Mobile network operator EE UK has confirmed to ISPreview that it overcharged a “very small” number of customers, in some cases by hundreds of pounds, for calls that should have been included as part of their bundled allowance. The issue appears to have occurred as part of the operator’s move to adopt a new billing system.
Most people these days tend to have mobile plans that come with an unlimited allowance for UK calls and texts, which is pretty much the industry standard, particularly on Pay Monthly SIMs. Suffice to say that customers making normal UK calls on such a plan don’t expect to be charged more than their usual monthly rate for these, and certainly not hundreds of pounds more!
Unfortunately, this appears to be precisely what occurred for a small number of unlucky customers when EE began moving accounts over to their new real-time billing system, which in some cases resulted in those same users being charged hundreds of pounds more than they were expecting.
The issue, which was first raised to ISPreview by one of our readers (Andy), appears to have started around early September 2024 and was soon identified as impacting other customers – see EE’s own community forum (here, here, here and here). The overcharging figures range from around £90 and up to the £400 mark, with some of those affected saying that, despite repeated complaints, they’ve either struggled to get the charges refunded or were, somewhat worryingly, initially told that they’d still have to pay it.
Andy told ISPreview:
“The problem is, for users like me who have unlimited minutes and texts for example, they are overcharged. My bill in Sept for example had £250 added charges for calls to 01 [landline uk] and 07 [mobile uk] numbers which I was never charged for on previous bills.
I have not had Octobers bill yet, but others have reported they too have been overcharged again in October by £300 to £400 for calls that should be part of their allowance.
EE have told various customers its a known issue but not everyone on the forums has had the same customer service experience, with some EE staff telling customers they will still have to pay the charges or face risking credit history damage etc.”
On a major operator like EE, which is home to millions of customers, it’s not unusual to have the odd issue with incorrect billing and Ofcom have certainly had to deal with bigger complaints about this in the past (e.g. here, here and here). Nevertheless, some customers have clearly faced difficulties in getting the problem identified, which is why ISPreview stepped in to have a closer look.
In response, EE confirmed to us that a “very small” number of customers were indeed billed incorrectly for inclusive calls, during the move to a new system. But the operator also informed us that the impacted customers have now been identified and automatically credited for those charges, although not all of those affected have confirmed this to us yet.
Sadly, EE did not provide a quote for us to use, but hopefully they have apologised to those impacted for taking hundreds of pounds more than expected from your customers’ accounts, in some cases more than once. Not everybody can stomach that sort of hit, even if it is eventually resolved, in the current cost-of-living crisis and there’s always the risk of knock-on impacts (extra bank charges, difficulties paying other bills etc.).