The telecoms industry is rotten to the core - this is not specific to Vodafone by any means. This situation involving the death of the account holder is an ext

The telecoms industry is rotten to the core - this is not specific to Vodafone by any means. This situation involving the death of the account holder is an extreme case, but contracts and the threat of ruining one's credit is a routine way they use to extract more money even when they don't deserve it and may be in breach of the law (billing for services not rendered, etc). Unlike an actual credit agreement which is overseen by the FCA and gives you avenues to complain, there is no such regulator for normal contracts without a credit agreement involved. A good first step would be to just prohibit contracts altogether (for the devices themselves, a separate credit agreement can be set up independent of the network service). There's no reason a service that can be started & stopped automatically without any upfront cost nor physical intervention should require a contract. Sadly, it won't happen because the telecommunications regulator is in bed with the carriers.