EE UK Overcharges Some Mobile Customers by Hundreds of Pounds
Mobile network operator EE UK has confirmed to ISPreview that it overcharged a “very small” number of customers, in some cases by hundreds of pounds, for calls that should have been included as part of their bundled allowance. The issue appears to have occurred as part of the operator’s move to adopt a new billing system.
Most people these days tend to have mobile plans that come with an unlimited allowance for UK calls and texts, which is pretty much the industry standard, particularly on Pay Monthly SIMs. Suffice to say that customers making normal UK calls on such a plan don’t expect to be charged more than their usual monthly rate for these, and certainly not hundreds of pounds more!
Unfortunately, this appears to be precisely what occurred for a small number of unlucky customers when EE began moving accounts over to their new real-time billing system, which in some cases resulted in those same users being charged hundreds of pounds more than they were expecting.
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The issue, which was first raised to ISPreview by one of our readers (Andy), appears to have started around early September 2024 and was soon identified as impacting other customers – see EE’s own community forum (here, here, here and here). The overcharging figures range from around £90 and up to the £400 mark, with some of those affected saying that, despite repeated complaints, they’ve either struggled to get the charges refunded or were, somewhat worryingly, initially told that they’d still have to pay it.
Andy told ISPreview:
“The problem is, for users like me who have unlimited minutes and texts for example, they are overcharged. My bill in Sept for example had £250 added charges for calls to 01 [landline uk] and 07 [mobile uk] numbers which I was never charged for on previous bills.
I have not had Octobers bill yet, but others have reported they too have been overcharged again in October by £300 to £400 for calls that should be part of their allowance.
EE have told various customers its a known issue but not everyone on the forums has had the same customer service experience, with some EE staff telling customers they will still have to pay the charges or face risking credit history damage etc.”
On a major operator like EE, which is home to millions of customers, it’s not unusual to have the odd issue with incorrect billing and Ofcom have certainly had to deal with bigger complaints about this in the past (e.g. here, here and here). Nevertheless, some customers have clearly faced difficulties in getting the problem identified, which is why ISPreview stepped in to have a closer look.
In response, EE confirmed to us that a “very small” number of customers were indeed billed incorrectly for inclusive calls, during the move to a new system. But the operator also informed us that the impacted customers have now been identified and automatically credited for those charges, although not all of those affected have confirmed this to us yet.
Sadly, EE did not provide a quote for us to use, but hopefully they have apologised to those impacted for taking hundreds of pounds more than expected from their customers’ accounts, in some cases more than once. Not everybody can stomach that sort of hit, even if it is eventually resolved, in the current cost-of-living crisis and there’s always the risk of knock-on impacts (extra bank charges, difficulties paying other bills etc.).
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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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Haven’t we heard of EE’s billing issues for years now? It doesn’t seem to be very good at it. But I guess at least they admit to it.
Where have you heard of ongoing billing issues?
No that was vodaphone back in the day they didn’t use to cap their allowances on data etc so customers would end up with big bills but that seems to be fixed.
Like so many things, real-time billing is a great idea on paper but it’s been poorly implemented due to the suits rushing things out on the cheap with the bare minimum of testing. The main EE id app has been a massive call driver for over 12 months and is only now starting to get to a barely acceptable level of usefulness – it’s no surprise that any of the other new features they insist on loading onto it are also equally temperamental.
Ofcom should ACT now over credit file if the compamy make error on their bill, the customer should not have to pay the bill. End Of!
EE staff telling customers they will still have to pay the charges or face risking credit history damage etc. (This one should be BANNED for risking credit history with no fault of the payer)
Look at their prices. EE overcharges ALL of their customers.
EE have taken £860 from my husband this month, the bill should have been £30! They have credited his account but obviously he wants the money back. I told them about the issue over a week before the bill was created but they said there was nothing they could do at that point. They also said they wouldn’t take the £860 but they did. I’ve been told something on every single call.
Feel free to drop me an email with your husband’s account number + name and I can ensure the right people act upon it:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/contact.shtml
I’ve also been affected by this. I have a small-value monthly contract, £16.90 a month incl vat, but in September they took £116.40!! When I phoned they said sorry, a system error, not to worry, money would refunded the following month. Then in October they took £239.63!!! I panicked like crazy. Another very long phone call and I actually got through to the man I dealt with the first time who understood and said very sorry the money would be refunded in 5-7 working days. He calc the amount at £268.54 which is correct BUT EE took vat on top of that. Anyway, now 1st Nov and the money was not refunded so this morning at like 8.45am I had another long phone call, man I spoke to very nice, and said he has initiated the refund, and this time I got a text, saying money will be back in 4 working days. So I had to chase. Now I have to wait and see if the vat element is refunded. He said he would check if vat would also be refunded and call me by COB today, but no phone call as yet, it’s 17.08, but maybe he’ll phone before they shut their doors for the weekend. I said I was scared witless this could happen again in the future and he said it woulnd’t but I remain scared.