Can Vodafone increase broadand charge in the first year of my contract?

sarar

Today I received an email from Vodafone to say my broadband had increased from April, but I thought and it states on this site:

Under rules from regulator Ofcom, if the contract was taken out after 23 January 2014, and your landline, broadband or mobile (but not TV) firm raises prices without warning you before you signed up, then you are allowed to leave penalty-free.

I have called Vodafone and said I am not happy and the girl just kept telling my their will be a penalty if I leave as the Ofcom Regulator had changed the rules about 4 times since then.

Im just wondering now who is correct, MSE or Vodafone?

oldernonethewiser

What was in the contract information when you signed up?

These increases are almost standard practice so surprised if it wasn't mentioned.

iniltous

2014 is a decade ago , since then many providers have built in annual increases based on the January inflation figure plus x% , ( so this year around 8% ) if this increase it’s not hidden away in the T&C’s , and sufficient prominent in the VF advertisements ,  then it’s perfectly legal and pretty much standard industry practice ….so the VF rep is correct, if you leave you will be liable to early termination charges , you agreed to the increase when you took the contract out , there is a rule change coming, but all that will be is the ISP will guess what they think inflation will be , so the advert instead of saying CPI /RPI +3.9% , will say something like £40 a month going up in April to £44 and then £49 the April after , and it won’t matter if inflation is 1% or 10% .

MSE_Chris

Hi sarar,

Thanks for messaging to check this!

The bit you've quoted from our site is technically still correct, despite being a rule from 2014:

Under rules from regulator Ofcom, if the contract was taken out after 23 January 2014, and your landline, broadband or mobile (but not TV) firm raises prices without warning you before you signed up, then you are allowed to leave penalty-free.

But it only applies if a provider doesn't include a provision for price hikes in its contract. We know this to be the case with Sky and Now Broadband, so with those, you are free to leave without penalty if it hikes prices. However, Vodafone have, for sometime now, included price hike provisions within its T&C's, so you're not able to leave when it hiked prices this month (myself included).

As others have mentioned, it's now standard practice to hike prices each year in line with inflation + x% on top.

If you've been with Vodafone for a long time and haven't re-contracted, you might want to check your original T&C's to make sure this provision is in there, but there's a high chance it is.

We might tweak our copy on our site to better explain this.

Many thanks,
MSE Chris