My son and I visited our Southampton EE store on Sunday 1st August.
We emerged, finally, from the store with what we had been led to believe was a good deal with a free tablet and upgraded phone.
It wasn't until I was checking the paper copy contracts the next day, that I read that we were being charged £11.70 extra on top of the package for the SIM in the tablet.It was in fact £13 , but had a reduction for muliple -line discount !!!
At no point during our discussions and we stressed from the outset that the price of the package was the most important factor, was the charge for the tablet mentioned.Several times the advisor stressed the package amount. She stressed this again when I was signing the tablet / contract - I did not see an additional amount for the tablet when signing... Obviously you do not see the paper copy you have signed until you have signed it ! The tablet contract was stapled behind the phone contract...
We did not ask for a freebie and in fact the package is less data allowance than before.
The advisor came out with the tablet and sold it to us as the best package deal.
I finally got through to EE at 8am Wednesday 4th August , but was informed that any deals done in store had to be sorted out in-store.
We went back into Southampton store on Sunday 8th August when my son was back home. The advisor was most unhelpful and abrupt in his manner. When we explained our concerns, his response was : you have signed the contract, there is no cooling-off period on our contracts.His parting shot was that anyway he couldn't do anything - that was only the manager who could do anything. There was no manager present in the store , so we arranged another appointment for Monday 9th August.
I saw ( accompanied by my husband ) an advisor then at 1pm on Monday 9th August who when I explained that I had made an appointment to see the manager said : that's me today ! He had no knowledge of my complaint so I had to start from scratch again explaining...
He basically just kept repeating - I can take back the tablet, but you will be paying the same amount as your essential package upgrade doesn't exist without the tablet ???
When I suggested cancelling the SIM amount , he said that he couldn't do anything as it was programmed in the till ...so much for being a manager ??
He did finally admit that perhaps it wasn't made as clear as it could have been ..but could do nothing about it ..I said that we would be taking this further.
After researching online, and getting advice from a family member who is in the fraud department of a bank , I am not only posting here, but will be writing to : CAB , Trading Standards and the Communication Ombudsman and also copying the same letter to EE Customer Services.... let's see what happens !
