topic Warning Potential Customers: Caveats with pay monthly sims in SIM cards & Porting

Warning Potential Customers: Caveats with pay monthly sims

banool — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 11:49:04 GMT

I took out a SIM only month-to-month (so, not a 12 or 24 month contract) pay monthly SIM with EE 31 days ago (the 38 pound plan, max speed unlimited data). I called EE 3 times during this period to talk about changing to a cheaper plan and they told me I needed to wait until I've been with them for 30 days. Well I did and I just call them, and now they told me I actually have to wait 6 months before I can downgrade, even though I intentionally took out a month-to-month plan so I'd have the flexibility to change as I wish.

The thing is, even though I can't downgrade the plan, I'm still able to cancel it (since it's a 6 month plan), but then I'd lose my phone number. But they know that you wouldn't want to do that since you'll lose your number, so the month-to-month thing is more or less a total fabrication.

Even crazier is there is actually a way to keep the number within EE, in which I transfer the number to a different provider, and then transfer back to EE on a cheaper plan. But why bother when the customer service / their systems / policies are this convoluted, I might as well just switch to another network for good

Absolutely ridiculous and misleading, read the fine print in the contract folks...

The customer service guy was nice enough but him and his manager apparently couldn't do anything about this. Intentionally predatory behaviour, I'll be making a complaint to the consumer protection ombudsman.

Re: Warning Potential Customers: Caveats with pay monthly sims

XRaySpeX — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 11:58:27 GMT

@banool wrote:

I intentionally took out a month-to-month plan so I'd have the flexibility to change as I wish.

No, you only have the flexibility to cancel as you wish, not to switch to a cheaper plan. Then you can take out another monthly contract with a diff plan, keeping your no. by the convoluted method you are aware of.

Re: Warning Potential Customers: Caveats with pay monthly sims

bristolian — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 12:45:31 GMT

Also be aware that before complaining to any external arbitration or Ombudsman, you need to have given the provider (EE in this case) 8 weeks to resolve your complaint first.

Re: Warning Potential Customers: Caveats with pay monthly sims

banool — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 13:11:25 GMT

I understand how it works now, but this is clearly intentionally misleading. Having the flexibility to cancel without being able to actually keep your number is not flexibility.

As for the ombudsman, thanks for the info. I'll submit a complaint to the EE complaint line first and then the ombudsman if they don't make this right.

Re: Warning Potential Customers: Caveats with pay monthly sims

EdRo — Wed, 31 May 2023 18:33:06 GMT

Hi, I am curious what the outcome is. Has anything happened?