MSE News: O2 to hike its prices by 2.7% - can you leave your contract penalty-free?

Astonlee

I visit an 02 shop today to purchase one of their sim only offers that they currently advertising on a 12 months fixed price contract.
I shock when the salesman told me that their would be a 2.7% price hike to my contact in March this year. This really annoyed me, and I went on to point out that was against the telecom ruling at which point he went to fetch the shop manager. She confirm if I wanted to proceed, I must accept their price hike in March. So the fixed price offer/contract I was being given was for only 2 months period and not the 12 months they were advertising.
My response was to walk out of the shop, and will wait until after the price hike comes into force, because you can bet they will not be changing their offer/contract prices!

ZhugeEX

Astonlee wrote: »

I visit an 02 shop today to purchase one of their sim only offers that they currently advertising on a 12 months fixed price contract.
I shock when the salesman told me that their would be a 2.7% price hike to my contact in March this year. This really annoyed me, and I went on to point out that was against the telecom ruling at which point he went to fetch the shop manager. She confirm if I wanted to proceed, I must accept their price hike in March. So the fixed price offer/contract I was being given was for only 2 months period and not the 12 months they were advertising.
My response was to walk out of the shop, and will wait until after the price hike comes into force, because you can bet they will not be changing their offer/contract prices!

They're going to increase prices every year by inflation. So you'll get a price increase no matter how long you wait.

Just go to a different network such as Three, Tesco or Vodafone who have promised not to increase prices.

Trinabelle1970

Ok I am a little confused.....like many others I have received a text only so far regarding the 2.7% RPI increase.

I have seen this post:

I think some people are missing the key info here,
"From 1 March, O2 is also upping the cost of certain out-of-bundle texts and calls, as well as international call costs.
UK voice calls will increase from 35p a minute to 40p a minute, with texts going up from 12p to 15p. "

the above is a price hike, that as nothing whatsoever to do with the the RPI, in which case under the terms you can if you wish cancel under the guise of Material detrement. if u so wish, failing that you simply take them to CISAS,

terms clearly state :
5.4 You can end this Agreement without having to pay the Monthly Subscription Charges up to the end of any Minimum Period you have left, if:
(a) we apply an increase to your Monthly Subscription Charges other than an RPI Change; or
(b) we increase any of our Out-of-Bundle Charges in a way that would have had the effect of increasing your total bill (based on your usage in your bill in the month prior to our notification) by more than 10% if the increase(s) had applied for the whole of that month's bill.
5.5 If you want to end the Agreement because of one of the circumstances in paragraph 5.4 you must give us Notice that you want to within 30 days of our Notice. If you don't give us Notice within 30 days, you accept the new Charges and the Agreement will continue with the new Charges.

So my questions is:
I have a contract due to end in August this year. I have 300 minutes (free 02 to 02) unlimited texts and 500mb of data. I never go anywhere near these limits, BUT, in recent months I have been billed for "premium services" such as charity donations, plus also some overseas calling/text charges.

Can I therefore make a claim to exit my contract using the "material detriment" argument? Or would this be only valid for me if I used minutes/texts outside of my pre-paid allowance?

I am confused by Clause 5.4(b) above? My standard cost per month is £27.67, but my last 3 bills have been for January £35.76, December £28.36 and November £30.18?

If so, presumably I just go via complaints on the website or call them?

Thanks in advance guys!

[Deleted User]

If you want a really fixed price for the contract duration then go to Tesco Mobile as their slogan says "we never have and we never will increase prices during the contract term".
All the others have terms and conditions that get round both claims of fixed price and unlimited data, in truth the price is not fixed and data is never totally unlimited, there are always "fair use" restrictions involved.

It could be argued that 02 are declaring their increases up front rather than hiding them in the T&Cs so that you know where you stand before you take out a contract. I would guess that all the annoyed customers that move network will simply find that price increases will follow them because everything goes up as we all know.
I think that Ofcom should just ban the words unlimited and fixed as they have no real truth in the mobile phone business.

freccle

So basically I'm still stuck with paying the increase, is that correct?

IronWolf

!!!!!!, I just got an email about this today. I was with Orange for years before, and T mobile and I never had a price hike.

I got my phone through a third party, mobiles.co.uk and was NOT made aware that O2 could increase charges during the term of the contract, otherwise I would never have gone with them.

I'll be making a complaint.

JasonLVC

freccle wrote: »

So basically I'm still stuck with paying the increase, is that correct?

Depends how much of a fight you want.

If you take O2 at their word, then no, you cannot change your contract as they have hidden away an RPI increase clause in your contract.

OFCOM believes this is unfair contractual terms so you could challenge o2 on the basis the RPI increase is unfair and refer to Ofcom guidance and basic contract law.

You'll likely have to take it all the way to ombudsmen and hold your nerve but you'll likely win. Its easier to lie to the masses and factor in that a few of them will catch on and fight, but the rest will just take it as read and pay up.

Me, I'm with O2 and I'm the kind of person who likes to get litigious so will happily have some fun with this. I'm not actually bothered about the price rise, its about £5 over 12 months, but its the principle I'm more interested in.

IronWolf

Does someone want to draft a complaint letter that refers to the legal stuff for the benefit of us non legal types?

CED

Since when did an increase from 40p to 60p for a European call constitute "In line with the RPI".

This is just and excuse to go back to charging higher prices for foreign calls.:mad:

ZhugeEX

IronWolf wrote: »

!!!!!!, I just got an email about this today. I was with Orange for years before, and T mobile and I never had a price hike.

Errrrr what? Yes you did. Orange and T-Mobile increased their prices twice in the past 2 years...