Price increase charged twice this month

[bordeline]

My bill this month comes to £14.57 (no extra charges ), before the annual price increase it was £9.59. Next month estimated £12.08.

why am I paying £2.49 extra this month?

[Chris_B]

@bordeline  Have you looked at the bill breakdown?   The price increase started for you on the 1st of march so it was back dated to include that extra £2.49.  

[Debbie_G · Accepted solution]

Hi @bordeline.

Thanks for coming to the community.

The annual price change can fall partway through your billing cycle, which can add a one‑off adjustment to that month’s bill. Your next bill should then show your new monthly charge going forward.

You can view the breakdown online or in the EE app. It’ll show where the extra amount has come from, and if anything doesn’t look right, our customer support team can take a look for you.

Debbie

[bordeline]

this is the breakdown, it looks very odd charging £47.54 for the plan to begin with... I wish the bills were more clear

[Debbie_G]

Thanks for the update, @bordeline.

Depending on when your bill is produced, part of it will show the old price and part the new price. Because price plans are charged a month in advance, the increase can fall within the dates you’re being billed for, which can make the plan amount look higher before everything balances out.

If anything still doesn’t look right when you check the full itemised bill in the app or online, please get in touch with our customer support team, and they can take a look for you.

Debbie

[mattallen]

It appears that you've been hit by two or three issues here. 

Looking back at last year, I was only billed a small increase from my April bill onwards, no extra charges back to 31 March. Now, the first bill after the increase effectively adds the charges going back to the date of the increase + a month in advance at the higher rate. So, the bill is even higher than just the 'new' monthly price. OK, that generally makes sense to me - the increase is from a fixed date instead of the billing date. 

However, it also appears that out-of-contract customers are seeing this increase applied from the 1 March, instead of the 31 March. I can't see this in the published terms and conditions, but it was announced on the EE newsroom site. 

It seems like customers like me weren't told about that change. The billing system also seemed to be unaware and didn't increase the price on the March bill.

Instead of informing customers and waiving the charges out of goodwill (perhaps even legally), some April bills will likely consist of April-May charges at the higher rate + the higher charges for the early part of April + the price increase of £2.50 for the whole of March. By my reasoning, I'm expecting around £6 extra on the bill this month.

 CS have told me to wait for my April bill to be produced before I can raise any query/complaint. But, I've already  been told that it's 'in my terms and conditions'. I've hunted high and low and can't see it in the T+Cs though. And this extra money is going to be taken by direct debit regardless.

I'm collating as much information as I can from EE before the online documents get corrected and clarified. It's only £2.50 but contracts and consumer law are there for a reason. 

[bordeline]

yes, thank you for the explanation. I'll see what the next bill will be and I will make a complaint if charged  the increase twice again

[orientalorchid]

I had a landline+broadband+TV+mobile deal with BT. My landline had technical issues in September and I called BT for help to fix it. Then putting my landline issue aside, the agent started selling a EE mobile package to me. It made me feel that my landline would be left malfunctioning if I don't switch from BT to EE.  I agreed to switch and started addressing the technical problem with my landline. A few days later, the BT engineering department called me to discuss the technical solution. I reported I had to switch my mobile contract from BT. The technical expert kindly switched back the mobile contract to BT. 

In December, I called BT for a follow-up of the landline technical problem. Then again BT started cold-selling the EE mobile contract. I told him that I have a £10  unlimited contract with BT, which which I was very happy. BT said EE can make it £8 per month and eventually BT mobile users will need to switch to EE due to the planned merger. So I agreed to switch to EE again, but limited to the cheapest package to 10GB as my mobile for EE is a 16-year old blackberry and I don't use it often if not at all, and I have two other smartphones (galaxy and i-phone) with different providers.   

Yesterday, I received a text from EE saying "Hi from EE. We've stopped your request as it would take you over your Spend Cap.". This message came after my first text I made this month, which is to TfL bus status update. Also I received the monthly bill £14.5. Since January, there have been only 1-2 months EE kept its £8 promise. I think BT employees are pressured and incentivised to sell EE mobile contracts. But how it works is a bit scammy. Looking back, I think I would have been better off to move to O2 or Vodafone if BT was unwilling to continue its mobile services.