topic Re: CPI increase and early upgrade in Broadband & Landline

CPI increase and early upgrade

jon_1103 — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 18:33:05 GMT

I re joined EE 12 months ago after deciding to move away from VM for BB and TV, as well as o2 for my mobile. I managed to get a relatively decent FTTC deal with an Apple TV and then upgraded to FTTP a few months later once it was available in my street.

So far I’ve found EE’s service decent and the guides pretty helpful, a pretty decent upgrade to what I experienced with VM, which isn’t difficult tbh. Anyway, roll on until this month and I’m pretty stunned with the information and service I have received over the last week and a half, effectively being told that nothing can be done to resolve my complaint and I need to now go to the Ombudsman. My complaint is for EE to honour the new contract price for my BB and TV package.

On the 12th March I received an email from EE to complete an early BB upgrade and fix into a new contract to save money, which was to save £3 a month:

I called up and a guide assisted me by fixing me into a new 2 year contract at my original contract price of £49.99, saving me £3 for BB and £2 for my TV, instead of the new inflated price of £54.99.

Nearly 2 weeks ago I noticed my next month’s bill was showing up as £54.99, so I called up to query this. Over the course of 13 days I have spoken to a dozen of guides who have all tried to resolve my issues, but the bottom line is their managers need to resolve it.
No managers will come on the phone to explain their findings and no managers have called me back, despite being advised they will call back.
It turns out the initial guide didn’t process the order and to date and I’ve not been told if the call has ever been listened to. I thought I got somewhere last week when a guide from the value team raised the miss sale and I was promised a call back, except, that didn’t happen.

Today I gave EE an ultimatum to sort it or cancel my contract, which ended up with being told there will be a cost to cancel, which I am aware of. The last guide was rather unhelpful and kept advising that I couldn’t get the price I perviously paid as it’s against the T&Cs and purely didn’t want to listen to my experience and offered a £20 credit to close the complaint.

I’ve asked for a deadlock letter to escalate my complaint to the ombudsman but apparently EE don’t provide this, but I’m lead to believe a deadlock letter is required to allow the ombudsman to investigate this further?

In the past I’ve resorted to emailing the CEO before reach out to the ombudsman as I find the executive office teams usually can resolve this kind of issues to prevent things escalating further. I will do this tomorrow and hope a swift resolution.

I’m interested to find out if anyone else received the same email and successfully renewed at the same cost?

TIA.

Re: CPI increase and early upgrade

XRaySpeX — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 18:46:30 GMT

@jon_1103 : EE do issue deadlock letters during formal complaints but if they don't you an still escalate to Ombudsman after 8 weeks of starting the complaint.

Re: CPI increase and early upgrade

jon_1103 — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 21:27:57 GMT

Ok, thanks!

Re: CPI increase and early upgrade

XRaySpeX — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 22:34:26 GMT

Thanks! You're welcome 🙂 ! Glad I could be of assistance & hope it soon gets sorted.

Re: CPI increase and early upgrade

Andy_65 — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 06:29:19 GMT

Hi @jon_1103

Have you checked your bill to see what the actual increase is for? I say this because I had the same email offer and when I tried to do it online, it showed my current BB package which I selected, but I could not proceed because I had not upgraded my package.

When I looked at the offer again, it clearly stated an upgrade, not renew at my current price to avoid the £3 annual increase. The minimum upgrade cost was £5 per month so if I'm happy with my current package, why would I upgrade at a minimum cost of £5 per month in an attempt to save £3 per month?

The offer clearly states 'upgrade' to avoid the £3 annual increase, I suspect that is what they have done for you over the phone. It wouldn't allow me to retain my existing package online but it sounds like CS have told you one thing and done another. You need to get a transcript of the original phone call, have they added any additional features to your broadband package to avoid the annual increase?

Re: CPI increase and early upgrade

JimM11 — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 07:08:15 GMT

@jon_1103 As @Andy_65 has pointed out, may be worth having a look at the previous and new bills to compare and see what has been done, you may be able to work it out that way, only the Manager will be able to apply a discount to your account and it sounds like that is not going to happen.

Due to all the EE messing about similar happened for me, i left joined sky and the SKY customer service REP applied a down payment so that the roll on 1st Apr would be applied at what the price informed so was to be £29 and she set it at £26, all worked out fine just a little messy on the First billing cycle but that's to be expected.

Re: CPI increase and early upgrade

jon_1103 — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 12:17:05 GMT

Thanks for the responses @Andy_65 and @JimM11

I’ve checked my bill and it does show my package has changed but it doesn’t explain anything about the CPI increase, however, it does show that my package was changed to Gig Fibre. Strangely, I’m on a 500mb Essentials package and only get 500mb so totally stumped why it’s showing 1Gb Fibre…

A couple of hours I got a call from the executive office department, apparently my account got flagged on the system and the guide has promised to listen to my call from last month and come back to me. Unfortunately, the call recording system is down until tomorrow but he’s promised me a call back on Friday.

Fair play for EE being proactive about this. Although it tells me they know they are in the wrong and are trying to resolve my complaint before it goes to the ombudsman.

Ill report back on the outcome.

Re: CPI increase and early upgrade

jon_1103 — Sun, 04 May 2025 13:31:13 GMT

After a couple of calls with the executive office department, I’ve got my BB contract renewed as they promised. The guide listened to the original call and got my BB package set to the price before the CPI increase.

My TV package has gone up by £2, which was something he couldn’t bring down, but either way I’m happy now.

I did surprisingly have to push to get something from him, which was some discount for my time lost and all the hassle, which was a credit for a free months BB.
I’m just happy my package finally got sorted 😊

Re: CPI increase and early upgrade

JimM11 — Sun, 04 May 2025 16:14:24 GMT

@jon_1103 Good it's all to your satisfaction, 1st Apr 2026 go again!

Re: CPI increase and early upgrade

robh661 — Sun, 04 May 2025 17:14:44 GMT

That’s the Email I got and they said there was nothing for me to upgrade to, not even the 1.6gb.

Re: CPI increase and early upgrade

Matt_124 — Sun, 04 May 2025 17:34:53 GMT

Existing New EE Home Broadband customers are currently unable to upgrade to the 1.6Gb Busiest Home Bundle or Broadband For Gamers bundle due to the ordering system and how the packages are delivered, compared to packages that are 900 Mbps or below, it is built on a completely different tech stack. I would imagine the situation is likely the same if a customer is approaching the end of their contract for one of these bundles, it may not be possible to downgrade them to a lower speed (Sub-1Gb) without setting up an entirely new account as it stands.

EE TV and Digital Home Phone are also not available on the above bundles.

What package were you on? I imagine if you're on a package such as Full Fibre 900 Full Works, there simply isn't a package above that you could move to.