A total of 1 million euros fines for Vodafone, Wind, Telecom and Fastweb, the four most used telephone companies in Italy. Antitrust has sanctioned telephone operators for invoices sent to customers even after withdrawal: According to the agency, companies have practiced unfair practices in managing terminations of fixed and mobile phone users.
Bills even after cancellation: Vodafone, Wind, Telecom and Fastweb fined
The Antitrust Authority fined Vodafone SpA 400,000 Euros, Wind Tre SpA 300,000 Euros, Telecom SpA 200,000 Euros and Fastweb SpA 100 thousand Euros. Antitrust investigations made it possible to detect the unlawful conduct of the four telephone operators in the management of the terminations of fixed and mobile telephone users, even under the hypothesis of switching to another operator.
In particular, starting at least January 2020, critical issues have emerged in the management of internal procedures for cessation of utilities, resulting in cases of post-withdrawal billing or user double-billing in transition. Both new and previous operators were asked to pay their bills illegally.
According to the agency, unlawful continuation of billing after a termination of service request can be attributed to technical anomalies and misalignments between IT management systems in each company’s internal processes. scopes have not adopted effective control mechanisms and timely intervention.
The four telephone companies have been warned not to continue the malpractice and will have to notify the Agency of attempts to do so within 90 days.
“Issues to be resolved. Minimum fines”
Antitrust fines against the four phone giants have been well received by consumer associations, but as Massimiliano Dona, president of Unc (National Consumers Association), recalls, there are still many issues to be resolved: “Excellent news that we hope will come. It is not clear why it is easy to activate a contract, but then it becomes a problem to be able to cancel it. It should be extended to every industry. To terminate a contract, the same tools for which it was activated, for example, on the phone, must be used. It is foreseen and governed by the duplicate article 1, paragraph 3 of the Decree. January 2007, n.7, but unfortunately it is not taken into account and misunderstandings and duplicate billing prevail. Let’s not talk about the withdrawal fees, which should be removed completely, as was done for mortgages”.
Codacons president Gianluca Di Ascenzo’s comment follows the same line: “The sanctions against Vodafone, Wind, Telecom and Fastweb are completely unimportant and the only result is to ‘tickle the phone giants’.” It notifies Antitrust of unfair practices against users who continue to be billed for unused services, or payment requests from users who have stopped for a while,” explains Di. Ascenzo – It’s a policy that pushes consumers to pay bills to avoid fear of backlash and legal disputes, even if illegal, and by telephone companies. applications that enrich the pocket. Antitrust is compelling telephone companies to record the Corporation’s fines as a usual business risk, recognizing that misapplications will result in collections greater than the value of the fines.”
Source: Today IT
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
