topic Cancelling sim upgrade under 14-day cooling off period? in Contracts & Billing

Cancelling sim upgrade under 14-day cooling off period?

DavePL — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:36:09 GMT

I recently upgraded my PAYG service via the EE website to a contract but it broke my service, my phone became only able to send and receive text messages. I spent hours with various agents trying to resolve this and none of their advice worked. In the end I decided to cancel it and simply return to my old service. However, this proved difficult because different agents said they couldn't do it, and seemed more interested in getting me to buy additional services, including insisting I explain why I didn't want to.

I got different advice and contradictory information from different agents. Eventually I opened a complaint.

Then today with the service still not working properly, I tried again. This time the agent I spoke to asked if I would like to speak to their manager on the chat, which I agreed to. I spent a long time speaking to the manager, who was very reluctant to let me cancel the order even though I very clearly asked him multiple times and stated clearly I wanted to cancel under the 14-day cooling off period. Eventually he agreed to do it. He said it would take 24-48 hours and I would then be reverted back to my old PAYG service. He asked if I would be happy for the complaint to be closed and I said yes, provided the cancellation was going to happen and I'd be put back on PAYG. He closed the complaint and I got a text confirmation of that shortly afterwards.

My question is, can I be sure the cancellation is going to be processed or have I been fobbed off? Was it a mistake to close the complaint before it is actually resolved? Does 24-48 hours mean including weekends (so will be done by Sunday night) or does it mean working days, in which case it might not be until the end of Wednesday with the bank holiday?

My experience of dealing with EE customer services is that it is very time consuming and stressful.

Thank you for any advice about this.

Re: Cancelling sim upgrade under 14-day cooling off period?

XRaySpeX — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 17:22:04 GMT

@DavePL : You'll just have to wait & see, giving it until Weds. if necessary.

Re: Cancelling sim upgrade under 14-day cooling off period?

DavePL — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 07:10:39 GMT

I decided to open a complaint again because I feel it is better for a complaint to be open until the matter is resolved. I used the web chat message service. I gave the details of my complaint and then it asked if I had contacted EE about the issue in the last 7 days, I said yes. Then it just said we will be in touch soon. It didn't ask me about a way to get in touch. I explained in the message that my mobile does not work for voice calls and is not even contactable, you just get number unobtainable beeps if you try ringing it from another phone.

They have sent an email confirmation (without any reference number) but will they contact me by email about the complaint as well? Because they have no other way to contact me. I didn't think I needed to give my landline number in the message about the problem as I thought I'd get another chance to write that later. It isn't a well designed system. Nor can I add my landline number to my EE profile here, it only has fields for mobile number and email.

So I've been without a working mobile for days now. Until then I'd had a working mobile for nearly 30 years. This is really poor from EE.

Edit - I just got a text with confirmation about the complaint, and a new reference number. I hope the penny drops when they read the complaint that they won't be able to phone me and will email me instead. You'd think this would be a given, but after speaking to various EE agents I'm not so sure.

Re: Cancelling sim upgrade under 14-day cooling off period?

Debbie_G — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 09:27:39 GMT

Hi @DavePL.

Thanks for coming to the community.

You've taken the right step by raising the complaint again and making it clear that your mobile service isn't currently available for calls.

It's good to hear you've now received a complaint reference number. As you've explained the issue within the complaint, our team should take this into account when reviewing the case and use the most appropriate contact method available.

Let us know how you get on.

Debbie

Re: Cancelling sim upgrade under 14-day cooling off period?

DavePL — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 10:30:52 GMT

Here is the latest then. 48 hours passed since I was told the cancellation and account reversion would be done by now, so I tried speaking to customer services on the web again to ask how the status of it. After some going around the houses, they said that they have 'limited access' to raise a cancellation. When I asked again about the status of the cancellation supposedly already raised, I was told 'it was worked upon also however, the cancellation didn't go through.'

I ended up phoning EE on a landline and spoke to someone in the account and billing department. They have now actioned the cancellation themselves and said it will take 72 hours to complete, including reverting to PAYG as before. They will also send me a new SIM just in case my old one had anything to do with why voice calls didn't work. (I still don't really understand why that ought to be the case when it was working prior to the account change which broke it, but I figure it doesn't matter if I get a new one, it will take a moment to change it and it will be the same number so it doesn't hurt anyway.)

A little while later I got a text saying the complaint I opened yesterday has now been closed. (No mention of this was made to me on the phone like whether I was happy for it to be closed.) I am not fussed about it being closed per se I suppose, so long as it really does get fixed in 72 hours. I think this time it sounds like it will be. The lesson for me here I suppose is I should have just phoned again from a landline the other day and not wasted time with the frankly useless web chat agents. Dealing with them is like trying to herd cats. I'll update the thread again when it's either sorted or not.

Re: Cancelling sim upgrade under 14-day cooling off period?

DavePL — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 12:18:26 GMT

They have closed the account today as promised. Earlier today I got a text saying a new SIM is on the way. Now the old SIM has been deactivated (which I wasn't expecting). I phoned EE from a landline and they said the new SIM is active which is why the old one doesn't work. The agent was surprised they'd send out a new SIM as well as he didn't think it was necessary. This is my experience with EE in a nutshell, you speak to different people and get different advice.

Currently when logged into my account online, it says 'Your final bill. We're sorry to see you go. Your account is now closed and if you haven’t already, you just need to pay your final bill. Late payments may affect your credit score. If we missed anything from your bill, or if we owe you money, we’ll send you an update in the post.' There is a 'view your final bill' button which if clicked doesn't do anything. It goes to the page but it just keeps refreshing.

The EE agent today said I am back on PAYG and hopefully my account page will change back to that within 24 hours or when I get the SIM and if it doesn't I'll have to ring them again. Because at the moment it's acting like I've left EE altogether which isn't the case (I hope). Interestingly if I ring my mobile number from a landline now, it goes to voicemail. Prior to this it was not connecting at all. So I suppose this must be a good sign that the service and my number are still working, just not with my existing old SIM card. My guess is it could have worked with it and sending the new one was actually unnecessary but who knows, and I guess it will be better to have a newer one anyway.

Anyway hopefully I will receive the SIM in a few days and everything will be back to how it was before.

Re: Cancelling sim upgrade under 14-day cooling off period?

XRaySpeX — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 12:25:01 GMT

You need to call CS to delete your old contract MyEE a/c & then you can set up your new PAYG MyEE a/c afresh, using the same mobile no. & email addy if desired. You can't mix them under MyEE.

Re: Cancelling sim upgrade under 14-day cooling off period?

DavePL — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 12:38:29 GMT

@XRaySpeX wrote:
You need to call CS to delete your old contract MyEE a/c & then you can set up your new PAYG MyEE a/c afresh, using the same mobile no. & email addy if desired. You can't mix them under MyEE.

Oh I see. Well I'll wait until I get the SIM anyway I suppose, just to make sure that works first. I'm having to pay per minute every time I call EE so at least when I get the SIM hopefully I should be able to call 150 from there again and get the online PAYG account page set up.

Re: Cancelling sim upgrade under 14-day cooling off period?

DavePL2 — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 13:18:27 GMT

I got the SIM today and my PAYG service is working again. But not without some rough edges. The balance on the account was zero, I was told over the phone by an agent the other day that my outstanding credit balance on the other account would be transferred to the new one. I rang up today and was told that was incorrect and it would instead be paid into my bank account. Doesn't matter either way to me so long as I get it, but you'd hope the staff would all be on the same page and know this basic stuff.

I asked about getting my account linked to my EE online account so I could top up etc. I asked if they could delete my old account or if I should just set up a new one with another email. First he suggested adding my new SIM to the existing account and we tried that but it didn't let me. Then he told me to delete the account myself through the website and explained how, which was quite straightforward and worked. He also said to wait 24 hours before making a new EE ID. However, I tried straight away and it has let me do it, so hopefully I haven't messed anything up by not waiting. I've been able to top up through this new account. It does seem to have deleted my forum account though, or at least I cannot gain access to it. I used the link to send a code to my email for it to 'connect my account' but it sent no link (not in spam) so I've quickly registered a new account just to reply to the thread in case anyone googles with a similar issue in future, maybe it will help.

edit - I just got an email notification of my own reply, to my DavePL account, and both my old and new one both use the same email address. Go figure. If an admin here knows how to let me access my DavePL account I'd be grateful. As soon as I deleted the old EE ID, the forum account login no longer worked, and trying to get it to send a password reset or link the account doesn't work either. But the email notification I just got presumably shows the account still exists.

Isn't it all a bit complicated at EE? Seems like everything in this thread I've had problems with ought to have been a bit simpler.