Virgin Mobile and O2 have announced they will impose some pretty big increases to customer phone contracts in April.
As standard you will have seen the Retail Price Index (RPI) being introduced to your contract each year.
This is an industry standard and bothers few of us as the increase commonly only amounts to a could of pound or about 3% of the contract value.
However, this year Virgin Mobile and O2 are talking about 11.7% increases in the monthly contract cost, placing the blame solely on inflation costs.
Virgin has stated that their customers were made aware of increases in January and were given 30-days to cancel the contract penalty free.
RPI for this year is higher than most, with 7.8% being the official figure, which is not uncommon, but is higher than the average.
Virgin Mobile will be enforcing the 7.8% and an additional 3.9% on top to all customers, however O2will only give the additional 3.9% to those customers who joined or upgraded after 25 March 2021.
“Providers should let consumers walk away penalty-free from these hikes. said telecoms expert at Uswitch.com Ernest Doku.
“These mid-contract rises are written into customers’ contracts, but no-one signing up for their deal 12 months ago could have guessed what their increase would be.
“Mobile users cannot be expected to guess what future inflation rates will be when they take out their contracts.”
Both Virgin Mobile and O2 are defending the increase, Virgin Media stated the fact they offered their customer free cancellation was fair.
O2 has taken a slightly different tact and has stated that customers are still receiving “incredible value” despite the price hikes.
