I tried to order a new iPhone 17 Pro last Friday. Paid £250 advance on credit card.
Message Saturday saying there was a problem and to get hold of EE to rectify (chat link in message)
Tried all weekend to get a response…none!
Monday finally got a response. EE chat employee tells me there was a problem with transaction and I will be refunded, and then says he can try again. He tries to sell me same contract (but with cap and less 5G capability, but including Apple Watch that I didn’t want. I said no the uncapped speed was more important to me…etc etc) He then found a deal that added a Samsung tablet that I didn’t want…but it was for less than my original quote, and for the same terms as original, so I said yes.
Paid a further £250 on same credit card as Friday…EE employee then tells me this transaction has also failed. I wonder at this point if it’s a problem my end with my card, so I ask if it’s possible to use my debit card, which he says is worth a try (the two cred card transactions both showing pending at this point). I pay a further £250, but this time on my debit card. If you’re keeping up, I’m now £750 in debt and have nothing to show at this point. Next…you guessed it…system error…not able to process. EE chap says all monies will be refunded in 3-5 days, and to put things right he then says he can try my original terms but with no upfront cost and it worked out less per month than my original quote (?) so I say yes why not…and…system error can’t proceed. This all took the best part of 3-4 hours!!
On Tuesday all 3 lots of £250 clear from pending and I am now owed the full £750 with no new phone etc…so I’m understandably a little annoyed.
Fast forward to Friday morning. I see that my initial £250 (credit card) has been used to a) pay my bill of approx £43 that I did NOT give permission for and b) put my mobile account approx £207 in credit. I was really angry by this point as I had been promised a refund of all monies, so I spent a further 3 hours in chat on Friday eve to try and resolve. The bloke there told me he could only find my first transaction so I was then worried I’d been scammed (even though I was careful and checked all the links were legit etc) and then after sending him screenshots he found the £250 credit card Monday payment but not the debit card £250. Losing faith by this point as he had already not managed to find something that he later did. I then spend an eon sending screenshots of the initial chat transcript alongside screenshots of all the bank transactions. He then got a bit evasive and started asking where the transactions were for the debit card (even though I had shared and labelled them twice by this point!!) Eventually he stoppped responding to my messages so I ended the chat at 23:35 after 25 mins of his no response. Currently I’m still £750 out of pocket and no new contract or phone. In my 51 years I’ve never been treated so badly or had a (lack of) customer service like this…oh and I’ve been an EE customer since 2010 and never ever missed a payment. Absolute JOKE! 🤬
I’ve sent an email to complaints and asked that they actually properly read the chat transcripts (for both the Monday and Friday chats) that I attached, so they can see how badly this has been handled. So far all I’ve had is the generic message saying it’s being dealt with…but no refunds and no real reply from a human.
