BT to EE UK Migrations Causing Problems for Some Customers
Some of BT’s broadband ISP, phone, TV and mobile customers, specifically a proportion of those who have been or are in the process of being migrated to EE, appear to be experiencing a variety of problems with the process that is causing headaches. Missing services, trouble accessing accounts and general admin errors are just some of the issues being reported.
As most readers will hopefully recall, BT has spent the past couple of years gradually working on a big branding change (here and here) that will – over time – gradually turn EE into their “flagship brand for our consumer customers” (i.e. converged broadband ISP and mobile plans etc.). But history tends to show that such major changes and migrations rarely go as smoothly as providers would like.
Since then there have been a series of gradual moves (e.g. product changes and withdrawals) to help facilitate this transition, such as the decision to withdraw BT Mobile and the offering of special discounts to help encourage BT’s customers to migrate over to an equivalent EE package. The latter has been going on for a little while now, albeit seemingly not without causing some headaches.
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Over the past few months we’ve received and seen a steady stream of complaints about BT to EE migrations that have hit difficulties. The complaints vary, but some people say that not all of their bundled services were successfully migrated or that their attempts to migrate have been rejected multiple times, while others found problems with account and device access post-migration (i.e. being unable to manage accounts post-switch, via either EE’s website or the app, seems to be a particularly common complaint).
In the odd other example, EE’s staff have occasionally appeared to setup a broadband or other service order at the same address, creating two accounts for the same customer that has then taken a long time to correctly merge and resolve. Some of these issues have also caused knock-on effects, such as by preventing customers from being able to pair their EE router to the broadband account or to see/manage bills on the My EE App.
After receiving a few complaints about this we went hunting to see if any other gripes could be found and, suffice to say, there are plenty of related issues cropping up on BT and EE’s respective community forums (examples from the EE forum here, here, here, here and here etc.).
Sample Complaint 1
“Don’t know if it’s of interest but EE are having major problems migrating people off BT over to EE when it’s time to renew their contract. Personally I’ve had over 8 hours on numerous phone calls trying to sort out problems which started on Friday 31 May.
Basically someone in EE or BT had set up a broadband order at the same address creating 2 accounts, 1 account I did order and a different account and email address. Sent a new EE router and can’t pair it to the broadband account so cannot see bills on the My EE app.”
Sample Complaint 2
“I switched over from BT start of March and still can’t access my BB account despite multiple calls and confirmations that it would be fixed.”
Sample Complaint 3
“I renewed my contract for Broadband, Mobile and TV – with the understanding that the account would be migrated to EE – back on the 16th of May. Currently my Mobile and Broadband are on the new EE account but the TV order is lost in the system and I haven’t been able to watch Netflix, Now or TNT since the beginning of June plus I can’t see my account on My EE. I have spoke to a multitude of support people in trying to get this resolved but currently without any joy and I’m beginning to get fed up with having to chase EE.”
Sample Complaint 4
“Switched my BT broadband and TV 4 months ago, despite numerous calls to EE I can’t manage broadband or TV on either the website or the app. Have been told it’s a BT to EE migration issue, but no sign of it being fixed. Pretty poor, especially as I can’t manage my TV package – I wonder if it give me grounds to cancel?”
Naturally, we asked EE (BT) if they were aware of these issues and what, if anything, was being done to resolve them. The provider didn’t give us a comment but reiterated that they were committed to keeping their customers connected and providing good customer service.
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However, EE did acknowledge that a small proportion of customers had been impacted by the issues we mentioned (the term ‘small’ is often relative when talking about a provider with c.9-10 million customers), and they are currently prioritising resources to provide solutions to these customers as soon as possible.
As we say, large and complex bulk customer migrations – between platforms or providers – can be fraught with difficulties and unexpected complications. But the hope is that BT and EE will be learning from these early problems in order to ensure that the majority of customers get a smoother ride.
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I’m not directly impacted but I can attest to EE’s IT platform being terrible.
I joined in December 2023 and the original order got stuck. The agent fixed it but in the process created a new account. That meant my login details were associated with an empty account so I couldn’t see my bill. It also meant my direct debit didn’t work. It took 3 goes to fix the DD.
Then I signed up for EE mobile last month. Their 2FA auth system is terrible. Half the time it says there’s an error and the. The rest it says “we sent you code in the last 10 min so can’t send another. So after 3 weeks I still can’t view TNT sports or manage my add ins.
I’ve requested a PAC to move my phone elsewhere as it was just so frustrating. I’ll likely move my broadband when the contract expires.
I signed up to EE mobile back in 2019 I think it was. Had my order confirmation and everything.
SIM card never arrived.
Phoned them up and they said they had no record or the order! asked if they wanted me to manually run it through now and oh unfortunately the promo had ended so the price was higher.
Yeah.. I told them not to bother and went elsewhere. Glad I did.
Thankfully my existing BT account still has to run until November ’25. Then it may be time to look elsewhere. ISP Review questioned the wisdom of this at the time. If they start making a mess of it then it will certainly be a bad move. Why they have to go through the full migration process and simply not transfer existing accounts is beyond me. Other ISP customer bases seem to be transferred without problem for example when an ISP gets taken over.
An app that isn’t fit for purpose, an IT backend system that is held together by sticky tape and prayer, clueless management insisting that all is well, and it doesn’t matter because the share price is up.
The entire place is a complete and utter shambles.
Always has been. Having worked for a few ISPs, I can tell you a lot of the failures to fix things are poor system issues with BT Group. I spent most of my career trying to get openreach to do what they’re supposed to do. Their systems are shockingly bad.
Correct. I think BT are viewing moving all residential customers to EE as a way to avoid having to replace CSS, but in reality the EE system is a shambles. If you are on BT broadband which is pretty good, then stay there. 5 months after migrating I have a poor quality digital voice, no portal access and no idea how to raise a fault if I get one. Frequent weekend outages (maybe due to maintenance?) that last a minute or two. Dreadful.
And I thought it was only me. I’ve had an escalated complaint with both BT and EE since December 2023. I can’t do anything on either of my online accounts since the new arrangement.
I can’t do any transactions on my BT account for broadband and TV and it’s the same for my mobile account on EE. I’m in contract for both, so can’t make an immediate move. Despite this and numerous calls that tell me that backend teams have made changes, can you test it – still no success.
I’m also been a BT customer for 100+ years according to the BT system. BT says it is by design. I shouldn’t be able to upgrade or make changes on my account until I’m three months within the end of my contract period! Yep, absolutely certain the system has been designed that way to get all their customers to phone in rather than transact online!
I’ve been informed by EE that the MyApp pairing to the router and viewing broadband bills will be rectified by the end of August. I expect a lot of calls after Monday 2 September!
When I moved from BT to EE last October. It was a complete nightmare until I was allowed to leave free of charge in March this year. The WiFi controls never worked correctly account information was missing. The amount of times I phoned up complaining. So glad I got out when I did worst experience ever with a ISP. A lot of ppl I feel like were just beta testers for new EE.
So glad I have just recontracted our fibre broadband with BT (not EE) and TNT sport via app until April 2026. Hopefully they will sort issues by then, if not may need to consider options!
I’m having problems migrating from BT Broadband to EE Broadband. On 18 June, I renewed my BT Broadband contract for another 24 months. My BT account showed as having renewed for 24 months but the price remained unchanged from the previous contract. I spoke to a lady at BT, who told me she could match the price I was quoted, but only if I migrated to EE Broadband. I was switched over to EE Broadband on 1 July. The price is still incorrect and my landline stopped working on 1 July. After several phone calls to EE, which failed to resolve the two problems, I’ve now made a written complaint.
I just received a phone call from the EE complaints team. They say they can’t match the price I was originally quoted (even though it’s exactly the same price quoted on their website for new customers). They have agreed to release me from my contract. I have placed an order with Zen Internet.
I signed up in April for EE home broadband and sim-only. First, they created a second order for sim-only, and I received letters saying I owned £25. I phoned them, and they said they owed me £25 and sent a cheque. They told me the duplicate order was cancelled. Despite this, it affected my credit rating. They have recently corrected it. However, I have not been able to view my account, view which services I have or view any billing information since via the EE website or EE app since the day I joined in April. They kept telling me they would fix the problem, so I waited, and I am now out of the 14-day cooling off period. I have already moved my sim-only from EE to Smarty. I am now waiting for them to cancel my EE home broadband.
Avoid BT/EE! Absolute nightmare. I was with VirginMedia for over ten years and never had any issues with Mobile or Broadband. I switched to EE only because VirginMedia broadband was unavailable at my new address.
I must have phoned EE around 60 times since April, used the chat dozens of times and even exchanged many emails with customer complaints department. You phone them and they cant even provide you with the correct, email address, mobile phone number or home address. They have services mixed up with old EE account from over 10 years ago. They pass you from one support tech/customer service rep to another, they phone back and ask how they can help even though a different rep asked them to phone you as follow up call. How about check all the previous recordings and notes etc. They say they dont have access to broadband or mobile account and you get passed between different departments. Clearly, the EE/BT merger was a very bad thing. I did have a mobile with EE over 10 years ago and the service was excellent. They are useless now.
Started a partial move from BT to EE last August (mobile phones) – absolute shocking service / things not working (was without comms for over a month!). Kept my gigabit internet with BT at same time – but the efficiency / customer service was unbelievably bad. Prior to all this I never had a bad word for BT, but since, both EE/BT are hopeless.
We changed our router from BT to EE
We also had a TV box to pause and record programs was told that was fine and our contract for this would continue.
Then one day box failed to connect phoned EE was told we hadn’t got a BT TV and record box and even if we had it would not work with EE because we did not have fibre
Was told we could wait until fibre was in our area but that could be 18 months away
After a lot of phone calls (about 15 hours in total) and lots of lies finally got them to admit they were in the wrong and cancelled our contract
plus they gave us a whole £20 for the inconvenience
Now with sky and very happy
I signed up for BT FTTP. They sent me an email saying login and setup your account. I go to login and it says my email isn’t verified. So I click the link to verify it says “nice! You BT account is now verified” or words to that effect. I go to login.. ” your email is not verified” over and over again. So I call their support and they say ok let’s move you over to EE. Guess what? Same problem. Days and days of never being able to login, calling them, them saying they’ve fixed it ( or asking me to clear caches and history etc lol ) and it not working. In the end, I cancelled the broadband order. If they can’t make logins to their own website work, what trust can I have they could resolve any broadband issues I might have? Absolutely horrible support that make virgin media look like AAISP in terms of support. Never going with BT or EE ever again. Lost me for life. (I have never been able to login to my EE mobile phone account. In 18 months)
It’s utter chaos…And there are no special offers…It’s still industry high prices, ie, the offers to migrate.
I’ll be jumping to city fibre, 16 providers in my area as soon as my contract allows.
BT/EE imo prey on the ignorance of their huge pensioner customer base, to basically fleece them..
Why are they having such problems?
It the same company. I’m assuming there are 2 different systems. But sure they are the experts of their own systems?
It is also a mess for existing EE broadband customers (before they launched new EE), we are unable to take up EE TV or 1.6 Gbps FTTP whilst still in contract as they have no migration path on to new EE (nor have they been forthcoming on if there will be one). We also still don’t have IPv6 but new customers do.
EE/BT are running a trial for migrations, unsurprisingly! I’m on Plusnet and use my own router, so probably won’t be joining the trial.
“Carp, carp, glorious carp, nothing quite like it for shedding low revenue/high cost customer accounts” ?
(Sic Flanders and Swan)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zpDF3Py7r8
Glad I swapped by SH2 out for a third party modem/router and have developed multi-provider PAYG mobile data only accounts as fall back with fail-over and fail-back
The way BT and a lot of others go on, you’d think they didn’t want customers to fully enjoy the new technology.
Latest results: Billionaires and shareholders 5 . . . . . customers 0
Marketeers instituted it . . . . what do you expect ?
BT encouraged me to sign a new deal with Broadband, TV and mobile all moving from BT to EE. The mobile was a total disaster. All 4 phones suffered a HUGE drop in performance from BT mobile. The family nearly lynched me. Then things got worse when all customer support was only via sms or chatbot which kept ending sessions. I was within the cancellation period and spent THREE DAYS trying to get EE to cancel the mobile contracts. I moved us to Vodafone and the family forgave me. BT had a perfectly happy customer and then through the Groups incompetence forced us to leave.
Utter madness. And people pay a premium to be with BT/EE?!
If you want EE mobile coverage, grab a SIM only deal with one of the MVNOs using the EE network. And most areas should have plenty of other ISPs to chose from for home broadband.
BT would have to go a long way to beat HMG’s migrant scheme . . . two returned for £700million
I can confirm EE do not know what they’re doing with IT. Can’t speak about BT issues but I (and quite a few others on EE community and who knows what more) are unable to see upgrade offers or purchase new sims/devices through our online accounts and app and are just presented with a blank screen. They’ve known about this issue for a few months now and call me periodically with updates but nothings changed.
I had already moved our 4 mobile phone contracts onto EE from BT just over a year ago, only a couple of issues such as monthly price agreed wasn’t supplied and we went from a monthly rolling contract to a 2 year contract without notice. I called EE who after listening to my previous call confirmed what I was offered and honoured it accordingly, apart from the 2yr contract as there was no mention of it! Meanwhile, early Dec 2023 I decided to move over to EE broadband for simplicity sake and cheaper costs. The move was rejected by EE migration systems so had to be forced manually, then finally got moved over just before new years eve, however I could not see my BB in the app. After being hacked over Christmas period on my previous router, I was keen to control access to the router but couldn’t do so without the app recognising the router. My account was finally merged properly by the “New EE team” as it transpired that you have to get through to the right team member which you cannot control any other way other than requesting to speak to them! However, despite successful merge, I still couldn’t see BB in the app or control access to the router. A dude was sent out and found a faulty router, but still no access to manage it via the app. Promises came it numerous times over the subsequent months and endless calls every other day that it would be fixed, but alas, despite empty promises, various apologies, £60 compensation and a free 1yr Xbox gaming pass….still no visibility of both mobile and BB accounts together in the app nearly 8 mths on…I have had to set up separate emails account for each so I can sign into BB and control router. OfCom could really do with stepping in on this one!
I think people are actually missing the point here. The issues they state are rife, especially with system/admin and online account issues. But most of the actual services work no problem.
EE mobile which uses excallibur is non affected. The mobile side of the business works on the online account, you just sometimes have more links to click when you have broadband added.
The new EE broadband/tv is just a rebrand of the BT in name, and systems spirit. With the exception of the front end system agents use to place orders called Orbit. Orbit places the orders but then writes back to a system called OneView which is what BT uses. The agents can place orders in One View no problem but it doesn’t always forward write to Orbit. Thats when the customer doesn’t see anything re their online account because the new EE system doesn’t recognise the service is live even though it is.
I joined in October 2023 for the broadband and that went fine, along with mobile. When TV came along that’s when problems occurred. They sent me 11 wifi boosters, two hubs. And they couldn’t get my TV package correct. In the end it had to be a cease and reprovide to solve the TV issue. Since that has happened, its all worked gloriously.
I swapped to fibre 300 ee from talk talk. They only guarantee 100mbpsintonthe house they are not concerned about router performance. App when working, says router could be improved so initiates a restart.
They say Netflix can impair performance (I don’t have Netflix), some of my devices are not compatible and drain performance
Amazing lack of customer consideration
Yes, this a nightmare to your business hours and relentless efforts to get right! I am amongst many out there facing difficulties with this IT migration, particularly the broadband links! Can’t link up the product to the Apps and can’t pay my bills,though I am trying every now and then. Finally, I am about to ask BT to put me back to my comfort zone – where I can get what I am looking for – resilient service! PERIOD!
From an inside point of view, it’s all an easy fix. But it takes investment in ways that the company refuses to acknowledge. It’s one of those situations where everything looks good on paper but no ones advanced further than a rough sketch. Day to day there are three core issues.
1) Orbit, the new ordering system, doesn’t work. It was rushed into use before any of the kinks were resolved. This includes stuck orders, which can’t be unstuck, pushing nearly all support to back office teams leaving front line staff powerless and an inability to make any changes or revisions from as minor as removing baked in voicemail to ordering a home tech expert.
2) The training. It’s non existent. The push has been for sales over substance which has left us with an army of sales agents who focus on commission over whats best for the customer. They don’t know how to use the system they’re using and often blatantly lie to customers resulting in mis-sells and issues other departments need to resolve. New Sales and Value have zero practical product knowledge and no commence for the failures they pass on to the customer or other divisions. As long as the numbers are good no one in higher management want to fix anything.
3) Being rushed. Every release was about how to make money and how cool everything was going to be. The integration of Consumer to the app works but with the design skills and integration of a first year student when it comes to the user end. New EE as a whole from the app to ordering systems were released prematurely just to rush through an obviously poorly conceived migration. This effects both of the above. Systems are in use while deeply flawed and the service from front line staff is too focused on sales to know how to handle anything else.
New EE has invested in everything but time to finish the system and the training to use and understand the product that’s being sold. It would also help us massively in the Connections team if they’d give us access to the tools we need instead of having to pass over to offshore tier two agents with no accountability.
100% bang on.
Not surprised – only had issues with them in regards to a Game Pass add-on that was included in my package… Best to talk to the admins on the forums – they usually know their shit. The hotline staff is poorly trained.
How many calls per day from customers migrating from Harlequins (Legacy EE) to Consumer (New EE/old BT) who have received “sorry you’re leaving”/”we’re cancelling your service” Comms from Legacy? An issue which should have been easily foreseeable (which either wasn’t, or was ignored) and could be easily fixed (but isn’t), resulting in a very confused customer.
An easy conversation to have, but indicative of the entire farce and the shoddy way management have handled it. Throw in Digital Voice issues, Orbit/Oneview issues, Openreach issues, EEid issues, and the fact that a large number of customers end up getting billed twice in the month they move and have to wait for refunds (another issue which should never occur) then the entire system should never have gone active.
I was lied to – stating that I would get the same terms and not a new contract when I am migrated. I thought it would be less of a hassle to do it instore- the documents did not state that it would be a new contract- then later I get an email stating its a new contract. Too quick to close the BT account and left me to deal with the chaos- all for no reason. The EE store should be ashamed of themselves- did they think I would not find out? Now the EE team says the order is ‘stuck’ in their system.
Post- migration grom BT to EE I do have the technical services i wanted, but no means of viewing or amending usage and cost through an account, which leaves me feeling very out of control. They’re now sending me a paper bill each month for Broadband/ TV, but it seems that can’t be done for mobile phone unless I pay extra. Oh for the days of BT!
My story is probably too long to even fit in here lol but basically same as most people. For me when I upgraded my BT 900mb to EE 1.6gbps package back in October it went surprisingly smooth. I can’t fault the service itself as internet is always working and working well. But never had access to WiFi controls until May this year. And of course no one told customers they can’t have EE TV on this new 1.6gb package. Then they cancelled all my services ‘by accident’ in May and had to start all over again with no working WiFi controls and app but this is now fixed but my bill had 2 broadbands charged It is never ending. Oh the joy
The message I’m getting from all of this is absurdly exactly the opposite message BT Group would wish people to get – don’t migrate from BT to EE directly. Indeed if one wants to end up on EE it might be wiser to switch to another provider first, perhaps even one of the few that offer a monthly rolling contract, and then start with EE afresh as a brand new broadband customer.
Not sure if migrating from ‘Old EE’ to ‘New EE’ broadband is similarly troubled?
Good to see that BT has finally realised they’re having problems with the BT to EE migration by.. launching a Brand Migration Trial, for paying you £50 you can help fix all the problems they have uncovered…
Since transferring my account from BT to EE, I’ve encountered significant and ongoing issues with accessing specific areas of my online account. Attempts to navigate broadband-related pages consistently result in website errors. To address this problem, I formally lodged a complaint several months ago. Unfortunately, despite the passage of time, the issue remains unresolved.