EE Overselling Contract Issue

GenericDad

Hi all,

An elderly family member has been oversold a mobile phone contract which is due to expire in 7 months time. I would estimate they use 5GB of data per month but they were up-sold a contract in the store for 164GB!! They do not understand data allowances or requirements so as a long term EE customer, relied on EE to view their historical data usage and make recommendations.
Now, unless she she is about to take up aggressive gaming and streaming, there is no legitimate reason they needed this contract.

Is there any way EE can be challenged or recompense made for what is clearly an over sell?

Thank you for your help

d123

GenericDad said:
Is there any way EE can be challenged or recompense made for what is clearly an over sell?

No, they’re an adult and capable of making their own financial decisions. They should have asked you for help in advance if they felt confused, not months later.

GenericDad

Even though they were relying on an expert in their field to guide them and make recommendations?

Emmia

GenericDad said:

Even though they were relying on an expert in their field to guide them and make recommendations?

EE shop staff (and those working for other networks) are principally salespersons, not 'independent experts'.

eDicky

GenericDad said:

Even though they were relying on an expert in their field to guide them and make recommendations?

If you're referring to shop staff, their aim is usually to sell contracts most lucrative commission-wise or in their job-advancement interests, regardless of what would be suitable for a customer. It is better to enter such mobile phone shops without your wallet and cards, to later reflect at leisure on what has been 'recommended', or buy online.

Brie

In contradiction of the others (who may be correct in what they are saying) I would suggest a complaint being logged on behalf of the elderly individual to point out that it was a case of taking advantage of an elderly and vulnerable individual. 

Now your elderly granny (or whomever) might be completely on the ball for most things - politics, finances, the lineage in Wagnerian opera - but technology is a different game all together.  I'm reasonably bright and techy but it took me some time to get my head around "apps" simply because they were new to me and I didn't know what was actually being talked about particularly when I made the leap from a stupid to a smart phone.  Most companies have some sort of "vulnerable customer" team that would see the sense of correcting the salesperson's overly optimistic patter and ensure there's no bad publicity about how granny has been been financially disadvantaged by corporate greed.  

Slinky

In my experience, mobile companies will recommend you almost anything extra to part with more money. 

My 2 year contract with O2 has just expired, it had a 100mb data allowance which I got on a discounted deal when I signed up.  Checking their website for new deals, it said my average monthly usage is 2.7mb, but they recommended I pay £87ish a month for unlimited data!  Yet elsewhere on the site I was able to 'upgrade' to a 30mb deal for £12.99 a month. This wasn't 'recommended', I had to dig about a bit to find it.

Hope you get things sorted for your relative (for which I do hate the word 'elderly'.)

Neil_Jones

GenericDad said:

Hi all,

An elderly family member has been oversold a mobile phone contract which is due to expire in 7 months time. I would estimate they use 5GB of data per month but they were up-sold a contract in the store for 164GB!! They do not understand data allowances or requirements so as a long term EE customer, relied on EE to view their historical data usage and make recommendations.
Now, unless she she is about to take up aggressive gaming and streaming, there is no legitimate reason they needed this contract.

Is there any way EE can be challenged or recompense made for what is clearly an over sell?

Thank you for your help

I think a more prudent approach would have been for you (or somebody else) to have got involved sooner, rather than finding out about this five (or potentially 17) months down the line.

As I keep saying every time the word "elderly" comes up in cases like this, being "elderly" in itself doesn't mean anything.  No end of perfectly capable persons aged 60/70/80/90 and I dare say 100+ who could go into an EE shop and come out with something they wanted that suited them.  If it does what they want and they're happy to pay for it, who are EE to stop them?

Brie said:

In contradiction of the others (who may be correct in what they are saying) I would suggest a complaint being logged on behalf of the elderly individual to point out that it was a case of taking advantage of an elderly and vulnerable individual. 
 

On what basis exactly?

The OP's relative is probably relatively sound of mind and can make their own decisions.  That doesn't make them vulnerable.  It may not be the wisest thing to buy in the grand scale of things based on what the OP says, but must be remembered we're only reading one side of the story.

EnPointe

GenericDad said:

Even though they were relying on an expert in their field to guide them and make recommendations?

  Network shop staff are neither independent or expert...

I see you've started throwing the term ' vulnerable adult ' about in regard to your relative, you do realise that this term has a specific  meaning in law ?

d123

GenericDad said:

Even though they were relying on an expert in their field to guide them and make recommendations?

As others have already said, no phone shops employ “experts in their field” in their retail shops, just like DFS doesn’t employ expert sofa makers in their shops.

They employ sales staff to sell their product to customers.

zagfles

Brie said:

In contradiction of the others (who may be correct in what they are saying) I would suggest a complaint being logged on behalf of the elderly individual to point out that it was a case of taking advantage of an elderly and vulnerable individual. 

Now your elderly granny (or whomever) might be completely on the ball for most things - politics, finances, the lineage in Wagnerian opera - but technology is a different game all together.  I'm reasonably bright and techy but it took me some time to get my head around "apps" simply because they were new to me and I didn't know what was actually being talked about particularly when I made the leap from a stupid to a smart phone.  Most companies have some sort of "vulnerable customer" team that would see the sense of correcting the salesperson's overly optimistic patter and ensure there's no bad publicity about how granny has been been financially disadvantaged by corporate greed.  

Agreed. This is worse than PPI misselling, at least most people can understand the concept of PPI, probably better than understanding how much data they need on their mobile.

I'd suggest putting in a complaint, maybe in person in the shop, preferably when there's other people in they're trying to sell to. If that doesn't work, most major newspapers have a financial/consumer advice section where they answer readers' questions and often take up issues, funny how companies often back down when a financial journalist shames them into it, regardless of the legalities. Virtually nobody needs 164GB, it's a ridiculous amount. Most normal users shouldn't need more than 1 or 2 GB a month!