Open letter to broadband and mobile providers
Which? has written an open letter to broadband and mobile providers - BT, EE, O2, PlusNet, Shell Energy Broadband, TalkTalk, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Media and Vodafone - urging them to immediately scrap inflation-linked mid-contract price hikes.
To all those broadband and mobile companies hiking up prices beyond inflation,
It's not fair, and you need to stop.
For years, you’ve got away with locking customers into mobile and broadband contracts and then increasing your prices, often above the rate of inflation.
Consumers are trapped. We have to cough up extra money to pay for your unpredictable price hikes, or, in many cases, pay exorbitant exit fees to leave the contract.
For us, this lose-lose situation was bad enough when inflation was low. But then you hiked prices by up to 17%* during the cost of living crisis. And now you’re plotting to increase prices again.
After the inflation data gets published, new price rises could cost us more than £400 million** from April.
Your regulator, Ofcom, has found that these unpredictable price hikes are causing ‘substantial consumer harm’.
You have the power to stop them, right now, for all your customers. So we’re calling you out: it’s time to play fair.
Yours sincerely,
Which?
The UK’s consumer champion
#CallItOut
Consumers, sign our petition.
*Mobile contract price hikes by O2 and Virgin Mobile. In spring 2023, most customers on contracts subject to inflation-linked price rises saw their bills increase between 14% and 17%.
**Based on an estimate of customers currently in contracts that allow inflation-linked price rises in April 2024 and plausible forecasts of inflation.