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EE Power Bar recall: Telco will waive £5 fee for laggards

Small print said you'd pay if you didn't give it back

EE has confirmed it will not apply extra charges to customers who don't return their Power Bars, despite the mass recall announced this morning.

Half a million of the devices have already been recalled by EE, following an exclusive story by The Register revealing that managers had been warned the bar was not safe to use.

The latest recall notice, for all remaining Power Bars, says EE customers with one of the external USB batteries "should stop using it straight away and hand it in to one of our stores".

A £20 voucher is up for grabs for those who do.

But some commentards on El Reg worried that the telco might start charging customers who had lost or otherwise disposed of their Power Bars by other means.

Eagle-eyed reader mylittlepony wrote:

I had 3 of the first wave, one did get hot on its first charge. Took them all back to the shop, got one £20 voucher as the other 2 "weren't on the system"..... Didn't spend the voucher, twas all junk on offer really. A month later I get a marketing-head letter asking about the other 2 "Our records indicate...blah"

Given the small print says I get charged if they don't return to them after 18 months, I wonder which set of records will EE use....

Some further digging revealed clause 2.7 of the EE Power Bar terms and conditions (PDF, 300kB):

When your EE Power agreement expires or terminates (for mobile or broadband customer this will happen automatically if you choose to cancel your agreement with us for mobile or broadband services), you must return the Power Bar to an EE store within 60 days. If you don’t we reserve our legal rights to recover the Power Bar from you. If it is not possible to do this because it has been lost or stolen and you’ve paid to receive the Service (clause 1.4 above), we reserve our right to charge you for the costs we incur replacing the Power Bar. The Power Bar replacement charge will be set at EE’s sole discretion and will be between £0.01 and £5.00 based on the depreciating value of the Power Bar. If you’re an EE customer that has redeemed a Power Bar using a code (referred to in clause 1.3 above), a replacement charge will not apply.

When we contacted EE to ask whether forgetful customers would see their bills shoot up in the New Year as a result of the recall, a spokesman told El Reg: "We have no plans to apply the £5 charge."

So there you have it. ®

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