How to get out of a 4Com contract — the 7-year lease explained

If you’re here, you’ve probably just seen a price jump, gone looking for your contract end date, or tried to leave and hit a number that made your stomach drop. This guide explains — in plain English — how a typical 4Com deal is structured, what leaving actually costs, the legitimate routes out, and how to protect your phone numbers while you sort it. We’re a UK phone provider, and yes, we’d be glad to earn your business. But the guide comes first. If we’re a fit by the end, great. If not, you’ll still walk away knowing exactly where you stand.

This covers 4Com and its associated brands — including HiHi (the handsets and software) and Campfire— because the contract structure is the same across them.

You’ve probably already seen the BBC News articles and investigations into 4Com — the mis-selling, and small businesses trapped in ridiculously expensive, long phone contracts. If that’s what brought you here, you’re in the right place: below is how those deals are built, and the practical steps to fight back.

Why a 4Com deal can feel like a trap: the three moving parts

Most UK business phone contracts are one agreement, one price, one provider, 24–36 months, clear end date. According to public reviews and the contract structure, a 4Com deal often combines three separate moving parts instead:

• A service agreement with 4Com— typically 24 or 36 months.
• A separate equipment lease— with a third-party finance company (reviewers name Propel Finance or BNP Paribas), typically 60 or 84 months — that’s 5 to 7 years.
• An introductory discount that expires partway through, often around month 18.

Each part can look reasonable alone. The difficulty reviewers describe is how they interact: the service deal and the finance lease run on different clocks, so even after the 4Com service agreement ends, you can still owe years of payments on the leased hardware.

The 18-month discount cliff

The pattern reviewers describe most often: an attractive headline rate for the first 18 months (sometimes 24), then a sharp step up once the introductory discount falls away.

One widely-repeated example in 1-star reviews: a bill rising from around £150/month to roughly £450/month— with years still left on the lease and no straightforward exit. Whether or not your numbers match that, the lesson is simple: find your discount-expiry date and your lease end-date, and check they’re not years apart. They often are.

What leaving actually costs

Because the hardware sits on a finance lease, leaving early isn’t a simple cancellation — it typically means settling the remaining lease payments plus any unexpired service. A rough way to estimate your own exposure:

(months left on the lease × monthly lease payment × number of handsets) + (unexpired service months × monthly service rate) + VAT and any admin fees.

Reviewers have reported exit quotes in the region of £24,000–£28,000 for small businesses with several handsets. Yours may be far lower — but do the sum before you assume leaving is unaffordable. Sometimes the settlement figure is smaller than years of the post-discount rate.

Your routes out — the verified steps

First, know you have two separate contracts— the 4Com phone service, and a finance lease for the equipment (often Propel Finance or BNP Paribas). They have different complaint routes. Check both.

Step 1 — Complain to 4Com in writing

Call 0330 444 4444 or email, and ask for their formal complaints procedure. Keep everything in writing.

Step 2 — Escalate the phone-service dispute (free, independent)

If it’s unresolved after 6 weeks, or you receive a deadlock letter, take it to 4Com’s Ofcom-approved ADR scheme — the Communications Ombudsman:

• commsombudsman.org
• enquiry@commsombudsman.org
• 0330 440 1614 (Mon–Fri 8am–8pm, Sat 9am–1pm)
• Communications Ombudsman, P.O. Box 730, Warrington, WA4 6WU

Step 3 — The equipment lease is a separate, FCA-regulated matter

Because the hardware sits on a finance agreement, complaints about the lease are handled first by 4Com (under FCA complaint-forwarding rules), and if unresolved may be escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service— a different body from the telecoms one:

• financial-ombudsman.org.uk — the online complaint form is the easiest route (it first checks they’re the right body to help and that you’ve already complained to the firm)
• 0800 023 4567 (8am–5pm, Mon–Fri)
• Exchange Tower, London, E14 9SR

Check your eligibility with the Financial Ombudsman directly — the small-business thresholds differ from the telecoms scheme.

Step 4 — On “blacklist” threats

There is no centralised UK telecoms blacklist that stops a business switching providers. If you’re told otherwise, ask for it in writing — that’s useful evidence for the ombudsman.

Know which rules are on your side

This isn’t legal advice, and we’re not accusing anyone of anything — every business’s paperwork is different. But it helps to know which protections potentially apply, because the answer depends largely on your size.

If you’re a small business (10 employees or fewer): you get the strongest protections. Your provider must, under Ofcom’s General Conditions (Part C), give clear pre-contract information and run a proper complaints process — and you can escalate free to the Communications Ombudsman (above). If the way the deal was sold was misleading or pressured, that can also engage the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008.

If you’re a larger business: most of the Ofcom consumer/small-business protections don’t automatically apply to you. Your route is contract law— for example, if you were told something untrue at the point of sale that you relied on, that’s potentially misrepresentation, which can be a ground to challenge a contract. This is solicitor territory; get advice before you act.

Whatever your size — the equipment lease is separate. The finance lease (Propel / BNP Paribas) is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), not Ofcom. Complaints about how the lease was sold or its affordability follow the FCA route and may end at the Financial Ombudsman Service — a different body, with its own eligibility rules. Don’t assume a win on the phone-service side clears the lease, or vice versa.

Use 4Com’s own Code of Conduct against them

Here’s a tool most people don’t realise they have: 4Com publishes a Code of Conduct, and it makes promises you can hold them to. When their written commitments don’t match what happened to you, quote their own words back at them — in your complaint, and to the ombudsman. Read 4Com’s published Code of Conduct, then use it:

• They promise terms are “clearly communicated at the point of sale” with copies provided. If the spoken sales pitch didn’t match the written contract, that’s their own standard they fell short of. Say so, in writing.
• They promise “an immediate refund upon customer request” for overcharges made in error. If you’ve been billed for something you didn’t agree to, ask for that refund — and cite their code when you do.
• They commit to Ofcom’s Approved Complaints Code and ADR membership. They’ve publicly bound themselves to the proper complaints-and-ombudsman process — they can’t simply ignore it.

The strongest move: a Subject Access Request (it’s free)

4Com’s code states they comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 and that you can request the information they hold on you. That gives you a Subject Access Request (SAR)— a legal right under UK GDPR to demand, for free:

• The recording or notes of your original sales call
• The signed contract and lease documents
• The account notes and correspondence on file

Why it matters: if your sales call was recorded and the salesperson said the price was fixed, or that you’d own the equipment after the term — exactly the kinds of claims a BBC investigation reported (below) — that recording becomes your evidence, handed to you by 4Com themselves. Email them, state clearly “This is a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act 2018 / UK GDPR,” and they must respond (normally within one month).

Move your numbers to safety first — we do it free

Here’s the step most people miss, and it’s the most important: port your phone numbers away early, while the dispute is still going on.

Your numbers are the one thing you can’t afford to lose — customers call them, they’re on your vans, your website, your Google listing. As long as 4Com holds them, there’s a risk they become a bargaining chip. Move them somewhere neutral and that leverage disappears.

• You don’t need 4Com’s permission to start. UK number portability is gaining-provider-led — you ask us, and we run the port. Taking your numbers with you is your legal right.
• We do it for free. We absorb the wholesale transfer fee. No charge to bring your numbers in.
• It takes around 10–15 working daysfor most business numbers (a single line can be quicker). The cutover itself is seamless — we build your call routing in advance, so the moment the port activates your calls simply start arriving with us.

The process is quick and we run it for you. You can start your free port here — or read how UK number porting works first. Prefer to talk it through? Email help@numbergroup.comor call 0800 310 1010 and we’ll walk you through it.

You’re not alone — and the BBC has reported on it

If this feels like it’s happened to a lot of businesses, that’s because it has. In July 2025, BBC News ran an investigation into exactly these phone-leasing contracts: “£54k to rent five phones is killing my business” — BBC News, 3 July 2025. What the BBC reported:

• More than 160 small business owners came forward after an earlier undercover investigation; the complaints spanned around 20 telecoms companies using the same finance firms — and the BBC reported more than half were 4Com customers, mostly family businesses with fewer than 10 employees.
• One graphic designer in Bradford described paying £54,432 (ex VAT) over 10 years to rent five phones and software — a separate 7-year finance deal for 4Com’s HiHi handsets, after a 2-year introductory rate that jumped from ~£200 to £550+/month.
• Independent telecoms experts told the BBC customers were charged “in some cases many times more than the industry standard,” including for basics like call logs that “come free with any telephone system.”
• The BBC highlighted a key trap: there is no cooling-off period for business-to-business contracts in the UK (unlike consumer contracts) — so signing on the spot is binding.

Other places that can help (free, independent)

• Citizens Advice— free guidance on contracts and your options: citizensadvice.org.uk
• Your local Trading Standards— for misleading or pressured selling; report via the Citizens Advice consumer service
• The finance company directly (Propel / BNP Paribas / others named on your lease) — request a copy of the credit agreement you signed; you’re entitled to it
• A solicitor— especially if you’re a larger business, where contract law (not Ofcom) is your route

These all exist whether or not you ever speak to us. Use them.

When you’re free — here’s the opposite of everything above

If you do get out, here’s how we’d rather it worked. No spin — just the deal. NumberGroup Membership is £149/month:

• No contract. No notice period. No equipment lease. Leave any month you like.
• Unlimited UK numbers— any 01, 02, 03, 0800 or 0808 area code.
• SIP trunks— any channels, any volume, no per-channel fee.
• Hosted phone system— voicemail, IVR, call recording, routing, all included.
• Calls at the wholesale rates we pay— 0.3p/min landline, 0.6p/min mobile. Pass-through, not marked up.
• Bring your existing numbers in — free. We absorb the transfer fee.
• 30-day, no-questions refund.

We make our profit on the membership, not on locking you in. No 7-year lease, no discount cliff, no exit fee designed to keep you.

And while your dispute is ongoing — we’ll waive the membership fee

We don’t think you should pay two providers at once just to escape one bad deal. So while your 4Com dispute is live, we’ll waive your NumberGroup membership fee for up to 6 months. You only pay for the calls you make, at our wholesale rates. Get set up, get your numbers safe, and don’t pay a membership penny until you’re free.

(We’re upfront about the limits too: £149 is the only price afterwards, handsets are Grandstream, expensive call destinations are blocked by default for bill-shock protection, and very large setups need a quick chat first. We publish those alongside the benefits — that’s the kind of company we’re trying to be.)

Even if you never come to us

We mean this. The steps above work whether or not you ever become a NumberGroup customer — complain, escalate to the right ombudsman, check which rules apply to your size, and get your numbers somewhere safe. If that’s all you take from this page and you sort your 4Com situation another way, brilliant. We’d rather have helped a business get unstuck than trapped one ourselves. And if you want a hand making sense of your paperwork before you decide anything, email help@numbergroup.com — no pitch, no obligation.