Sunday 28 July 2013

Evasive "Orange."


We are now all now familiar with the way in which Google, Starbucks, Amazon, Vodafone  et al avoid paying their due taxes, and relieved that, at last, governments seem to be trying to do something about it.  I've just discovered what may be another little wheeze large firms use to avoid their civic accountabilities.

I have a complaint to make about "Orange" who provide the network for my little-used but hugely costly mobile telephone, so yesterday wrote them a letter to explain how I felt I'd been "ripped off" and asked for some modest compensation.

I prefer in these circumstances to send letters and, I hope, receive answers, in written form, rather than use Emails which can easily get lost, or telephone calls, of which I have no proof of what has or has not been admitted or promised.

It seems that "Orange", and I suspect other large firms, take the opposite view, because I then spent well over an hour using several search engines to try and find the address of their head office.  I presumed that my failure was due to my ineptitude until I discovered the following on  



http://www.wirelessforums.org/uk-telecom-mobile/orange-uk-head-office-address-33864.html



 

Orange deliberately makes it impossible for us to search their head
office address in the UK because the law requires us to send our
complaints to a non-p.o.-box address before we can request court
action against Orange no matter how badly Orange has screwed up. I've
written to their Correspondence Department (P.O. Box 10, Patchway,
Bristol) and they ignored me. Their head office address can only be
found if you search for career options with Orange on their website.
This address will then appear in a JAVA box. That's why no search
engine result will bring this up.

The link to this page is

http://www1.orange.co.uk/jobs/workin...&sub=locations
Just in case Orange will change this once they know we've found it,
here's the address to send your complaint to

Orange Centre Office
The Point
37 North West Road
Paddington
London W2 1AG


Well, I've sent off my letter to this address  and look forward to a positive response.

It seems to me that, just as election literature must contain the name and address of the person responsible for publishing it, so should business material on the internet.  Apart from the legal aspects, if businesses, especially hotels, were forced to give their street addresses along with their post codes,  it would help those of us who use SATNAVs to find them.

5 comments:

  1. "Apart from the legal aspects, if businesses, especially hotels, were forced to give their street addresses along with their post codes, it would help those of us who use SATNAVs to find them."
    You don't need a satnav - chuck it away - dangerous distraction while driving.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have a point, Anon: it is certainly tempting in the early days to follow the lady's instructions rather than take note of the traffic conditions (eg "roulez tout droit" - mine speaks to me in French - when the lights are at red.) However you soon get your priorities right, and I think it is safer to follow instructions, with the occasional glance at the map, rather than search desperately for direction signs or road names.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your article makes a good point. Just as there are calls for public sector transparency, so too there should be further calls for corporate transparency.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Companies House website provides the postal address of the Registered Office of any UK company. Of course that might not be the same as the Head Office. In this case, note that Orange is now called "Everything Everywhere"!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Companies House was the first place I tried, but without success. I was put off by the fact that they required a fee, so decided to try and find a source of free information. Good job I didn't cough up as I had no idea that "Orange" now calls itself "Everything Everywhere" so that would have been money down the drain.

    ReplyDelete