EE customers stuck in contracts can leave for free due to price rise

EE customers have been given another 30-days to switch network providers without being slapped with early-exit fees if they want to avoid being stung by rate hikes.

The provider increased the price of out-of-bundle services which saw the cost of extra minutes go up by 100 per cent in June.

At the time, EE alerted a handful of customers who they felt may be affected by the charges because they regularly go over their paid-for bundles.

But the consumer watchdog has since ruled that the firm was "not clear enough" in explaining that customers could leave their contracts early penalty-free before the higher prices took affect on June 25.

Ofgem ordered the provider to give customers a second chance after it received a number of complaints.

As well as the extra 30 days, customers will also be refunded any additional charges they paid for as a result of June's price hikes.

EE has agreed to once again contact the customers that it believes have been affected by the hikes to let them know that they have another chance to switch without paying an early-exit fee.

Customers will received an email or a letter on August 16.

EE said: "Following feedback from Ofcom, we are now re-contacting customers identified as materially worse off to ensure that they're fully informed of the changes and the options available to them.

"These include the option to cancel the impacted contract without charge, change plan or purchase add-ons that will make using these services cheaper when compared to paying a per minute charge. We're sorry for any confusion this has caused."

EE has about 30 million customers in the UK but the changes only apply to those with pay monthly contracts.

From the end of June, calls to Ireland and the Channel Islands double from 50p per minute to £1.

Customers making a call to any other European country now pay £1.50 per minute instead of £1.

Calls to other parts of the world from the UK went up to £2 a minute – up from £1.60.

The cost of out of contract calls to UK landlines, mobiles and voicemail increased by 5p a minute to 55p.

These include access charges for calling numbers starting with 08, 09 and 118. Picture messages also went up at the same rate.

In February, the mobile provider already increased prices for millions of customers by 4.1 per cent - in line with the Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure of inflation.

While Virgin Mobile hiked prices by 3.3 per cent this month.

Mobile firm Three also announced a rise of 2.6 per cent earlier this year for millions of customers.