Ofcom UK Launch Probe of EE’s Early Termination Charges
Mobile and broadband provider EE has today become subject to a new probe by the national telecoms regulator. Ofcom intends to examine whether the operator’s Early Termination Charges (ETC) comply with its obligations. ETCs apply to customers that choose to exit their contract early.
The two General Conditions (GC) in question are GC9.3 and GC9.2. The GC9.3 rule is designed to “ensure that the conditions which apply if you terminate your contract don’t disincentivise you from changing to a new provider, e.g. through excessive early termination charges,” while GC9.2 requires providers to make the terms for their ETCs “clear, comprehensive and easily accessible.”
The investigation will examine EE’s compliance with GC9.2 and GC9.3, in particular whether:
— its early termination charges (ETCs) were set out in a clear, comprehensive and easily accessible form; and
— by not accounting for discounts given to customers on their monthly retail price in its conditions and procedures for calculating ETCs, these ETCs acted as disincentives to customers against changing provider.
At this stage Ofcom are only gathering evidence (until August 2018) and will announce their preliminary findings later this year.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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I recently cancelled a EE contract for my daughter. He phone had broken after having it for 18 months. Vodafone were offering a much better deal and so I went with them. EE first of all won’t cancel thd contract then after taking a couple of months further direct debits cancelled it for me at a cost of £147.00
Never seen EE refuse cancellation, I recently cancelled a contract with them and only paid the remainder of contract less vat.
Can you clarify – you’re suggesting presumably there was a 24 month contract, and that after 18 you decided not to keep it – but then also expect not to receive some charge for doing so?
If you had 6 months remaining on the contract you should expect some fee because you made a 2 year agreement with the network.
It’s posts like this that get consumer’s worked up. If you bought a car on hp and crashed it you’d still be expected to pay for it until the end of the term.
Of course that rather arrogantly assumes his daughter damaged the phone, rather than it becoming “broken” because it was faulty.
@Jarrod
The phone getting broken or otherwise is irrelevant – the agreement will make clear you own the device and it getting broken by whatever means has nothing to do with the contract you agreed for service.
Except for a little thing called a warranty.
@Jarrod
A warranty on the phone itself does not give you the right to stop paying for the contract. You will have the right to have a faulty (not damaged through accident or intent) device sure, but that does not mean you can leave EE mid-contract, nor does it remove your obligation to meet the agreement you signed. It works both ways.
Unless they offered to repair or replace the phone (assuming its broken through no fault of the user an example being a battery fault like so many phones have had) then the whole contract they had with you is null and void regardless.
A similar thing happened to me with a well known model of phone that had a battery issue, they refused to replace the device so i told them where to shove their product and ‘service’.
You should only be charged remaining term of contract less vat. If any hardware still being paid for they can charge vat on that part only. The total fee payable for terminating early should never be more than the remaining balance if continued the contract.
EE have been conning people for a while, lets hope Ofcom for once sort something out.
I feel it is a far greater problem that they (and others presumably) continue to charge the full original fee after the 12/18/24 month period when the phone has been paid for and not reduced to cover just the service provided.
There must be millions of people caught in this trap.
Cheers.
I totally agree with you it’s a huge problem that should be stopped by ofcom to many ppl are getting ripped off by these mobile companies.
All you have to do is phone up the company or go into a shop and go SIM only. I went in, took all of five minutes, their deals were good and staff were amazing.
Mobile phone company’s have been getting away with ripping ppl of for far too long when it comes to when they finish there 24 month contract for the cost of the phone , they should be legally made to go automatically just charge you for they data and not the device as you’ve paid for that. But they and other ppl try to blame the consumer for not keeping track which is totally unfair a lot don’t know how it works or keep track this needs to be done by ofcom ASAP ….
That’s why I always go sim free, it’s definitely cheaper in the long term and I can change my phone whenever I want. I think these 2 year contracts are a right con cause the phone would have lost 80% of its value in 2 years!
“I think these 2 year contracts are a right con cause the phone would have lost 80% of its value in 2 years!”
I’m sure this makes sense to you but if you’ve purchased the phone through the contract then you can do what ever you want with it after the 2 years, bin it sell it, move to a different network etc. i don’t see how its value is of consequence to the phone operator as its your phone.
I do think the phone companies should automatically drop the price of the payments once the phone is paid for, it should be x months at y payment followed by z payment, bit then they will miss out on money for nothing.
Please.do.not.by.phones.in.EE.shops.there.shops.are.badly.run.and.customer.service.is.bad.bought.a.phone.from.there.shop.went.beck.for.refund.bbecause.I.was.not.happy.they.treated.me.like.dirt
Ee are con merchants I went into one of there shops for a Mobil pay as u go ended up with contracts for 2 yes I was confused cus I was due for operation I was to late to cancel
Shop.in.dalston.mail.is.badly.run.and.a.rip.off.becareful
So some people wish to terminate their contracts early who have discounts on their line rental. Whether this be through loyalty or friends and family etc. However EE when cancelling contract do so at full cost, they do not recognise discounts on accounts when cancelling early. Shame that EE staff bad mouth other providers who offer much more competitive offers. Looking forward to seeing the result of this probe or whether it will be shoved under the carpet much like BT’s £104 per second profit it makes
When your with ee and get a discount for loyalty and you leave early. Is that being loyal ?? do you really deserve the discount for going to another peovider? I think not.
Errr you would of had the discount for the loyalty before you moved, so you were loyal up to that point.
Does Sainsbury take away your reward card because you one day go to Tesco?
I was charged over £500 to cancell from o2
Loyalty discounts on EE are often nothing to do with loyalty. It’s just how they structure special deals on their system.
Even a new customer sim only contract can be set up as a contract for £x per month with loyalty discounts of £y.
The problem is that they don’t explain this to customers up front. The customer only sees the net price £x-y until after the contract has been made. So it comes as a surprise when the annual RPI increase is applied to the full amount £x but not the discounts, and when early termination is also calculated using the full amount £x.
Hopefully Ofcom will eventually get round to investigating the RPI part of the issue too.
That’s why SIM only (12 months) offer is the best choice. You can buy the same mobile without operator lock, without operator bloatware for the same price or cheaper.