying for it for a week already, without being warned), and we are attempting to register the other but a) 'The system is down' and b) 'The account has only 1 phone' and c) 'Credit checks need to be done', 2 weeks after its already been paid for and done and finally d) 'Direct Debits need to be set up', 3 weeks after they were already set up.
Now my wife is passed from number to number as they try and blame other people or O2 (who now that we leave actually manage to be helpful after a year of being useless), or the computer system mysteriously being down.
Of course all the telephone operators live in a cave up a mountain with only a telephone line in and wet string connecting their computer to their system, this means that simple requests like calling back, calling somebody who knows what they are doing or speaking to a supervisor or manager are utterly impossible.
It can't be that hard to sell mobile phones to people. The only reason everything is on my wife's account is because despite her having no job, and the fact we own a house together and that I have a salary (and have for several years) that is enough to get a platinum card from any bank, she can have any credit she wants, but I fail the credit check (at least I did last time I tried) required.
After repeating the 90% of the ordering process this morning she has to give them the PAC number again which mean that she has a temporary number for a couple of weeks and carries on paying her old phone bill until the number is transferred.
On the positive side the Nokia 7250 is, unlike the Motorola we had before, a halfway decent phone. It turns on and off near-instantly - unlike the 10 to 20 seconds the motorola took, has the far superior Nokia UI and predictive text that is easy to use and learns rather than the useless attempt motorola use. It also has an option to turn off the startup noise. Also the menu's make a lot more sense. And its smaller and lighter and charges in about a quarter of the time, and the camera works and copes with taking photo's. I am assuming that once I have transferred all my numbers onto it that, it will not ask me to 'please wait' while it tries to load all 40 numbers *gasp*, or if I click a menu and then select something straight away - in fact I don't expect to see 'please wait' again unless I am using WAP or mucking about with photos - not when I check my SMS inbox or want to find a number in the addressbook.
postscript
After managing to get hold of a supervisor my wife got an apology and some freebies, but TBH, both us would rather have a couple of days wasted on the phone back.
