Cancel contract due to Roaming Pass price increase?

Redmi · ‎09-09-2023

When signing up to your 24-month mobile contract recently, the deciding factors were the price of the plan itself, as well as the price of the addons advertised as benefitting EE users. Your recent Roaming Pass price announcement, increasing the price from £15 to £25 per month from October is not only not in line with the Consumer Price Index, but is also a price increase outside of your annual price increase in March.

As such, please confirm EE customers can cancel their contracts without incurring penalties.

Chris_B · ‎02-10-2023

@Casslee Best to have a tariff that has smart benefits as this can be changed to have the roam abroad pass when you need it.

To contact EE Customer Services dial 150 From your EE mobile or 0800 956 6000 from any other phone.

karis6197 · ‎06-10-2023

Why have EE increased their EU roaming add on charge from £7.50 to £25/month in little over a year? Rip off springs to mind!

Christopher_G · ‎06-10-2023

Hi @karis6197

From 18th October the Roam Abroad Pass increased to £25. This applies to new and existing EE customers. We're reflecting increasing costs in providing the ability to roam for our customers

People with Smart Plans or inclusive extra's will continue to benefit from the pass.

If you would like to look into switching to a plan that incudes the Roam Abroad Pass as an Inclusive Extra, please call us on 150.

Chris

Chris_B · ‎06-10-2023

@karis6197 It’s never been £7.50. When charges got introduced it was £10, than it changed to £15 and now it’s going to be £25.

To contact EE Customer Services dial 150 From your EE mobile or 0800 956 6000 from any other phone.

karis6197 · ‎06-10-2023

Sorry, but yes it was£7.50/month & I've got documentary evidence to prove it. I first switched to EE about 2 years ago after a phone call from a very nice EE sales person convinced me the package was good for me - & I am aware BT & EE are the same company! But, even so, how can EE (having roped me into a contract that was good for my personal "roaming" situation), increase roaming charges so dramatically over such a short time period? I'll reiterate; it's a total rip off!

Chris_B · ‎06-10-2023

@karis6197 Roaming is optional is not contractual. The best way to have roaming included is to take out a tariff with a smart benefit. Might be with a call to customer services to see if they can change you to a tariff with smart benefits.

To contact EE Customer Services dial 150 From your EE mobile or 0800 956 6000 from any other phone.

Tony319 · ‎21-10-2023

One reason I signed up to ee was that the monthly roaming pass seemed reasonable.
I will be leaving when my contract expires next April.

Tony319 · ‎21-10-2023

A key reason for me signing up to ee was the monthly roam abroad cost. I even discussed this with a call handler. Fortunately I only signed for one year.
Interestingly when I used the app roaming calculator 10 days ago it was still recommending the monthly pass for a trip of more than 6 days and showing it as £15 per month with no mention of the imminent increase.

As it is perfectly reasonable to expect any customer to take a couple of trips abroad within the space of a two year contract you have to wonder where ee stands under the Unfair Terms in Contracts Legislation?

Buying this add on may be voluntary but in principle but in practice most customers would have no choice.

Christopher_G · ‎21-10-2023

Hi @Tony319

Does your price plan have inclusive extras? If so, you could change to the roaming pass as your inclusive extra whilst you're away, then change it back once you're back in the UK.

Chris

Tony319 · ‎21-10-2023

You mights want to take a look at guidance given by Ofcom in a letter sent to providers by the director of telecoms consumer protection on May 28, 2021.

While this provides an opt out for add ons such as roaming it goes on to exclude specifically items ‘a customer is likely to consider central to their service’ and ‘those where a recurring charge for it appears on the customer’s bill each month.’

I reckon that if you’ve been signed up to roaming for several months or if you discussed it and made it clear to a customer services representative that it is core to your service then you have an excellent case to complain.
As for signing up to a different contract as some have suggested, this may be what ee wants you to do but it makes no financial sense for those who travel abroad two or three times a year.

Incidentally I didn’t receive any notice of the price change and just noticed it when checking my add ons on the app.