People who used to be with telecommunications company O2 but left before its newly announced price hike have been urged to check whether they are owed money back if they paid an ‘unnecessary’ bailout fee. It comes as some former customers have reportedly been charged for leaving, with some being asked to pay up to £300 after taking action to avoid the increase.
O2, which merged with Virgin Media back in 2021, confirmed plans to increase most Pay Monthly and SIM-only bills by a flat £2.50 per month from April 2026. This change applies to both new customers and those in the middle of existing contracts, which is 70p a month more than initially planned.
Customers on social tariffs continue to be exempt from any price increases. Price changes are only applied to customers’ airtime plans, with device plans frozen, and no changes take effect immediately.
This triggered the automatic right for people to walk away from their current airtime contract without paying an early exit penalty. At the time of writing, the penalty-free period is not in effect as it ended on November 22, 2025, or 30 days after a customer received their specific notification.
Martin Lewis claimed the price rise “made a mockery of regulator Ofcom’s new rules” during a segment on ITV’s Good Morning Britain last month. These guidelines state that customers have to be told when they sign up about planned price hikes.
However, members of Martin’s MoneySavingExpert team have claimed that people were getting in touch to share their issues as some were charged up to £300 to leave their contract. Some examples highlighted by the site include one customer who had a termination fee of just under £275 on their final bill from O2.
One claimed: “On [MSE’s] recommendation, my wife and I recently transferred our O2 Sim-only contracts, and we both received texts from O2 stating that the early termination charge would be £0.
“However, I have now received a bill from O2 saying that the termination fee is £274.52! When I spoke to them on the phone they couldn’t explain why this was, but nor were they able to cancel the fee.”
Another person wrote to Martin’s team: “I recently took the advice to cancel my O2 Sim-only contract due to the mid-contract unexpected price hike. However, after a few days, O2 sent me a final bill for nearly £300. I then had to call up to resolve this.”
A third shared: “I followed [MSE’s] advice after receiving emails of the change in T&Cs and tried to haggle a reduced price for our two O2 phones. We asked for our PACs, received this via email with confirmation of £0 termination fees.
“Yesterday, we received a final bill of £100.21 via email. I called them this morning and they agreed to ‘waive’ their termination charge! It shouldn’t have been charged in the first place!”
If you’ve been wrongly told to pay an exit fee or to repay your handset in full, the MSE team has urged people to complain to O2. You can contact O2 over the phone, online, via social media and in-store.
An O2 spokesperson told The Express: “We have been fully transparent with our millions of customers about this change, writing directly to them and providing the right to exit without penalty if they wish, which is fully in line with existing rules. While we recognise price changes are never welcome, an increase equivalent to 8p per day is greatly outweighed by the £700m we invest each year into our mobile network to meet record demand for connectivity.
“Any customer who had any questions or concerns while exercising their right to exit was able to contact us directly and our teams were happy to support, as they did successfully with a small handful of isolated cases raised with us by Money Saving Expert.”
