Missold Tablet

[SDunited]

After reviewing my fathers accounts due to recent fraudulent activity on his bank account we noticed that he had two lines open with EE under one account. He only has one phone, but then we realised that the second charge on the account was for a tablet device that he had been offered when upgrading back at the end of 2018, he was told the tablet was free when he upgraded. He initially took it but tried to return it to store a month later, however the staff there told him it was free and they couldn't take it back. 

I am fuming, he has paid of £160 for a tablet he does not need, does not use and was completely mis-sold to him. He is in effect paying £35 for a phone that is not worth that value and for a contract that has only 500mb of data - in this day and age that's insane!

As the store wouldn't take it back he thought he couldn't do anything about it. I hope EE get in touch regarding this otherwise I will take the matter to Trading Standards and The Ombudsman services myself!

[Chris_B]

@SDunited   If it was taken out in 2018 then the contract is probably up by now so you just need to give notice to terminate it.  It was a free tablet as in there was no upfront cost but just because it was free it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a contract for it.  Your father agreed to that contract and would of been told what the monthly cost would be at the time. 

you say in this day and age but this was taken out in 2018 is that contract now up ? and your father agreed to that contract at the time. 

[XRaySpeX]

Oh dear! This fraud by EE shop staff has been going on for years. Doesn't EE train its staff to realise this is totally dishonest? It should do!

"Free" means totally "free" not some unmentionable to-be-paid-for ancillary. 

It's all very well cancelling it now to stop paying for it in the future but what about all the past fees he has been defrauded out of? How's he to get them back? The Statute of Limitations on fraud extends much longer than 2 years. 

Yes, I would take the matter to Trading Standards & Action on Fraud if not to the Courts.

[Christopher_G]

Hi @SDunited.

I'm sorry to hear that you're not happy with the way your Father's contract was sold. 

I've sent you a private message to get some information from you.

Please take a look and get back to me.

Thanks

Chris

[SDunited]

@Chris_B , 

Thanks for the reply, my father allegedley agreed to something in principle based on the information provided to him. A verbal agreement is just as strong as anything written and if the product is 'sold' as free then charges cannot be posted in any shape or form. 

It is clearly a case of mis-selling and one that I have no doubt would stand up in court. Thank you for your opinion though. 

@XRaySpeX - Thank you for your understanding, i'm glad to see to see someone else is on the same wave length as me with this injustice. I thought this sort of thing stopped years ago but clearly I was wrong. 

[mc-sweets]

The same happened to me when I recently upgraded my iPhone in store. At the last moment I was offered a "free gift" of a tablet. I was told that there would be a line item on my bill but it would be cancelled out with a discount. Of course that's not true - there is a discount applied but it only covers 10% of the charge. I'm now trying to get someone at EE to take ownership and no-one is willing to do so. I'm so disappointed to see that they've resorted to such lazy sales techniques. 

Not only was I mis sold a tablet, they also went through my BT account to "make some savings" for me, promised a bunch of changes to that and never applied them to my BT account! Pretty shocking service all round.

[James_B]

Hi @mc-sweets,

Welcome to the EE Community. 🙂

What were you advised when you contacted Customer Care about this issue?

Thanks

James

[mc-sweets]

Hi James, I was told that they couldn't help me and that I should contact the store. I contacted the store and they said they couldn't help me as "their staff would never do something like that"...I'm now trying to get a copy of my contract but that also seems to be impossible.

[James_B]

Hi @mc-sweets,

I've sent you a private message. Please check your inbox and get back to me when you have a moment.

Thanks

James

[Ann54]

I feel sick. My husband and I have been EE customers for years and we went to the shop to upgrade my phone to choose a lower budget option due to the fact that we are both un employed through covid and we were told we would receive a free tablet.We said didn't need it but they were very convincing and used sales tactics to get us to sign the contract in the store to include the free tablet. I have just received the first bill and it has charged me £20 for the tablet data on top of my phone bill. We never agreed to this as we made it clear that we didn't want to pay more than £25 a month for the phone. I have spoken to EE on the phone and they said there was nothing they could do because we had signed the contract and they said to return to the shop. We returned to the shop and the assistant sales manager at Walton on Thames branch explained that the reason we were paying for the tablet was because we had been given a better deal on the contract. We have seen that we can buy the tablet for £89 but we are now tied in to paying £20 per month for 23 months which is the cost of a Apple Ipad - this is daylight robbery and fraud. My husband and I are really disappointed with EE and will not be recommending to anybody. We feel like we have been taken advantage of and ripped off. We rarely use data, we are living at home with wifi and house phone line. The staff should put the needs of the customer first and not ripping people off. All we want to do is return the tablet as it hasn't been used and cancel the contract - we would have been happy to keep the phone contract.