Mobile Phone Contract - Price Rise Refunds

ulaggy

djewson wrote: »

choosing to go with Vodafone as they were offering far more for far less money
I hope I can get rid of this one too now
I'm sick of the big companies ripping Joe public off
(Gas and electric take note !)

The same Vodaphone who avoided something like £8billion in Tax? I'd post a link but I've not posted enough to be allowed to yet! Suffice to say, googling for Vodaphone Tax case should bring it up for you!

aye

Thanks RC. Sent off an email last Monday, no reply as of yet. Will keep a look out for your follow up email template.

Troy_Tempest

Thanks for that RC, emails sent , ( and my two pence worth added to the Which? campaign email)

RandomCurve

Below is the follow-up email to the original email posted at #99. PLEASE DO NOT use this email until it has been at LEAST 7 days, if you do you will jeopardise your chances of claiming compensation for bad customer service.

Don’t for get to change the red text to suit your dates/days/name.
And please tell everyone you know to send the first email if they have had the price rise notification.


The email addresses to use are:

[EMAIL="executive.office@ee.co.uk"]executive.office@ee.co.uk[/EMAIL];
[EMAIL="Olaf.Swantee@ee.co.uk"]Olaf.Swantee@ee.co.uk[/EMAIL]

Dear Mr Swante,


Re: Phone Number 07XXXXXX

Further to my Email dated XXXX it is now X days since I sent that Email. I find the delay in responding falls way short of the customer service standards that it would be reasonable to expect on a matter that concerns my request for an IMMEDIATE penalty free termination, as per GC 9.6c and our contract.

I have reproduced my original email for you below. If I have not had a FULL response within 7 days (DATE) I will take it that EE are refusing to engage on this matter and that will be deemed to be that we have reached deadlock. I will then immediately proceed to bring a CISAS claim in regards to this matter

Regards



NAME

Original email:

Dear Mr Swantee,

Thank you for your letter of early April informing me of EEs intention to increase the price of my Fixed term Contract.

Please accept this letter as my notice to terminate my contract PENALTY FREE under Ofcom Regulation GC 9.6 as the increase is likely to be of Material Detriment to me. Please also provide me with a PAC so that I can take my number to another network.

Without Prejudice.
The term “likely to be of Material detriment” in the regulatory context can be determined by understanding why the term was introduced into GC 9.6 by OFTEL and retained by Ofcom, and by reference to the source European documentation for GC 9.6 which is the Universal Service Directive (USD) USD 20/(22) for which GC 9.6 is the UK enactment. It is clear that the intention of USD 20/(22) was to give the CONSUMER the choice to cancel their contract during a fixed period for ANY modification that is made which they do not accept as follows:

USD 2002/22/EC
Chapter IV – End User Agreements
Article 20 – Contracts
Paragraph 4

4. Subscribers shall have a right to withdraw from their contracts without penalty upon notice of proposed modifications in the contractual conditions. Subscribers shall be given adequate notice, not shorter than one month, ahead of any such modifications and shall be informed at the same time of their right to withdraw, without penalty, from such contracts, if they do not accept the new conditions.

Further Ofcom GC 9.6 supports the USD implementation as the term "likely to be of material detriment" was introduced because:

"Our intention was to reflect our general duties and principles of good administration and proportionality in particular. We sought, in light of these, not to rule out contract variations altogether. For example, those beneficial to, or having a neutral impact on, a subscriber.” (from Ofcom publication “ Price rises in fixed term contracts - Decision to issue Guidance on General Condition 9.6”, Published in October 2013”

As Ofcom's (and OFTEL before them) reasoning for introducing the term was to protect me - the consumer - from changes which are not to my benefit or at the very least are neutral then a price rise of any kind is clearly neither to by benefit, nor neutral, and are therefore likely to be of Material Detriment.

Without Prejudice
The price rise applied of 2.7% (RPI) is likely to be of material detriment to me as it is a REAL TERMS increase in the cost of my contract. The UK National Statistic for price inflation is the CPI (1.7% for February 2014 – published in March 2014) therefore any increase above this rate under GC 9.6 is likely to be of material detriment to me, as a real terms increase cannot be either to my benefit OR have a neutral impact. By using RPI rather than CPI the increase applied to my account is 58.8% higher than it would otherwise be.

RPI lost its designation as a National statistic in March 2013 as the calculation methodology does not meet with international calculation standards and has been replaced with CPI which is the statistical measure of inflation now used by Government.


Without Prejudice
In the Ofcom publication “ Price rises in fixed term contracts - Decision to issue Guidance on General Condition 9.6”, Published in October 2013. Ofcom defined “Likely to be of Material Detriment as follows:

Paragraph 6.22
“In particular, we consider guidance is needed as to price rises which we are likely to regard as materially detrimental (or likely to be materially detrimental) and invoking the requirements of GC9.6. Such price rises are likely to include any increase to core subscription prices.”

The above definition is to apply to contracts agreed to on or AFTER 23rd January 2014. However as EE updated its’ price variation clause effective 26th March 2014 (2 months after the date to which the definition applied) then this clause of the contract was effectively agreed to and signed up to post 23rd January and therefore as per the Ofcom guidance in regards to GC 9.6 the increase in core subscriptions price is likely to be of material detriment to me.

Without Prejudice
In the Ofcom publication “ Price rises in fixed term contracts - Decision to issue Guidance on General Condition 9.6”, Published in October 2013. Ofcom defined “Likely to be of Material Detriment as follows:

Paragraph 6.22
“In particular, we consider guidance is needed as to price rises which we are likely to regard as materially detrimental (or likely to be materially detrimental) and invoking the requirements of GC9.6. Such price rises are likely to include any increase to core subscription prices.”

And whilst Ofcom have announced that this will only apply to contracts entered into on or after 23rd January all Ofcom have actually done is clarify a definition. They have not changed the words of GC 9.6. As they have only clarified a definition then the definition must apply to all contracts as it cannot be a legally correct position that two contracts subject to the same regulation with exactly the same wording (GC 9.6) can have two different meanings.

I look forward to receiving my PAC (penalty free) with immediate effect. Should EE not consider this to be an appropriate action then please clearly articulate why this is not the case with reference to each of the points above. Any response which fails to address the specific points above would not be acceptable to me and will be used as evidence of EE’s lack of duty of care and poor customer service in any subsequent CISAS claim.

narika

Many thanks RC,

Just sent off the email. Many thanks for your time and efforts.
much appreciated.

Narika

ulaggy

Hiya RandomCurve, just a quick question.

"as per GC 9.6c and out contract"

Should that read "of our contract" or "and our contract"? Just wanted to clarify if that was a typo. Don't want to give them any excuse to worm their way out of anything!

Edit:

I have had an email back from the Executive Office - for a minute I thought the follow up email had done the trick but then I remembered that that was still in drafts whilst I awaited clarification about the above sentence.

The response is as follows:

Thank you for your email,



I understand that you have experienced issues with the service received and would like to raise these concerns. To enable to me fully investigate these matters please provide your Mobile or account number. Once this information is received, you will be assigned a case manager who will contact you directly.



EE Executive Office

--

I've replied with simply "Hi There,
My mobile phone number is xxxxxxx.

Yours,

Xxxxxxx"

muse213

Just got a reply aswell, which is really weird, states

"Thank you for your email,



I understand that you have experienced issues with the service received and would like to raise these concerns. To enable to me fully investigate these matters please provide your Mobile or account number. Once this information is received, you will be assigned a case manager who will contact you directly.



EE Executive Office"

Do i give them my mobile and account number? And does this mean that they are going to review? Sorry, I'm new to all of this, and im not used to this side of the law

ulaggy

I'd reply with your phone or account number - otherwise they'd probably use a lack of info as an excuse to avoid dealing with you. RandomCurve will probably be able to enlighten further though!

muse213

Thank you, have given them both

Resultant

muse213 wrote: »

Just got a reply aswell, which is really weird, states

"Thank you for your email,



I understand that you have experienced issues with the service received and would like to raise these concerns. To enable to me fully investigate these matters please provide your Mobile or account number. Once this information is received, you will be assigned a case manager who will contact you directly.



EE Executive Office"

Do i give them my mobile and account number? And does this mean that they are going to review? Sorry, I'm new to all of this, and im not used to this side of the law

I've just had the same email, this was after the first email which was send 3 - 4 days ago. What should be the next step be?

Thanks!