Cancellation of contract during cooling-off period

[IvyL]

I completed the cooling off period form two days after purchase. I have today received an unpleasant and bullying letter threatening me with debt collectors. Sadly, this seems up to par for the thugs at EE

[IvyL]

There is a two-week cooling off period and an online form that you can fill in to cancel a contract if you were sold one over the phone. But as you'd expect, EE ignore their own online forms and still send unpleasant  bullying and threatening letters.

[bristolian]

When did you purchase your phone? When did you return it?

I suspect there's more to this tale.

[Chris_B]

@IvyL   Did you get any confirmation of your request?      Was this a full device contract or just a sim only only contract?   Did you get any confirmation of your request?   

[IvyL]

Okay. I had a sim-only monthly PAYG EE card. I was unable to access parental controls and read on here that it has to be requested by phone to EE.
Fine. I called, spent nearly two hours on the phone with a very polite EE gentleman, who also could not fix the problem.
He eventually convinced me, against my better judgement, to take on a monthly contract and this would sort out the problem.
As I suspected, it did not.
Two days (not weeks) later I found the EE online form allowing me to cancel this contract, which I duly did and sent to the posted email address March 22nd).
I also, of course, cancelled the Direct Debit I had been persuaded to set up.
I heard nothing more about it for three weeks until yesterday, when I received a threatening 'final reminder' letter stating I was £22 in arrears and that I would be referred to a Debt Collection Agency, threatening to send my details tom  a credit reference agency and 
I'm afraid in my book of common decency this is bullying, verging on thuggery.

[bristolian]

You refer to a "SIM-only monthly PAYG", no such thing exists. PAYG refers to "Pay As You Go" which is EE's prepayment no-credit top-up based offering. "SIM-only" & "monthly" are generally accepted to mean the monthly-billed contract based setup. You also refer to DD's and contracts, so I presume the PAYG is an inadvertent reference.

Cancelling your direct debit without confirmation that any further payments/credits are required, is rarely a wise move and can often cause complications. A "final" reminder is just that, and should have been preceded by at least one previous reminder or bill - the collections process requires multiple outbound communications, you've only mentioned this one.

Did you make any enquiries in the intervening 3 weeks, to check your cancellation was proceeding as expected?

[IvyL]

Yes. I'm not tech-jargon savvy. I believe it's called something like a monthly rolling contract?
There were no 'further' DD payments due because I cancelled my contract before it began, within the allowed two-week cooling-off period.
I received one bill for my £22. The 'final reminder' dated 12th of April was not a 'final' one, it was the 'only' reminder. The term is obviously used to be intimidating.
Did I make any enquiries? You must be unaware of how ridiculously difficult it is to make any inquires to EE. I can't even find my account online anywhere.
All I get is redirected to more hard-sell pages...

[Chris_B · Accepted solution]

@IvyL  You should have used THIS   As mentioned in THIS   But I suspect use used this. 

Request a return by post

If you're a broadband customer, print out and fill in this cancellation form. 

Post the form back to:

EE Broadband Customer Care

PO Box 486

Rotherham

S63 5ZX

as this is the cancellation form that you post to EE and this is for broadband contracts not phone contracts. 

So when this was received nothing was done as it wasn’t a broadband cancellation. 

[Chris_B]

@IvyL  If it’s a 30 day rolling contract you only need to call customer services on 150 and press option 2 then press the option for THINKING OF LEAVING”.  If it is a 30 day rolling contract you only have to give 30 days notice to terminate even if it’s gone pass the cooling off period.  

[IvyL]

Thank you for this input.

I will follow your advice.
It is still very obvious that EE (and, no doubt, other companies) make it as complex and difficult as possible to cancel contracts. They seem to be totally amoral.

And it doesn't excuse the unpleasant, threatening and bullying letters they send out...

And the fact I was conned over the telephone.
Shame on them.