EE Incorrectly Charged VAT for Non-EU Mobile Broadband Roaming

Approximately 0.5% of EE’s total customer base in the United Kingdom, specifically those who used Mobile Broadband / Mobile Data while roaming outside of Europe between October 2012 and October 2014, will received a credit refund of between £2 and £80 per customer after the operator wrongly charged Value Added Tax (VAT) on their Data Roaming bundle.

The mistake, which was discovered after a customer complained to EE, is expected to cost the operator around £1 million in refunds and took a little bit longer to resolve than usual because the overcharge went directly to HMRC (i.e. needed to be claimed back).

EE Service Statement (BBC)

“Due to a configuration error in our billing system, made following a system change, a small number of customers were wrongly charged VAT on the Data Roaming bundle outside of Europe. This was a mistake, and we are now refunding these charges and contacting affected customers to apologise for the error. We’ve claimed that money back from HMRC, and then it goes back to the customers.”

It’s worth pointing out that 0.5% of around 28 million equates to somewhere around 140,000, which is apparently what big operators class as “small” (it’s all a matter of scale). On the bright side the problem has now been fixed.