Ian G wrote on Oct 4^th, 2013 at 1:35pm:

If you could direct me to some proof that the Spanish network is being charged 10 Euros or more by the English network to connect the call then I would be inclined to have taken your assertions more seriously.

Instead of which you just challenge my comments without offering any factual basis as to why you feel entitled to do so.  This is bound to cause disagreements or misunderstandings.

The true profile of someone who actively avoids 084/7 numbers is usually that they are difficult and bolshie in my experience.  Go with the flow merchants just ring them because they hear all their friends have to do it too........

At the end of the day Ofcom will try and pass the buck, Plusnet will try and pass the buck and Orange Spain will also try and pass the buck for the ripoff charge.  How do you expect me not to get cross?  I was jolly lucky I only had 5 Euros credit left on the SIM as I could easily have lost 50 Euros calling the number.  Orange Spain is extremely frustrating in not offering an Executive Complaints facility for policy type issues and their insistence on only speaking Spanish when their company serves a large number of English and German holiday home owners.

Ian G wrote on Oct 4^th, 2013 at 2:10pm:


OK I thought about it some more and this ought to be an Ofcom problem to deal with as potentially the Uk terminating network is also involved in the scam.

However I am still far from sure this is the case as Orange Spain merely has a blanket outrageous charge of 15.40 Euros per minute to all Premium Rate numbers but does not define Premium Rate in the normal way (09 numbers).  It is likely 0844 and 0845 are covered by their 11 cent per minute Local Rate charge and 070 clearly must be Personal Numbers at 19 cents per minute.  Beyond this one could expect Orange Spain to also charge 15.40 Euros per minute to call 0871 as they are clearly more expensive than 03s to terminate.

But whilst you encourage me to get to the bottom of the problem how do you expect me to do so.  Orange is a commercial company and does not have to make any disclosures to me under FOI.  The only FOI I could submit would be to Ofcom about any investigation they have conducted in to costs of overseas fixed line and mobile networks terminating calls with UK networks and whether this undermines their General Condition re 03 numbers for overseas callers.

To be honest this isn't my job.  My job is to express the outrage at being ripped off here and to email the CEO of Orange France linking to this thread and also copying it to journalists  who have previously done work in this area.  Beyond that it is up to the press to dig deeper as they may have the necessary resources including possibly sending an undercover mole to work in the marketing department of Orange Spain (the only way one would find the true answer about the scam 15.40 Euros per minute charges).

The thing is that when i have a gut instinct about something more often than not I am proved right when facts emerged.  Others like you don't have a "common sense" brain like mine and seem to demand facts to prove assertions even though they clearly aren't available as the miscreants in question are not willing to provide them.

Ian G wrote on Oct 4^th, 2013 at 10:42pm:


Plusnet's 0345 support number is 0345 140 0200

And your file link shows the following entry:-

"3451","40","","Allocated","","Virgin Media Wholesale Limited",,"10/2009",

So I suppose this is the basis of a complaint to the CEO of Virgin Media about what I am being charged by Orange Spain and asking what their wholesale charge to Orange Spain for connecting the call is.

It is also the basis of a complaint to Ofcom that either Virgin Media is in violation of GC17 for calls connected from overseas networks or alternatively that GC17 is being circumvented by overseas networks wrongly deeming 03 numbers as being the same cost as the most expensive 09s.  Either way Virgin Media may be to blame for the overseas network wrongly forming the view that 03 numbers are premium Rate.

It is also the basis of a complaint to the CEO of Plusnet that they advertise 0345 140 0200 as the way to contact from mobiles.  I used this number from a Spanish mobile expecting it to be charged as per a call to a UK 01/02 number at 1 cent per minute plus connection of 15 cents to 30 cents (depends on whether you have added credit to your phone this week or not) and it was instead charged at a Premium Rate of 15.40 Euros.

Have I missed anyone on the list of people to complain to.  Of course there is also the CEO of Orange France and/or France Telecom (the parent companies since Orange Spain does not seem to have a way to contact its CEO or Executive Complaints team).  I don't think PhonePayPlus are involved directly but they may be interested that a non Premium Rate number not regulated by them is being charged way above the level of the most expensive Premium Rate numbers.

Oh and why do I get angry.  Well because writing all the above emails would take a huge amount of effort and take several hours.  And only then if I am very lucky might I get my 4 Euros something back.  If am even luckier Orange Spain will start charging UK 03 numbers as per 02 numbers and only if a large pig flies by will Virgin Media get fined if they are in any way complicit in callers from Spain being over charged for calling UK 03 numbers.  This is all beacuse of a weak and useless regulator (or alternatively a corrupt and complicit regulator) who only ever acts to protect the consumer virtually almost never.  They intervene in disputes between commercial competitors almost every day of the week..........

Its now 19.2 Euros/min to call a UK 03 (see http://movil.orange.es/tarifas/llamar-a-otro-pais/tarjeta-sim-mundo/) - so I have sent the below email to Orange Spain's CEO.

To: jean-marc.vignolles@francetelecom.com

Further to my previous below email of Sunday February 2nd 2013, to your colleague Benoit Scheen, perhaps it may be helpful for us to now focus on the core issues.  It would appear that you, as Chief Executive Officer for that territory, would in fact be best placed to answer my various previous questions to Orange about certain aspects of the operation of its mobile phone brand within the Spanish marketplace.

Most of these issues unfortunately seem to involve discriminatory mistreatment of non Spanish residents and/or non Spanish speakers from other parts of the European Union who are customers of the Orange Spain mobile brand.  They also involve a serious potential violation of the EU Directive restricting the maximum cost of calling ordinary landline numbers in other EU member states to a maximum of 24 cents (+VAT) per minute at the present time as well as an apparent attempt to impede the operation of the European Single Market by refusing to accept credit and debit card payments to top up Orange mobile accounts from citizens of other EU countries not permanently resident in Spain.

In descending order of seriousness from most serious downwards my current issues with Orange Spain would appear to be as follows:-

1. Overcharging Orange Spain customers at 15.40 Euros Per Minute For Calls To UK 03 Customer Service Numbers In Violation of The Spirit and Purpose of  Ofcom General Condition 17 - see http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2007/02/13/ofcom-introduces-uk-wide-03-numbers/  This action would also appear to breach the EU's current Directive restricting the maximum cost of calls to ordinary landline numbers in other member states (in this case the UK) to no more than 24 cents per minute (+VAT) if this 15.40 Euro per minute charge is also levied on any customers of networks in other EU countries who are currently roaming in Spain with Orange.  These UK numbers commencing +44 3 need to all be reclassified in your Orange Spain call charges database to be only charged at the same rate as any other ordinary UK landline number.

2. Discriminating Against Any Non Spanish Resident, Including Citizens of Other EU Member States, Wishing To Use an Orange SIM Card By Refusing To Allow Non Spanish Credit And Debit Cards From Other EU Member States To Be Used To Top Up Any Orange Spain SIM Card Balances.  This Seems Completely Unacceptable Given That Your Recently Launched Orange Top-Up Product Actually Encourages Use of The Orange Mobile Network As A Means Of Making Cross Border Payments.  Please Therefore Make Up Your Mind Whether You Are A Large Cross Border Multi National Mobile Phone Brand Or Only A Small Parochial Xenophobic Spanish Brand Only Interested Only In Serving Spanish Resident Customers?  Your Ban On The Use Of Credit Cards From Other EU Member States May Well Also Violate Various European Directives Aimed At Creating A Single European Market.

3. Discriminatorily Charging Customers Who Need Customer Service From Orange Spain In EU Languages Other Than Spanish By Refusing To Deal With Customers Who Do Not Speak Word Perfect Spanish On Your Free 470 Customer Service Line And Instead Immediately Cutting Them Off And Sending Them A Text Telling Them To Call A 902 Number Run By An Outsourced Call Centre Bureau In Their Own Language Without First Telling Customers The Cost Of Making These Calls Is 58 Cents Per Minute Plus Connection Fee of Up To 30 Cents Per Call.  In The United Kingdom It Is Illegal To Give Customers Premium Rate Numbers (902 numbers called from mobiles are clearly charged at a substantial premium above the cost of other ordinary calls from mobiles to business and residential numbers in Spain) Without Also At The Same Time Alerting Them To The High And Non Standard Call Cost Of Using Such Numbers.

4. Only Providing Orange Spain Pay As You Go Customers With 3.5 Months of Online Call History To Review Their Billing Records.   This Policy Will Have A Greater Impact On Overseas Orange Spain Customers Who May Only Use Their SIM Card For One Month A Year And So Will Never Have Any Significant Billing History They Can Review.  However This Policy Is Generally Unnecessary and Undesirable For All Pay As You Go Customers Of Orange Spain and Since Hard Drive Space Is Cheap But Call Centre Worker Enquiry Time Is Expensive The Company Should Make The Necessary Investment To Allow Customers To Review Historic Billing Records For Up To Six Years.  This Is In Line With An Agreed Industry Standard Between Large European Banks For Online Account Record Keeping Where Six Years Of Customer Account History Is Made Available Online To Avoid Customers Continuing To Need To Keep Paper Based Records.  This Is Also A Green Policy Since It Encourages Customers Not To Have To Print Out Records In Order To Maintain A Full Billing History.

I must apologise for needing to raise these matters with you personally but as you can see from the below previous email chain I have tried to raise these matters in the past with your Spanish customer service staff without any success as they unfortunately appear to act in a discriminatory manner towards customers who they see as either non Spanish speaking and/or customers who are permanently resident overseas but who still use Orange SIMs.

Dave wrote on Feb 5^th, 2014 at 3:12am:


Very good suggestion Dave.  I hadn't thought of that one.  I shall be writing to both Daniel Hannan and Nirj Deeva forthwith copying them in on the preceding correspondence.

In fact I think I should ask for a surgery appointment and seem which of them offers me one.  I should have another Conservative Euro MP or two in the South East region on top of these two (both of whom I have actually met but not for a long time) although will have to check if there is a UKIP one.  UKIP ought to love this kind of example of the filthy foreigners over charging the honest Brits on holiday.

Basically Orange Spain disingenuously (posh speak for lieing) try and blame it on the British Telecoms terminating party (Virgin Media) and/or the called party (Plusnet) whereas I am pretty certain they have just decided to charge 19.2 Euros per minute for and class as Premium Rate any UK number code which they have not defined in their database as being "Geographic 01/02 - Channel Islands + IOM of course", "Local Rate" or "Personal".

I cannot find anywhere on the www.orange.es website a comprehensive list of Uk dialling codes and the corresponding per minute charge raised.  They only list the four charging classes for the SIM Mundo on their website for the UK and I also cannot seem to find a more general list of call charges for calling the UK for their customers anywhere else on the Orange Spain website.

Unfortunately in Spain itself the concept of Fair Trading and Consumer Rights is somewhat embryonic to put it mildly, especially if the person seeking to assert their consumer rights is a citizen of another EU member country.

EDIT:-On further consideration I suppose I may also need to enlist the support of a local MEP in Spain.  I don't even know if they have a single list for the whole of Spain or if only certain Spanish MEPs represent the Balearic Islands.

There are essentially two issues:

1. The question of whether the call charge exceeds any limit set by the EU or Spain.

2. The fact that UK 03 calls are not categorised the same as UK 01/02 calls.


In relation to issue number 2, does a body, perhaps the ITU, keep a database of number types/classes in different countries? If so, is it the case that 03 isn't listed in under the "geographic" category? Maybe it is essentially under "other" which includes all manner of expensive numbers which is why the rate is the highest across all calls to UK numbers. Is it Ofcom's job to tell ITU?