Well folks the power of the forum worked
We have today been credited with the refund promised and only 2 days after posting so someone somewhere took notice
Just for your info apart from cutting and pasting the reply posted in respose to our original posting, that is the only email contact we have had from Orange since this sad episode started but it's over now and we have our money back where it belongs.
Thanks for all your support and if you need to rent a car we would recommend Siper Tours in future.
Eric & Fi