Can not efford pay EE contract, 3 months in.

wantoknow_2

Hello
I am helping my friend. She is a single mum on in work benefits. Recently she was let down by her business partner and her income dropped dramatically. She took a 24 month contract with EE for I phone 6. something that they advertised it would cost £40 a months turned out to be £70 as there were no much on the contract to use for free.
Anyway she had to take a low paid job and can hardly cover her essential expenses at the moment. The partner also left a debt on her name with e-bay for £300 and £500 with the bank.
I want to introduce her to Step Change to manage her debts. I wonder if she cancels the contract and include the cancelation fee debt with her debt management plan, would she be able to use the phone with another network or sell it to pay some stuff off.
I tried searching net, but could not find a clear answer.
Many thanks for your help and time

MrJester

If the entire contract is paid off then of course you keep the phone (and thus do whatever you want with it). But she would likely have to pay it all off. So 21 months.

I'm not sure how the bill is getting up to £70, EE deals are unlimited minutes and texts (unless she's calling strange numbers, this needs to stop, use the app WeQ4U which finds cost free numbers for the ones that typically charge you a bomb). Your friend needs to realise what she is being charged for and reduce her useage, if you cant afford it, then dont do it.

Remember, if she paid off that contract, you can use the phone on other networks but with EE you have to submit a request to them and it costs a fee to unlock the phone.

wantoknow_2

Dear Mr Jester
Thank you very much for your answer. She said she bought it through Gumtree and she got only 2MB internet. I have not see the contract of gumtree add yet. I will check to see if she was misled.
Sorry I did not understand completely, if she stop paying her contract now, her phone will get locked, is it right?
Many thanks

FireWyrm

wantoknow wrote: »

. I wonder if she cancels the contract and include the cancelation fee debt with her debt management plan, would she be able to use the phone with another network or sell it to pay some stuff off.
I tried searching net, but could not find a clear answer.
Many thanks for your help and time

Ah, this is a tricky one. The phone will be locked to the provider and understandably, they will be reluctant to part with anything less than the full outstanding contract amount. Technically, she doesnt own the phone yet since she is still in contract - it is more of a hire purchase mechanism but with slightly different rules. Basically, she has a number of choices :

1) Pay off the entire contract up front using alternative borrowing. That means she owns the phone legitimately and can sell it and settle the borrowing that paid for it.

2) Continue to pay the contract for the life of the term, but she doesnt own the phone yet and selling it would not work as the network could block the IMEI as 'stolen'. When I used to work for O2, we routinely used to blacklist IMEIs on stolen phones and the system used to do it quietly in the background too. I never proved that, but there were several instances where 'new' customers rocked up with phones they had 'bought' from a friend only to find that the IMEI was blacklisted by the original provider. After some questions, it turns out that the phone was 'sold on' in an attempt to exit a contract obligation.

You cant move the phone to another network because it will be locked to the original provider. Unlocking it is possible, but you again run the risk of it being blacklisted as 'stolen'.

sourcrates

No, the sim card will be locked, not the phone.

Simply remove the sim card and replace with an EE Pay as you go sim.
It will work just fine.

Cyberman60

I cannot understand why people get themselves locked into expensive phone contracts. I changed to giffgaff four months ago on 'pay as you go' and have spent in all around 5 quid on calls and texts plus 5 quid free. Prior to that I was paying up to 20 quid a month with O2, so effectively saving myself about 70 quid over that time and possibly over 200 quid for the year.

Baby_Angel

Her phone is probably already locked to EE. She will have to pay the contract amount to get out of the contract and keep the phone. The £70 she pays includes the payment towards her handset. Even after paying the contract she may have to pay extra to get it unlocked. I have never been with EE. But £70 seems quite high for a monthly payment. Then again I never get latest phones any way.

FireWyrm

sourcrates wrote: »

No, the sim card will be locked, not the phone.

The IMEI can be blacklisted by all providers and there is a central database of blocked phones.

sourcrates wrote: »

Simply remove the sim card and replace with an EE Pay as you go sim.
It will work just fine.

It wont the phone needs a PUK code which the provider will not give you while you are in contract. There are other ways to unlock a phone in the market, but if you do, the new provider may question it's sudden appearance on their network and block it.

sourcrates

FireWyrm wrote: »

The IMEI can be blacklisted by all providers and there is a central database of blocked phones.



It wont the phone needs a PUK code which the provider will not give you while you are in contract. There are other ways to unlock a phone in the market, but if you do, the new provider may question it's sudden appearance on their network and block it.

No it dosent, you can simply remove the contract sim, and replace with a PAYG sim, no codes, no blacklist, been there done that, works just fine, its a complete falicy about blocking IMEI numbers for non payment.

Stolen phones, maybe, but not for non payment.

Any EE sim will work in an EE phone regardless of weather contract, or PAYG.

It would only require unlocking in order to use another service providers sim card, same network sims will work just fine.

FireWyrm

sourcrates wrote: »

No it dosent, you can simply remove the contract sim, and replace with a PAYG sim, no codes, no blacklist, been there done that, works just fine, its a complete falicy about blocking IMEI numbers for non payment.

I'm sorry, but it isnt. I used to do it. The SIM can be blocked from making calls and the IMEI can be blocked at any time the provider who actually owns the phone wants to.

sourcrates wrote: »

Any EE sim will work in an EE phone regardless of weather contract, or PAYG.

True, but you still have to pay the contract and no other network provider SIM will work without providing the PUK code which they wont give you.

sourcrates

FireWyrm wrote: »

I'm sorry, but it isnt. I used to do it. The SIM can be blocked from making calls and the IMEI can be blocked at any time the provider who actually owns the phone wants to.



True, but you still have to pay the contract and no other network provider SIM will work without providing the PUK code which they wont give you.

But the PUK code is available from various websites for a fee of £25.

PUK codes are not exclusive to network providers.

I ran an orange phone for many years (iphone) using a same network PAYG sim, where the contract had been defaulted, and they never blocked the phone, still havent now, still using it.