Orange are trying a new technique, it's called fibbing, along with, not knowing what is going on.
Orange/T-Mobile are now EE, new name, same cr@ppy service
What has happened is nothing to do with there being a lot of people wanting to unlock their phones (although it is true that there are). Every other network is fine, it's just Orange.
They can send through as many emails as they like, nothing is going to happen at the moment, Orange are locked out of the unlocking procedure with Apple (the unlock involves Apple making an update to the iTunes server which is checked every time you log into it, if the change is made for your serial number it will unlock the phone if you have a SIM card in other than your own network).
Because of this lockout nothing from Orange will be getting unlocked by Apple.
Nothing looks like happening in the immediate future, but as with most things it'll sort itself out eventually.