I finally managed to get myself sorted to abandon Vodafone and decided to get a couple of free SIMs from Orange and try out their coverage on PAYG for a while. According to their adverts you can keep your existing number, which is critical for me. I was taking a look at this late last night, and since I couldn’t do it on line I decided to phone them. Well at around half past midnight they were experiencing a high volume of calls so claimed to have a waiting time of 13 minutes! I decided to try again in the morning – a bad mistake!
Just after nine this morning I tried dialling the number that came with the the SIMs and got through to the automated service. First it asked me if I wanted a new number, no, then it asked me to confirm that I had an existing number I wanted to keep, yes. Next it told me it would transfer me to a customer operative. The message told me that Orange was committed to providing excellent customer service and then promptly cut me off! I tried again a few times, and then again through the morning (thankfully this is a freephone number) and got the same problem.