Orange must pay customer €64,000

PHONE company Orange has been ordered to pay a mobile phone customer €64,000 damages after it switched him on to a new, more expensive tariff without him knowing.

The court at Rennes backed Orange customer Joël G who had challenged the company over new charges on his account.

Consumer group Que Choisir said that the customer had used the Orange sans limite option since 2002 which gave access to services such as email and weather reports at €6 a month.

However, when he changed to a newer phone in 2003 his OSL option was switched for an access to Orange World at a considerably higher cost.

The customer complained and eventually took Orange to the court in Rennes which condemned the operator to pay him €500 a day until it gave him back his OSL option.

Orange said this was not available on the new phone and could only be done by giving him back an old-style phone or giving him a new Surf option.

Now the appeal court at Rennes has found in favour of the customer and pointed out that Orange’s own phone bills had shown that the OSL option was available. It ordered Orange to pay €64,250 to the customer for the days of delay in re-establishing his preferred option.