Bagel Belly Blog

An Orange-coloured hell

I figured I may as well make the best of a bad deal and try and use my phone, despite the incompetent morons' best effort to prevent it.

Shozu showed up in the FlickrBlog the other day, so I figured I'd download it and give it a go. It advertises itself as much better than wireless email, which is what I'd been using for my moblog before.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Orange have something called "Orange Safeguard". They've classified as 18-rated all adult themed content that includes gambling services, violent gaming, unmoderated chat and sexually explicit material. They've identified 18-rated content in the same was as community standards for films, video games, or other age restricted media.

Unfortunately it's broken by design, since I'm clearly over 18 (having signed a legal contract with them for my account) and it would be difficult to classify Shozu as 18-rated content in the same way as community standards for films, video games, etc. The Safeguard blocking page provides a useful "query this" button, so I did - surely Orange would lift the restriction on this site as soon as they saw what it was? Not so. "Your request has been actioned and the content is confirmed as only suitable for customers over the age of 18."

Time to phone Orange again, and get the restrictions lifted from my account. After an hour of waiting to be answered last night, I hung up and called again this morning, and was answered almost immediately. The guy at the call centre apologised for the restriction, and agreed with me that the site appeared to be fine ("oh, that's useful software..."), and then went on to try and remove the restrictions from my account. Except, it turns out that pesky travel bundle prevents any modifications to my account. And, interestingly, he said it was marked to be removed on 27th August. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, I asked him what Orange were doing about the absurd waiting times to get through to customer service. His answer? "They're closing their northern call centre and making 900 people redundant."

I've experienced first-hand problems with Vodafone, O2 and Orange, and heard horror stories about T-Mobile. I wonder, has anyone bad stories to tell of Three, or are they a last safe refuge from this madness?