Flex Plan & Contract Plan

[waynehilson19]

Spoke with someone in the upgrade team, she wasn'nt overtly rude but was very disagreeable and failed to answer the question....which is:
Why are the two plans running at different lengths?
The Flex Plan (device payment) is for 3x years, and the contract is for 2x years - I was told that nothing can change on the account until the Flex Plan has been paid in full, however if this is the case, then why even state that the contract is for two years.
It makes no sense, and her telling me "well you watched a video about it" and "we can prove it" doesn't help me at all - this was done before she disappeared, so I hung-up.
As I see it, and what my account states, is that my contract plan is up at the end of May, yet my Flex Plan has a further year to run....what are the options?
If its to continue with the same contract plan, then why does it say something different?

[Chris_B · Accepted solution]

@waynehilson19  The air time contract is for 2 years this is your calls,text and data allowance.  The device contract can be 24 months or 36 months.  obviously you pay more each month for a 24 month device contract to pay of that device. 
If you have a device contract for 36 months and you reach the end of the air time tariff you can upgrade to a sim only contract for the remaining 12 months of the device contract.   Or you can if you wish call customer service and pay a bit extra each month bring down the monthly cost of the device contract.  It’ll remain at 36 months through as that when you agreed too,  

To upgrade to a new device at 24 months you have to pay off the remaining debt on the device contract.  

[Boy1]

Interesting as this is not what they are claiming with me. When I paid off my handset in 2 years that apparently ended the contract and therefore my warranty 

[bristolian]

A device warranty is usually 1 or 2 years, and is separate from any finance agreement you may have for it.

The airtime plan is an ongoing one with no end date unless you explicitly give cancellation notice.

[Boy1]

No I have the agreement that shows it was 36 months. Besides which I paid
for my device in 21 months not 36 so it should still not have ended due to
me paying off the device. My on line account shows that my device contract
finishes in may 25.

Linda Meecham

[Stuartpears]

I believe I was miss sold the flex pay plan. They said it would save me money in the long run!? I went from paying £38 p/m to paying £60 p/m with another year to pay off device.
my contract ends in 2 weeks, so I’ll just pay off the outstanding device cost and leave EE. Give smart a go 🤞🏻

[bristolian]

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@Stuartpears wrote:

I believe I was miss sold the flex pay plan. They said it would save me money in the long run!? I went from paying £38 p/m to paying £60 p/m with another year to pay off device.
my contract ends in 2 weeks, so I’ll just pay off the outstanding device cost and leave EE. Give smart a go 🤞🏻

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The airtime element of your FlexPay is a rolling plan, the device plan is "upfront" plus (normally) 24 x equal monthly payments, allowing easy calculation.

Smarty, if that's who you're referring to, are an MVNO piggybacking on 3UK. Make sure you test their coverage & service in all the locations you'll be using your phone, unless price is your primary consideration.

[GarethJThomas90]

I am having so many issues with this plan. Firstly there are now apparently meant to be 2 direct debits on my account. One of which always seem to fail. I have had two contracts with with EE for quite some time, and they have alway formed part of one overall bill. I don't understand why there needs to be yet another separate DD going out of my account for the same provider. If I knew that was the case, I would have obtained my phone directly from the manufacturer and set up a sim only plan. Do you have the same issue? 

[bristolian]

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@GarethJThomas90 wrote:

I don't understand why there needs to be yet another separate DD going out of my account for the same provider. If I knew that was the case, I would have obtained my phone directly from the manufacturer and set up a sim only plan. Do you have the same issue? 

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There has been market pressure for monthly costs to automatically be reduced after device costs are "paid-off", and the legal way of structuring this is to offer 2 separate contracts, each with their own monthly payment.

I understand that a traditional "all-in-one" airtime contract is still available on a reactive basis, should you prefer. Purchasing your phone SIM-free & then having a SIM-only does produce a similar end result, if you were to pay for the phone on a financed/loan basis.

As a consumer, you're free to choose what suits you best!

[Peter_W]

Hey there @GarethJThomas90, thanks for stropping by the Community 😊

The details mentioned by @bristolian and @Chris_B earlier in this thread give a great breakdown of how the two separate direct debits work, but I can imagine it must be really worrying if one of these keeps failing repeatedly. 

Whilst we don't have access to accounts via this public forum, if you give our customer care team a shout, they'll be able to get your details brought up and take a closer look into what's been happening.

Peter