Has anyone else ever had problems changing plans with Orcon? I have found it to be a difficult and frustrating experience. The customer support is appalling, the website is broken, provisioning does not talk to accounts, and no one ever, ever, contacts the customer if there is a problem. Let me tell you my story.

This is the second time I have changed plans with Orcon to take advantage of newer better value options - once a year or two ago I went through a somewhat drawn-out saga which was resolved after several phone calls to customer support. It took about two months. But my latest attempt has taken four months without my requested plan change being actioned. Still waiting.

In September 2012 I logged in to My Orcon and selected Change My Plan, then chose to view new plans and chose a Genius plan that offered 60GB for $89 with Free National Calling. A few days later i got an email confirming these details and saying the change would happen at the next billing cycle.

The next billing cycle came and the new bill was still showing the old plan. Another month went by and still no change. I phoned Support and talked to a guy who apologised, said that a plan change request was still there on the system, and that he would ensure it went through to provisioning, and furthermore that I should disregard the last bill and he would prepare a new one at the $89 rate. Great!

Next month, no change, no new bill, and a txt message demanding payment of the old bill I had not yet paid. I phoned support again. This time the support person phoned Provisioning while i held the line and came back to me that the plan i had requested of 60GB for $89 was not available as requested - it was actually a Genius plan and that Provisioning could not supply the plan unless I accepted Genius. Baffled, I said that I had selected the plan through the Orcon website and surely it was not possible to select a plan that could not be provided? This got me nowhere so I simply said "okay please change my plan to Genius, with the 60GB at $89" and was told that this would happen. I then asked about my last few bills and reminded the support person of how i was told a new bill for the previous month would be sent at the $89 rate. The guy said "well let's just get Genius set up first, and then we will deal with the bill, okay?" Basically I felt he didn't believe me and was wanting me to go away at that point.

Well, a month later and still no Genius. No emails to confirm a plan change, nothing... Four months and waiting...

Basically their systems are screwed. They have no incentive to change your plan to a cheaper rate. Their customer support system is broken and the support lines in Manilla are not in proper contact with the people who do the provisioning, who in turn do nothing to send messages back along the chain to the customer. Useless.