Charged £210 X3 for non-return of equipment

[shenn54]

Hi everyone,

I need urgent assistance from a forum moderator or the team to sort out a ridiculous equipment return penalty and prevent further incorrect charges.

Over the past two months, I tried to set up EE broadband three separate times:

Each time, the Wi-Fi 7 Hub and Smart WiFi Plus extender arrived promptly within two days.

On every agreed installation date, no engineer ever showed up, and nobody contacted me.

Following the missed appointments, the orders were simply cancelled automatically without explanation. My online account shows no active details or order history.

Because this happened three times, I now have three full sets of Wi-Fi 7 Hubs and Extenders taking up space in my home. I only ever opened the first box; the other two are completely sealed and untouched.

A few days ago, I received a bill demanding £210 for failing to return equipment. Looking at the reference, this £210 charge is only for the first set. This means I am now sitting here waiting for another two separate £210 bills to arrive out of nowhere—potentially totaling £630 in penalty fees for services EE never installed!

This is completely unacceptable. The failures were entirely on EE's end, and I was never provided with return bags, prepaid labels, or instructions on where to send anything. I do not want this equipment, but I will certainly not pay return postage out of my own pocket for failed orders that were not my fault.

Could a moderator please step in, look into my details, waive the current £210 charge, ensure no further penalties are generated for the other two sets, and send out prepaid return packaging so I can return all three sets at once?

Thanks in advance.

[JimM11]

@shenn54 The Forum is public and the Mods may not reach out to you, the link below is about returning items to EE/BT use it and organise the equipment returns from that it is free for you to send it all back. Regarding the payment side and not having EE take from your account then it will be best you call EE CS and inform them direct that you are returning the items to them if you go the option of taking to post you will get a Tracking Reference so you can supply that to EE when you do talk to them. Keep that for ever as it's your proof that you have sent all the items back.... If EE does take the amount it will be refunded to you but best to head it off at the pass if you can. Does say in the link only one label per package, so you will need to do the text 3 times to get the 3 set's off labels required as three returns are involved.

Return and recycle your EE Broadband or EE TV products | Orders And Returns Help | EE

The e-mails i got from EE headers are below, fully automated and regular from them, but NO QR code at all so you know.

""How to return your kit"" and then many off ""A reminder about your kit"" with also even though it was returned and took 6 weeks before it was flagged up on the EE end that they had it. ""

Hi James,

We haven't received your kit yet.

Please send the following back to us so you won't be charged:

Item Charge Return-by date

Smart Hub Plus

£85.00

09 May 2025

""

The final one was two months later ""Thanks for sending your kit"" said ""Hi James,

Thanks for returning your: Smart Hub Plus, it's back with us.

Your return has helped us with our commitment to reduce waste. We'll make sure it's refurbished or recycled in a safe and environmentally friendly way.

""

[JimM11]

@shenn54 The returns period is 60 day's from the failed / cancelled order so you are aware, my case changed supplier 10th March 25, and 11th it was boxed back up taken to the Post and returned, tracked via the RM Ref and hit EE 3 day's later as accepted returned by Royal Mail, everything continued e-mail wise up until May 2025 before the final e-mail from EE.

[Chris_B]

@shenn54   I’m sorry but you’ve ordered 3 times and it’s still not been connected.  Why didn’t you call customer support on the first failed install Instead of ordering again and again.    An engineer can only come if they are not held up on another install, they don’t just do one a day.    

[shenn54]

How do you know I didn't contact customer service? I did get in touch with them, and they escalated the fact that no engineer came to install my broadband into a complaint, then set up a rescheduled order for me. But still, nobody ever followed up with me. That's why things turned out this way. All I received was an email saying the order was automatically cancelled, so I had no choice but to apply online a third time. So, this is my fault??? Your reply is both arrogant and ridiculous.

[shenn54]

Thanks.

Your method only works if EE sends me the return tracking details directly, because that needs to link back to the original order to count as an official return. The whole issue is that there were 3 different orders under 3 different account numbers, and now they've all just vanished—not a single tracking number in sight. Haha.

I've already spent way too much time on this broadband issue, and I’m just done dealing with them. My time and energy aren't free, and EE is seriously draining me. I’ve just reached out to them one last time to see what they say. Since there’s no order number or tracking info on my account, customer service can't do anything directly, so I’m just stuck waiting. It's ridiculous. Just to add, my first EE broadband install went great—it was 900 Mbps, and the engineer showed up first thing in the morning. This time, I'm trying to get their 1.6 Gbps package at the exact same address. All they really need to do is swap out the ONT box, but from what I gather, there are communication issues between EE and Openreach, which is why I’m stuck with this mess.

[JimM11]

@shenn54 Look at the link it DOES NOT only require that fact, see the text us and get it sent to your phone. You CANNOT go from EE FF900 to the FF1.6Gb/s package, it is JUST NOT straight forward trying to do it, one has to be cancelled then the other ordered, and when it goes wrong it goes real badly as you have now found out!

Get EE to supply the returns code, put a NOTE in each package against your official and hopefully e-mails that you have, if not may be on the packing labels for your delivery's from EE, never make it easy when it goes pear shaped.

[XRaySpeX]

You've run into trouble because there is no upgrade path from 900 Meg FF to 1.6 Gig FF. They are provisioned differently. Your order for 1.6 Gig should never have been accepted in the 1st place. Or the 2nd place or the 3rd place ... EE has kept amplifying the problem.. 

[shenn54 · Accepted solution]

Oh no! I just used your method and actually got the email and return label. That's great, awesome! But right now, I only know the account number for one of the devices (since it’s printed on the bill I got), so I can only return that one first. The thing is, I'm not sure which specific device it actually belongs to. Haha, you get what I mean? I figure all the serial numbers are logged in their system. If the device I send back happens to have a serial number registered to a different account, could the return end up failing?

[shenn54]

You're right, it really couldn't be upgraded directly. That's why before placing the order, I moved the EE broadband at this address over to another property (which happened to need broadband anyway). So my current address has no active broadband service at all right now, just the Openreach box. After that, I applied for the 1.6G service using a new account.