topic Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends. in Contracts & Billing

EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

HamishS — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 17:44:05 GMT

My 24 month contract with EE has just ended today, and in the run up to the end date I have had texts and emails from EE about the contract price once it ends.
EE is telling me that unless I take action and choose a new plan they will continue to charge me the existing price of my current plan. Bear in mind that my current plan cost includes the price of the handset, so from paying off and buying my handset over the course of 24 months EE is wanting to charge me the same amount as if I was still paying off a handset. This cannot be in line with consumer rights, surely?
For EE to say they’ll just leave things as they are for now until I choose a new plan is disgustingly parasitic. For more context, my handset is one from their “Good As New” range, so not even a brand new product that I’ve paid off during my contract. Now EE are fully aware that I own this handset but will continue to charge me the same, hugely inflating the cost of the contract just to balance it out for their sake.
Now obviously I am not continuing with this plan and will choose a new one to reduce the cost, but knowing that this tactic is the default for EE is disgusting. It’s set up in such a way to rinse their own customers for huge profit knowing that a lot of their customers who are likely vulnerable and may not be so vigilant in keeping up to date with their phone plan will be getting ripped off by EE who would rather let this kind of thing happen without considering the people affected.

I have only posted this to alert others who might not realise that their service provider is acting like a parasite and unless you are able to take control they will just completely abuse your position as a customer. Really disgraceful stuff. Change you methods EE because you will likely have lawsuits about this in the future.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

XRaySpeX — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 18:34:45 GMT

EE's traditional contracts have no concept of paying off the handset. You agreed to pay the same price for the full duration of the contract. There will however be a 10% discount 3 months after the end of min. term. You may always choose to upgrade your contract to a cheaper SIM-Only contract from the last 45 days of your contract term.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

bristolian — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 18:58:03 GMT

You are free to choose a SIM-only plan once your minimum term has ended, and EE - as per industry requirements - has notified you of this option in advance of the pertinent date. You can request this once in the 45day upgrade window, and will take effect on the "out of contract" date - no overcharging will take place at any time.

The new FlexPay plans will likely suit you in the future, where the hardware/device & airtime elements are contractually separated.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

Chris_B — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 20:31:18 GMT

@HamishS It was in the contract T&Cs that you agreed too at the time what will happen at the minimum term date so your basically saying you not read the contract or understand it.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

HamishS — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 20:58:57 GMT

Did you not read or understand my post?
EE know exactly what they’re doing when they have policies in place like this, and you know it too. My post here was criticism of the tactic that they’re using and the fact it will likely take advantage of their most vulnerable customers.

By your comment I gather that you have no issue with a price that stays the same, costing as much as if you were paying for a handset and contract together.
Just because it’s in the T&Cs doesn’t mean it’s not a disgustingly greedy tactic from EE to make a huge profit from a setup that relies on their customers not realising they’re being charged huge amounts of money for no reason.

Why else would they be having to make changes to the transparency of their pricing? Why would they be needing to start showing the actual increasing price each March? Because as it stands right now they use yet another sly trick to make people think the increase is 3.9% when it’s got an additional 10% they hide under an acronym. EE and the other phone networks are all in hot water for this, I’m not just randomly piping up for the sake of it.
The more customers that make noise about this the more likely it’ll be that they realise we have the ability to influence change. But then there’s people like you who just jump into these posts and say the same thing every time.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

Chris_B — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 21:07:50 GMT

@HamishS And it’s all stated in the T&Cs of the contract and that you took out. It very transparent if you had read it. The only ones who complain about this are the ones who don’t know what happens at the minimum term date be a hey didn’t read the contract. You are complaining about not knowing this you think it’s EEs fault.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

HamishS — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 21:06:20 GMT

Thanks for the clarification and info.
These new plans only exist because of the bad press they were getting from being so underhanded with this policy.
We need to speak out against the way these tactics are employed to take advantage and make vast profits from their customers. EE need to see that the policies they use are abusive and they wouldn’t be having to switch up their transparency unless they had been getting into hot water over the issue.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

HamishS — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 21:09:46 GMT

EE know exactly what they’re doing and they know exactly how to get away with the policies that reap huge profits from customers who are unlikely to speak out. Saying they “have no concept of paying off the handset” is the most bogus idea, they wouldn’t have had to scramble to change the way contracts are structured now without being the subject of multiple reports about the underhanded tactics they’re guilty of using among with the other major networks.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

HamishS — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 21:13:38 GMT

Ok thanks so much for the input

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

nothingaboutme0 — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 21:41:23 GMT

I understand your frustration with EE's pricing approach, but I do want to acknowledge that EE does provide a reliable service. While their pricing strategy may need some adjustments, they have a strong network and customer support.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

bristolian — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 22:47:00 GMT

It's also interesting to note where most of the advertising focus for the split contracts has come from in recent months.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

HamishS — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 23:07:30 GMT

They’re being sued over the issue I’m on about, good network service is one thing, but rinsing their customers and having protecting themselves from being deemed unfair because it’s in the T&Cs is not what I call good customer support.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

Chris_B — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 11:34:46 GMT

@HamishS None of the networks are being sued (yet, if at all ). A lawsuit is being launched that’s all and this has to be approved first before any network is sued.

The claim has been filed with the Competition Appeal Tribunal but these things take time. The Tribunal first needs to decide if the claim can be processed as a class action, the outcome of which has no set date.

Not to mention that EE inform you when your contract minimum term is ending if you choose not ignore that that’s up to you.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

HamishS — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 12:02:54 GMT

It’s so ironic that you ended that comment with “if you choose to ignore that that’s up to you” because you are flat out ignoring the point I was making at the end of my original post (that most of the people impacted by the overcharging will likely not be aware of the policy and will keep paying the amount without realising).
But you’re also ignoring all of the press coverage, the investigations, and the fact that every single investigation came back with the same findings.

They are being sued, it’s been widely reported that the networks are overcharging their customers by huge amounts, and they have been for years. There’s plenty of investigations from varies watchdogs and media outlets, and it’s the main driving force behind EE’s sudden scramble to increase “transparency”.
We wouldn’t see these new breakdowns of handset price and network services if they weren’t trying to avoid more lawsuits in the future.

I’m fairly certain you have chosen to cite some information from the same website I have, but since the “choosing to ignore” card is in your hand you’ve decided to pretend it’s not actually happening.

“The claim follows a ‘super-complaint’ from Citizens Advice to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in September 2018, which claimed that companies penalise existing customers by charging them higher prices than new customers. The regulator agreed and made recommendations to Ofcom.“ Source

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

Chris_B — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 12:23:16 GMT

@HamishS So your argument is about not reading a contract and or not understanding it. And you think the networks are at fault for that. You’re only shifting the blame to the networks and pleading ignorance on the contract that’s been was agreed too.

Do you often agree to contracts without reading them. ? Perhaps you do.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

HamishS — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 12:58:15 GMT

The networks are purposefully writing their T&Cs to ensure that up until recently there was no way to distinguish between charges for the tariff and handset. They also wrote their T&Cs to ensure that customers would be charged the exact same amount as if the handset was still being paid for, and when questioned by investigators they attempted to imply that the handset was free and that the tariffs were purely for the service provided by the network, but this was in direct contradiction to their advertising. They advertised the individual handsets along with different costs for every single one, and obviously better handsets cost more money, so they weren’t just selling their network service like they tried to imply, and they were found to be in breach of advertising standards.
Of course this isn’t just EE, it’s O2, and Vodafone as well, they’re all guilty of the same thing which is why there are lawsuits for each network.

So yes, I do think it’s the networks fault because they have set these policies up deliberately to make money from loyal customers at the end of contracts that generally will have cost over £1k, a d they’ve done this to millions of customers.
Every network has been found guilty of this underhanded tactic to charge their existing customers more than new ones.
I’m not shifting any blame, because the blame has been proven by every single independent investigation. You have a very strange ability to completely ignore the facts presented and think this is merely disgruntled customer woes.

The networks are at fault, I found the email from them telling me my contract will remain £60 a month even after 24 months of payments which *included* a handset that wasn’t even new!

But anyway, I’m done with responding to you, because you’re clearly so dedicated to brown-nosing EE whilst being completely apathetic about them taking advantage of customers, it’s tedious because you seem to only reply with a stupid question that completely sidesteps everything I’ve said and then just move the goal post over and over so you can keep trying to make your “didn’t read the terms and conditions” point.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

Chris_B — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 13:35:21 GMT

@HamishS it stayed at the same price because that was the agreement of the contract that you agreed too. You do understand that don’t you. ? after 3 months there is a 10% discount on that cost. There is also nothing stopping you from upgrading to a sim only at a cheaper price point if you’re happy with your current device.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

HamishS — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 14:19:53 GMT

So I was just reading someone else’s post from Feb 2023 after it came up in the search results on Google and lo and behold there you are in the replies saying the exact same thing, and in fact you’re in the replies of literally every single post calling out EE for their parasitic behaviour.

Think about the fact you’re dedicating huge portions of your time on earth to do this. Think how many hours of your life have you spent scouring this forum for posts about the impact these policies have on fellow human beings who are struggling to keep up with EE’s ever changing tactics to get away with daylight robbery. I have no doubt that over the course of your fifty five thousand replies you've wasted entire, full days being an apologist for these business practices that it has been proven are designed to rinse loyal customers.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

bristolian — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 15:22:11 GMT

In law, there seems nothing wrong with how the operators have structured their contracts and I suspect it's only a vocal minority - who potentially didn't check their paperwork and pertinent dates - who are causing the majority of the noise.

Some authorities appear to be taking a moral position, potentially aided by certain other operators who may have their own motivations.

The outcome will be interesting in any case.

Re: EE massively overcharging customers once contract ends.

HamishS — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 12:42:45 GMT

The issue stems from the fact they’ve been writing up their contracts with this in mind. So I guess it is a moral issue, because they all know they’re doing it and that their competitors are too, they have tried (and failed) to make it appear as if the handsets just appear out of thin air and like it’s a random coincidence that this happens.

None of the changes they’ve made to be more transparent about the costs and services are enacted because the networks want to be more transparent about it, it’s because they’re all facing lawsuits and investigations into the ethics of writing their contracts in such a way that they can deliberately overcharge people and say “well you agreed to this”.

We as consumers don’t get the chance to negotiate, think about that. If we don’t like the terms and conditions in the contract we can’t amend it, or give a counteroffer. We have to either accept it or go without a mobile phone. Even shopping around between networks is futile, they’re all the same.
So until the day comes that we can actually have a say in the finer details of the contract it does come down to the “vocal minority” as you call it. It’s not noise, and the inference there is very belittling when the situation is overwhelmingly one they impacts people over the age of 65, being rinsed by companies who provide a service which is steadily becoming a basic essential.