A select few EE customers are to divide up £1 million as compensation for being wrongly charged value-added tax.
Those eligible for the rebate used internet data while travelling outside of the EU between October 2012 and October 2015.
This amounts to roughly 0.5 per cent of EE’s total customer-base, with refunds totalling in at anywhere from £2 to £80 per customer.
EE has around 28 million customers, which puts the total refund-eligible users at somewhere near 140,000.
David Nielberg, a spokesperson for EE, told the BBC the following: “Due to a configuration error in our billing system, made following a system change, a small number of
“This was a mistake, and we are now refunding these charges and contacting affected customers to apologise for the error.”
Nielberg then confirmed that EE never had access to the misappropriated moolah, with the cash instead going directly to Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs office.
He continued: “We’ve claimed that money back from HMRC, and then it goes back to the customers.”
Related: EE gained 5.7 million customers in 2014
Customers who were overcharged will be notified by text message, confirming the exact amount of money they’re owed.
The money won’t be refunded as cash, with EE instead applying equivalent credit to customer accounts.
The issue came to light after a customer complained about being overcharged, with the resultant investigation highlighting more cases of dodgy VAT charges.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
