Cannot Use my Mobile Yet There is Credit in My Account

[gord323]

Hi All,

I've been reluctantly paying EE £10 a month even though my usage is far smaller than this. So now that I have at least £25 credit in my account I decided to stop these ridiculous payments to EE.

But now I see that I cannot use my mobile phone.

Yet I have over £25 in my credit. Has EE just taken this and decided that I can't use it  (which is illegal under consumer law)?

I has =d the same experience a few months ago - money in credit in my account yet I couldn't use my phone for anything.

Has anyone else had the same experience?

There doesn't seem to be any support email address, and the chat facility which I saw this morning has since been removed....

What is it called when people take your money without your permission...?

[XRaySpeX]

@gord323 : How are you trying to use your phone? Can you make calls & texts? Or is it just data you can't use? You can only use data if you have a PAYG Pack. Do you have 1 or have you also stopped the pack it came primed with?

What does texting AL to 150 from it fully report verbatim (it is free)?

[gord323]

I cannot use my phone in any way. I cannot send or receive email. I cannot connect to any web sites. I cannot do any of the things I was able to do this morning.

Yet EE have at least £25 of mine.

And there is no way I can contact them because they do not have a contact email or page.

[gord323]

BTW I do not use my mobile phone for phoning people. I use my landline for that because

1 The quality is much better

2 It costs nothing to phone people on my landline with my free phone tariff from Virgin Media.

So I only use my mobile for email and browsing the web, researching, shopping, and doing lots more research.

Except of course now I can't do that; even though EE has over £25 of mine it won't asllow me.

[XRaySpeX]

All those activities are using data, not making calls or texts. You need a PAYG pack to do that. Do you have 1?

Let's see the response from AL?

BTW: I am also a firm champion of the landline over the mobile phone for making & receiving calls.

[gord323]

Hi @XRaySpeX 

I could do that courtesy of my Virgin Media home hub wifi.

Now suddenly I can't.

But they have over £25 of mine which is still in my account. I haven't used it. So they can use that to enable my data. But I can't talk to them because there is no email address or any way to contact anyone in charge.

I learned only today that BT owns EE (or at least that's what a chat operator told me) - so that might explain the absence of customer service. the reason I got out of BT and into Virgin media was the terrible service BT were (or rather were not) providing. Life without BT these past few years has been great. And now here I am back with them again ... and the trouble they bring with them.

So ... if anyone at EE is listening or watching this, what are you doing with my £25? Why are you not using it for the purpose I had intended it for ... to enable me to use email and the Net? Keeping the money I've given you without my permission ... what's that called again? Something beginning with S? ST? STE ...?

[XRaySpeX]

As I told you must have a pack to use data. You cannot buy data from your credit regardless of how much you have. 

There is no need to keep repeating your issues. I understand them. If you would kindly answer my Qs we might together get to the bottom of them. In the meantime the £25 is still yours; EE hasn't pocketed it.

[gord323]

In that case I'll have my £25 back. Now how do I do that?

[gord323]

From the various sources I've been in touch with today (in spite of EE's efforts at limiting communication, and not because of them), I'll need to set up a Flexplan at £5 a month.

This will enable me to use my mobile device in the way that I need to and in the way I've described above. It will also mean I'll be using less data than I'm paying for, so every year or so I'll be able to get the credit that I haven't used in data back into my bank account (where, if EE were set up in a way which could be described as efficient, it wouldn't have needed to leave in the first place).

If this is an accurate description of what EE is able to offer then I'm quite happy to go with this.

I'm also quite happy for EE to pay me the £25 or £30 or whatever it is that they have of mine that I'm told they're not using and that they've no need of (so they would equally be quite happy to give it back to me - we shall see, of course).

It seems a strange way to run a  business, but if BT has a hand in it then I suppose we should all expect even stranger.

And what was BT's old slogan? Oh yes. "It's good to talk". Unless it's to Customer Support, of course, in which case you're not going to talk to anyone, at any time, because EE/BT prefers that you don't talk, and everybody keep schtumm lest anyone spill the truth about anything....

[gord323]

Hi there,

It's been about an hour since I last posted, and I expect that you all have your own lives to lead (EE won't be paying you to do this, after all) so I'll thank you, especially to XRaySpecX for your help and leave it until tomorrow.

Presumably I'll be able to get the money EE owes me sorted out, and then I can set up the Flexplan with EE (or its masters BT) and in whatever Customer-Supportless guise that its customers (that's us, by the way) are willing to put up with.

We'll also hear from EE on how it views taking money from its own customers in dubious ways (or perhaps we'll hear nothing from EE, as is 'normal').

It should be very interesting from a PR point of view, whatever the position EE decides to take (or has already taken).

Goodnight.