I just had a text from Orange saying that when we top up £10 from 11th February, instead of getting the 15% VAT rate, we will get 17.5% and £1 towards an ‘Orange Phone Fund”. Isn’t this illegal? And what gives them the right to make these changes without asking what the customer wants?

If it goes through I’ll be leaving Orange, after 12 years.

there’s nothing to stop them puttign their base price up so it comes to £10 with the 15% vat included and still give you the same minutes…

AFAIK They’r under no obligation to cut their prices by 2.5% Tesco just give me 2.5% more credit,

whats the “orange phone fund” are you going to get money off your next phone? doesnt sound like a bad deal to me.

It’s towards a new phone. With my phone usage it would take me 9 years to get enough for a new £100 phone, and by that time what’s the chances they’ll still be maintaining this policy?

I suspect bye bye orange, hello O2.

I’m sick of orange, they text you one a month to tell you that if you top up beyond a certain amount then you’ll get 50% extra credit ontop of what you have spent.

But when it comes down to it, they forget to add your bonus credit!

Orange BS.

Leave them, If it wasn’t for the fact, my emergency phone was on orange pay as you go.
I’ve got a bit of credit to use up yet (let’s hope there’s an emergency, soonnnnnnn).

If you get an invoice that shows the VAT at 17.5% then that would be illegal as the VAT rate is 15% and NOT 17.5%. The VAT rate is a government controlled figure. It’s not anything that any company can arbitrarily set for themselves.

Some companies will run sales that state ‘We pay your VAT’. That’s not exactly true although the price you pay is ‘as if’ they had paid your VAT. In reality all they are doing is reducing the price by 17.5% or 15% as it is now. 15% of what you finally hand over at the till will still be VAT that has to be passed on the government.

In short whatever it is that they say won’t change their legal obligation to add the correct rate of VAT to the final price you pay. I suspect they have just played around with the numbers to make it ‘feel’ like you are paying 17.5% VAT while they make a donation or whatever. The reality will be different on the paperwork I suspect.

As Mark said. Imagine your employer giving you a different NI/PAYE % to the governments?

There aren’t paper bills or invoices/receipts as such as I always top up digitally, so I guess there’s no check there. Never mind, I’m not staying with them. Now to see how easy it is to get the PAC code…I guess I’ll have to speak to 3 people or more for this mission!

It’s a matter of customer service, and I don’t think they have done me a good service with this move at all.

In reality all they are doing is reducing the price by 17.5% or 15% as it is now

or even 14.89 or 13.04%

get a contract

or even 14.89 or 13.04%

Nope. Like Mark said, they knock 15% (or 17.5% in the past) off the ex-VAT price.

Nope miketually, if they just knock 15% off the ex-VAT price, and then add the VAT onto that you get a smaller figure.

So, if ex-VAT price is £100

Knock 15% off that and it gives you £85

Then add VAT on @ 15% and you get £97.75

To get to £100 inc VAT the ex-VAT price would be:-

100/1.15 = £86.96

So, a 13.04% reduction. (100 – 86.96 = 13.04)

Damn.

I have to get one thing wrong every day to restore the cosmic balance 🙂

And you’re supposed to be teaching my children 🙄