Help with EE!

Shelbziee

Hello,

I am looking for a bit of advice in regards to the fiasco I have ongoing with the horrendous EE ltd.

Last year, (bear with me it spans a whole year) I was off sick from work for around 7 months, it saw my wages halved as my employer did not have their own sick pay set up and it went straight to SSP (which is not much). I missed a monthly payment, and EE cut off my phone (all outgoing) I rang them to explain why I had missed the payment and that I would not be able to make the £42 a month payment as I had other bills that would take priority. Surprise, surprise they were not interested, they would accept anything less then the £42 I said I could pay half of this... They said this was not possible. Therefore the following month I missed my bill again by now I had also cancelled my DD to wavier the bank charges, they cut off all incoming calls and texts now. I now had a phone which was usleless.

I rang EE again, to no avail! They were just not interested - this went on for another month. I now owed them £126 plus charges. After they ignored me, I decided to send them the copies of my wage slips, sick notes and bank statements to provide them with concrete evidence of not being able to afford the bill. Yes you guessed it, they ignored this too! It was now 4-5 months in, i rang them again and they decided to set me up on a payment plan which was £20 to pay off the outstanding debt ONTOP of the £42... I was still off sick. I definitely could not afford a £62 phone bill. I explained this, again not interested and then with no warning they terminated my contract. I had no advance warning my phone line just went dead, and I received a letter for immediate payment of £487... It was then passed onto a debt collection agency (Moorcroft) who I explained the above too and then they disappeared in December.. Now I have Buchanan Clarke and Wells chasing me for over £500.

I have no problem now paying the £10 a month to BCW but surely the way EE have handled my account is wrong. Have they not breached the contract by terminating my contract without warning? Or can they do this? I just wanted to see where I stand.

Thank you,

McKneff

I think they would probably get in there first and say that you breached the contract first by not paying them.


Nothing much you can do to be honest, just keep plodding on paying it.


Hope you get better soon and back to work.

grumbler

Shelbziee wrote: »

....surely the way EE have handled my account is wrong. Have they not breached the contract by terminating my contract without warning? Or can they do this? I just wanted to see where I stand.

7.3 Our immediate termination rights.
7.3.1 We can terminate this Agreement immediately and You must pay Us everything that You owe, including any Cancellation Charge and Additional Commitment Service Cancellation Charge, if any of the following happen:
7.3.1.1 You break an important condition of this Agreement or a number of less important conditions;
7.3.1.2 You break a less important condition of this Agreement and do not put it right within 7 days of Us asking You to; or
7.3.1.3 If any step is taken to make any kind of arrangement that would compromise Your liability to pay Your debts; or (A) if You are an individual and You are unable to pay your debts or if any step is taken to make You bankrupt; or (B) if You are a company or other organisation and You become unable to pay Your debts (within the meaning of section 123 of the Insolvency Act 1986) or any step is taken to appoint an administrator, liquidator (for a reason other than solvent reorganisation), or receiver over You or any of Your assets. We can also terminate this Agreement if something similar (in any country) happens or if We think any of these things may happen.

Terms and conditions for pay monthly customers who joined before 23 January 2014

ste_wilko

You can speak to CAB to see if there is anything that can be done to write-off any debts you cannot afford. At the end of the day, when you took out the contract there was no foreseeable reason as to why you couldn't make the payments in future.

You were a victim of circumstance, which EE should really have taken into consideration (not legally, but just out of compasion really). They could have offered to transfer you to a PAYG or something.

There may be a way to get the debt written off, but I think there may have to be at least a certain amount that is owed.

Fight it! I hope you get better soon and can get back on your feet

grumbler

ste_wilko wrote: »

At the end of the day, when you took out the contract there was no foreseeable reason as to why you couldn't make the payments in future.

You were a victim of circumstance,

I have to disagree. A person without any savings (for unforeseeable circumstances) simply cannot afford paying £42 p.m. for a mobile toy.

ste_wilko

grumbler wrote: »

I have to disagree. A person without any savings (for unforeseeable circumstances) simply cannot afford paying £42 p.m. for a mobile toy.

If you can afford to pay your bills and then something unforseeable happens, it's your fault for not having savings?

Wow! Bold statement there.

The OP was asking for advice on how to get past this issue, not having opinion as to whether they should have had savings or not.

Edit: How do yo know the OP has no savings? As they have said they had other bills that are more important - e.g. rent/mortagage, utilities. Maybe that is where their [potential] savings are going

grumbler

ste_wilko wrote: »

If you can afford to pay your bills and then something unforseeable happens, it's your fault for not having savings?

Wow! Bold statement there.

The OP was asking for advice on how to get past this issue, not having opinion as to whether they should have had savings or not.

Nothing bold. There is a big difference between £35 p.m. for water and £42 p.m. for a mobile toy.

And I replied to your opinion, not to the OP. My first post in this thread was purely informative.

Edit: How do yo know the OP has no savings? As they have said they had other bills that are more important - e.g. rent/mortagage, utilities. Maybe that is where their [potential] savings are going

If there were savings to cover the other bills, but they weren't sufficient to cover this non-essential bill, then the toy was unaffordable. As simple as that.

A typical advice is to have savings that can cover your expenses for at least 6 months. If one doesn't have this amount saved then saving is a higher priority than an expensive mobile.

Silk

ste_wilko wrote: »

The OP was asking for advice on how to get past this issue, not having opinion as to whether they should have had savings or not.

No realy, the OP was asking if it was legal for EE to terminate his contract.
He ran up a debt, they offered a payment plan, he refused so the cut him off and passed it to the debt collectors.
Not a problem other than his credit history is trashed for the next 6 years and he will have debt collectors on his back.

The OP feels hard done by EE because he was on the sick and feels they should have been more sympathetic