For 28-day bills, not only fines for telecommunications companies will be triggered, but also a sort of compensation for users, through a compensatory mechanism. Il Sole 24Ore writes it, according to which for the telephone companies the issue of billing in 28 days instead of a month risks turning into a drain not just, well above the fine of 1,160 million which Agcom imposed, for each, on Tim, Vodafone, Wind Tre and Fastweb.
The Authority for Communications Guarantees went heavy in the resolutions with which it fined the four operators for their decision not to comply - they should have done so from the end of June, and from now it is also prohibited by law, according to the provisions of the tax decree recently approved – to the monthly billing for one's landline or hybrid (fixed-mobile) services.
As provided by Agcom telcos will not technically be required to "refund". Having said that, however, it is established that they will have to reverse from the first "bill" issued on a monthly basis the quantum for the figures asked of users for the "eroded" days starting from 23 June. If the increase on an annual basis was 8,6% for 1,19 billion (as indicated in an Agcom study), users will have to return all the extra payments from 23 June in the form of a reversal. This can be deduced from the Authority's resolutions published on the Agcom website. In each (one for each operator) "the aforementioned company is invited to provide - when restoring the billing cycle on a monthly basis or multiples of the month - to reverse the amounts corresponding to the fee for the number of days which, starting since 23 June 2017, they have not been used by users in terms of service provision due to the misalignment between the four-weekly billing cycle and the monthly billing cycle. In the first invoice issued on a monthly basis, the operator is required to communicate with adequate prominence that the reversal took place in compliance with this provision".
In short, hundreds of millions considering that the companies – that as well have announced that they will revert to monthly billing – they also have until April to comply, as required by tax decree 148/2017 (later converted into law 172/2017) which put a stop to 4-week billing for TLC and pay TV. In the meantime, it is presumable that a rain of appeals to the Tar against the Authority's decision will be triggered.
This bad news for operators (but good for consumers) is joined by much better news for Tim and Vodafone: the Antitrust has closed the investigations relating to cases of telemarketing, or the "aggressive" commercial offers implemented by the two companies for some time to the detriment of users. The two companies presented a series of voluntary commitments to the Antitrust which the Authority judged "suitable for remedying the possible profiles of illegitimacy of the commercial practice" contested with the opening of two investigations on 30 March 2017.
