EE charged a widow £1,007 to end her late husband’s contract — then sent a second letter halving the fee to £520. The letters, addressed cheerfully to the deceased man, arrived one day apart and suggested he could simply take the contract with him if he moved house.
SP from Norwich, who asked to be identified only by her initials, told the Guardian that her husband had been paying £171 a month for their EE broadband and TV package. After his sudden death, she began what became a months-long ordeal of conflicting offers, contradictory letters and a system that, even by the admission of EE’s own agents, would not let them help her.
The Widow’s Struggle
The first phone call to EE produced a seemingly straightforward offer: a monthly deal at £44.99. But that promise did not survive the company’s own internal processes. Over the following weeks, SP was passed between departments with names such as “bereavement”, “value”, “life events”, “loyalty” and “connections”. Each call brought a new proposal, none of which materialised.
A first agent offered a monthly price of £56.99 — but only if she accepted a gap in service. A second told her: “If this was BT I could do it” — a reference to BT, the parent company of EE — and added a £60 credit to her account. A third simply said: “I’m stuck.” A fourth persuaded her to pay £112.63 to enable him to “sort things out”, only to discover that the system would not allow the cheaper deal to be applied.
Throughout the process, SP said the agents were “kind and helpful” but consistently blamed a single obstacle: “the system”.
The System That Wouldn’t Bend
EE’s own procedures, as outlined on its website, appear straightforward. Customers can notify the company of a bereavement via an online form or by calling 150 from an EE phone or 07973 100 150 from any phone. The options are to disconnect the line and close the account, or transfer the service to someone else. The company’s stated policy is that accounts can be closed without cancellation fees when a death is reported, and some sources suggest a death certificate may be requested — though others indicate this is no longer mandatory.
In practice, however, the widow encountered a far more rigid reality. The account, which had been in her late husband’s name, could not simply be transferred to her. Instead, EE’s internal system insisted on a new contract — triggering early termination charges on the old one. The first letter demanding £1,007 was calculated based on the remaining months of the contract, though EE’s early termination fees are typically reduced by costs the company saves from a customer leaving early, plus a further discount for early payment. One industry forum suggested the actual charge works out at roughly one-third of the remaining contract value. The second letter, for £520, appeared to be an adjusted version — but neither communicated to SP that as a bereaved account holder she should have faced no fee at all.
EE does have a dedicated “Life Events” team intended to handle such cases. Yet the widow’s experience suggests that team is not always able to override the system. Agents repeatedly found themselves blocked: unable to change the account holder’s name, unable to apply the £44.99 deal, and unable to prevent the generation of termination charges. In one case, an agent accepted a payment of £112.63 from SP to facilitate a solution, only to discover the system would not allow the cheaper deal — leaving her out of pocket as well as frustrated.
The inflexibility echoes broader patterns within EE’s customer service. According to Ofcom figures for the third quarter of 2025, EE, along with TalkTalk and Vodafone, generated the most broadband complaints. EE’s complaint levels were unchanged from the previous quarter. The company was also the most complained-about pay-TV provider in the same period. In Q2 2025, EE attracted the most grievances for both broadband and mobile services. While overall complaint volumes across the industry remained broadly stable, EE consistently appears among the worst performers relative to its customer base.
The same system rigidity has affected other customers attempting to transfer accounts after a bereavement. One EE user reported that changing the account holder’s name after a spouse’s death resulted in an automatic increase in cost and a new 24-month contract, because a “joint discount” was removed. Another customer who tried to switch to BT — part of the same corporate group — was told they must go back through EE’s bereavement team and could not access a “new customer” discount.
Resolution — After the Guardian Intervened
SP’s case was resolved only after the Guardian flagged her distress to EE. A customer service manager called her less than two hours later. Within that call, the company managed to put her on the £44.99 deal it had originally promised, refunded the extra charges she had incurred — including the £112.63 payment — and added a month’s credit as goodwill.
The episode highlights a fundamental gap between EE’s written bereavement policies and the experience of its customers. The company’s own agents, however sympathetic, told the widow they were powerless. The system, they said, would not allow it.
