EE fined £2.7m for overcharging customers by 630%

Mobile operator EE has been fined £2.7m after it mistakenly overcharged tens of thousands of customers by more than 630 per cent.

At least 32,145 users of the network's 150 customer service line were incorrectly charged, adding up to around £245,700 in total, says The Guardian.

Despite the calls being made while the customers were travelling in the EU, they were charged at the US rate, which cost £1.20 per minute instead of 19p.

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In a second breach, after these calls were made free in November 2015, 7,674 customers were charged a total of £2,203.33 for using the service between then and 11 January 2016, says The Sun.

EE, which was acquired in a £12.5bn deal by BT last year, was also criticised for initially stating it could not identify the affected customers and offering instead to donate the overcharged sum to charity.

It has since repaid most users, but was unable to identify at least 6,905 who have been left around £60,000 out of pocket. It has made a £62,000 donation to charity in lieu of compensation.

"Ofcom is requiring EE to make further attempts to trace and refund every customer who was overcharged," adds the Guardian.

As EE agreed to the settlement and accepted liability, it qualified for a ten per cent discount on its penalty.

A spokesman said: "We accept these findings and apologise unreservedly to those customers affected by these technical billing issues between 2014 and 2015.

"We have put measures in place to prevent this from happening again and have contacted the majority of customers to apologise and provide a full refund."