I have noticed a strange fault with Orange. I get sim updates with the text as follows

<black square>yyyy

where black square is a black square character and the y's have two dots above them (foreign accented characters). I then get this message every 24 hours at the same time of the original message.

I have a Motorola v66e handset and all other text messages come in fine.

Orange don't seem to know what the problem is.
Has anybody else had this problem?

Have you tried turning it off just after you have read the message? This is what you normally have to do after sim updates.

Though its not likely to solve the problem as you get them every 24 hours...

surely if its not a phone fault orange should be able to tell you whats going on. If not ask them to re-send the latest sim update that was sent to you again. I dont know if they can do this but I dont see why not.

Yes, I did cycle the power on the phone after receiving the sim. They also suggested resetting the phone. Neither worked.

Orange did try resending the sim update (they can force them whilst you are on the phone). That also did not work.

Orange engineers may understand the problem but customer services act as an interface between the customer and their engineers. They did stop the messages once, but after another sim update they started again.

My company gets invoiced around £750 a month from Orange - we have 17 handsets on the account. Their business to business service is terrible - if they want to lose an account they are going about it the best way - ticking off the IT manager is not the best idea!

Try calling the "data support" line, run by "new product support". Also try calling cust services only during 10am to 4pm when the senior staff are on duty......

Sometimes helps

/James

That's a good idea. Thanks!

I must say I have to disagree. We use orange in work (Talk 10,000 73 handsets), and I have only ever had one problem when once they wouldn't let me access the account (Which in fairness they were right to do because the proper level of access had not been requested for me). Any issues at all and I have had a brand new phone and a credit to the company account by the next morning.

You must be really unlucky in who you get on the phone. If you want some real horror stories however, try spending £7million a year with Dell! Expect good service for that sort of money? THINK AGAIN!

In the period of two months I have had the following problems:
1) Removing phones from accounts but Orange not removing them and charging us for them.
2) Being cut off by over-zealous credit controllers because our bank missed payment by a day. We immediately paid by credit card but they cut us off again because a note had not been put on the system that we had paid. Arguably not Oranges fault, but still annoying.
3) They can't get my name right despite being faxed, phoned at least 4 times. (I am not Dean Isofield).
4) Managers being removed from third-party authorization for no reason whatsoever.
5) Being refused access to the account because I did not specify my birthdate. (It's a company account - they never asked for my birthdate).
6) Added a new talkshare talk plan and moved several phones into it. They created the talk plan with a single phone on it but did not move the phones over - resulted in us being overcharged. Got refund after a long argument.
7) Crashed their system when we removed the lead phone from a talkshare. Took three days to sort out.
8) Moved several phones onto another account. They moved all but two. Still waiting on this one.
9) SMS problem. Still outstanding - should get my daily faulty message soon!

I have no confidence in Oranges ability to do anything correctly after these incidents. No problems with the network and when it works great it is both cost affective and good service.

With regards to luck - you are correct. If I don't get any joy, I usually ring back 5 minutes later, get another service representative and try again.

I hear the Orange Executive Office is rather good at sorting out complaints. I suggest you email your list to address below:

Orange executive office
executive.office@orange.co.uk
50 George Street
LONDON
W1U 7DZ
020 7984 1886
0870 8700862

Christ Dino they must really hate you. I would advise talking to someone high up in Orange and getting that sorted out. Heads should roll...

Cheers, guys. I'll let you know how I get on.