One Register reader who received a demand from the company contacted us; he had left Orange almost a year ago and just received the demand with no bill or invoice coming first. When he spoke to Orange he was told that thousands of such demands had been sent to unsuspecting ex-customers in the last few weeks.

When we spoke to Orange they assured us that our reader was an isolated instance which couldn't possibly have happened: apparently they never pass on debts until the customer has been contacted, invoiced and warned.

Our reader called Orange again, and this time took the trouble to record his conversation with the Orange business support team, where "Paul" was happy to confirm the problem was endemic in the company: "What Orange has done is they've... it's like spring cleaning for want of a better word, they've gone though all the old accounts and seen any outstanding bill, and rather than go to the customers themselves they’ve given it straight to the debt-collection agency."