Reply to post: A funny thing happened to me in July

A funny thing happened to me in July

I live in a rural town and had just gotten my FTTH connection for a month when the local farmer managed to knock it down - but without breaking it.

So my connection was fine, but the line was all over the road. Obviously, I phoned Orange Support - and, after getting through the inevitable anger-inducing first few questions, I managed to indicate that I was calling for a technical problem.The robot cheerfully announced it was going to launch a test of my connection, and of course, a few minutes later, announced that all was well, thank you for calling.

Um, I thought while staring at my phone that was broadcasting the end call beep, no, all is NOT well. MY LINE IS ON THE GROUND !

So, I went to the website, and got to the Support page. There is no chat link for a helldesk drone until you jump through ten hoops, turn around three times and clap your hands saying "there's no place like Orange". Kidding, even that doesn't work. I spent over 45 minutes on that support section and all I could do was test my connection - which, of course, was fine.

After bouncing off the walls for a total of about 90 minutes, I resigned myself to phoning the support line again. To my eternal surprise, instead of going through all the motions for nothing again, this time the robot remarked that I had already called, was it the same problem, I'll direct you to a technician. YES ! Oh heavenly bliss ! Finally, a human being !

I finally got to tell the story, and, after repeating myself twice (apparently it is hard to understand that the line is down but the connection works - must've been a city boy), he finally acknowledged the issue and typed some stuff into the computer. He told me I would be contacted shortly to get an intervention date.

A month later, I called again because nobody had called me. Yes, that is 31 days later, I had to call again. Knowing the procedure this time, I did the two calls and got a technician. I asked what was going on. He had no clue. I had to explain myself all over again. Twice. Again. Cue the typing on the keyboard, and the we'll call you soon. I asked yeah, but how soon ? Because last time you didn't call. I cannot do more, sir. I have escalated the issue. Yeah right. Well I'll see.

Next week came along, nothing. The week after that, nothing. It was now 45 days since my fiber was lying on the ground. I was about to call back when the inevitable finally happened : some car went by and ripped the fiber line from the lamppost. Now my connection was well and truly down all the way.

So I set up my mobe with its 4G sharing connection, fired up my laptop and went to the website, where I had it diagnose a connection problem. The next day, I got a call from a technician asking when he could come by and check it out. He dropped by, checked the situation, and we agreed to an intervention the following week. That happened as programmed and I am now reconnected and fully functional.

Moral of the story ? Orange doesn't give a damn about your line until it's broken, whether or not you talk to a human being.