Rolling contract rip-off

PeggyMay

I took out a two-year mobile contract with EE in 2014. This was for an iPhone 5S with unlimited data, texts and calls and it cost me about £50 a month, which included paying off the cost of the phone itself. After the two years, in 2016, I had paid off the phone and would have been free to go onto another contract, except that due to suffering from illness and several traumatic events in my life, I neglected to remember that my contract had come to an end, and EE certainly didn’t inform me or send me any kind of reminder.

So the contact rolled on for another two years, with me still paying them £50 a month despite having paid off the cost of the phone ages ago. I never gave it a second thought because I had so much else on my plate that I was trying to deal with - chronic illness, death in the family, a house move, miscarriage etc. My phone contract was so far down my list of priorities, and as I said, I never had any correspondence from EE to let me know I was no longer tied into my contract.

About a year ago the handset died. EE said they wouldn’t send me a replacement, so I had to fork out a lot of money for a new phone. I was then told by a friend that switching to GiffGaff would be much cheaper than what I was paying, so I switched to GiffGaff a few months ago and am now saving myself a whopping £40 per month!

I am so gutted that I have been paying EE SO much money for SO long, when I needn’t have. I could have saved about £960 over the two years if I had switched earlier. That’s more than a month’s earnings for me!

My question is, is there anything I can do to recoup any money from EE? Surely it is wrong of them to keep charging me £50 per month - just for the service - when I had paid off the cost of the phone long ago? I have really been ripped off, at a time when I was extremely vulnerable... surely there must be something I can do to remedy this?

Thank you.

[Deleted User]

No. It's a contract you both agreed to, until one party decided to end it.

John_G_Jones

As above, it’s an expensive lesson but no, nothing to be done.

mobilejunkie

Methinks people should be given a test before being allowed to get into a mobile contract in the first place. A regular stream on here of people who don't seem to have a clue and subsequently seem to think they're owed something.

d123

PeggyMay wrote: »

I took out a two-year mobile contract with EE in 2014. This was for an iPhone 5S with unlimited data, texts and calls and it cost me about £50 a month, which included paying off the cost of the phone itself. After the two years, in 2016, I had paid off the phone and would have been free to go onto another contract, except that due to suffering from illness and several traumatic events in my life, I neglected to remember that my contract had come to an end, and EE certainly didn’t inform me or send me any kind of reminder.

That’s because your contract didn’t come to an end and wasn’t a 2 year contract. It was an open ended contract with a minimum term of 24 months which is a different thing.

Your terms are clear, the contract keeps running until you or the network give 30 days notice to end it.

You have no recourse, you were responsible for terminating the contract if you didn’t want it to continue.

System

once the phone was paid for the price should have reduced , ive just come to the end of my agreement with Tesco mobile once the phone had been paid for the monthly price reverted to my contract amount .



No excuse for leaving it almost 3 yrs before you noticed though .

mobilejunkie

The vast majority of mobile contracts do NOT have a separate charge for the phone, so nothing will reduce.

Mr.Generous

The best thing you can do is learn from it and move on. EE are quite happy to do contracts like that because some people are happy to keep paying them.

DCFC79

You didn't have to fork out a lot of money for a new phone, plenty of phones available for a range of prices.


Like you said, there were other things going on and this was further down the list.

System

mobilejunkie wrote: »

The vast majority of mobile contracts do NOT have a separate charge for the phone, so nothing will reduce.

My Tesco contract had i paid £30 a month for the handset and £13 for the actual contract , the month before the phone was paid off they emailed me to say it was the last payment and my bill would be the £13 after that .

mobilejunkie

CHRISSYG wrote: »

My Tesco contract had i paid £30 a month for the handset and £13 for the actual contract , the month before the phone was paid off they emailed me to say it was the last payment and my bill would be the £13 after that .

That's because your contract was vastly different to the majority. It's misleading for people to somehow think that on most contracts they should get something back beyonbd a certain point unless they do something about it for themselves.