Reimbursement of bills invoiced within 28 days? Despite the resolution of the Communications Authority and the sentences of the Council of State, moving to obtain from Tim, Vodafone, Fastweb and Windtre the right refreshment for a billing which in fact penalized the customer with a "thirteenth" bill on an annual basis, is like enter an obstacle course.
According to Agcom, the refund should be automatic. In fact, when asked, the Authority replies "the operators Tim, Fastweb, Vodafone and Windtre must provide for the return without requiring a request from the interested users". However, Agcom recalls that resolution 269/19/CONS also provides for the possibility for operators to offer "alternative compensation solutions to the return of eroded days", but "only if expressly chosen by users, through explicit consent, after they have been provided with clear and complete information on the fact that this choice determines the renunciation of the return of the eroded days".
So Agcom is clear: the refund must take place automatically. "The operator - says the Authority - is required to return the fee, without there being a specific request" from the customer. What happens, actually? In reality, it is the user who has to take the initiative, filling out a form, searching the Internet for the home pages of telephone companies or calling a precise number.
Tim refers customers to the telephone number 187 which, after several failed attempts due to "heavy traffic" on the line, suggests writing a registered letter to be sent to Telecom Italia Spa, post office box 111, zip code 00054 Fiumicino (Rome) requesting reimbursement for 28-day billing for the period from day X to day Y and providing everything with a copy of the identity card and the front-back tax code.
Users of Wind Tre are invited to access their customer area and fill in the specific online form.
As for Fastweb, go to MyFastweb and click on the link at the bottom to access the refund page. "There is no form to fill out - specifies the company - the customer requests a refund and it is credited to him on the first available invoice".
As for the customers Vodafone can request a refund by accessing the page voda.it/fatturazionemonthly, also present on the homepage of the Vodafone website. From here the customer accesses a form to fill out through which he requests the return of the eroded days.
In short, the initiative must always and in any case come from the customerother than automatic refund. And if the customer doesn't activate, for whatever reason, what happens to the refund? The amount of which, however, should fluctuate - according to calculations by consumer associations - between 20 and 60 euros, depending on the date of the contract and the services included.
A figure which in any case, multiplied by the number of customers, has a considerable impact on the balance sheets of the telephone companies, overall - again according to the calculations of the consumer associations - something like one billion euros.
And perhaps for this very reason the four most important companies operating in Italy have preferred use the possibility of proposing alternative services to reimbursement. And on this front there is a plethora of offers: installments over 4 years for the purchase of a TV with payment of 5 euros per month in the bill, a year's subscription to digital magazines but also Italian cuisine magazines, 6 months free the option to make calls to landline numbers of 60 international destinations, free gigabytes, discounts on the purchase of telephones, and so on.
Be careful, though. Some of these alternative proposals have a deadline and must be optioned by 31 October. This is the case, for example, of the proposals Fastweb which provided three months of time (from 31 July to 31 October), "a period that the company deemed to be suitable and long enough to allow all interested customers to request compensatory measures. In any case, Fastweb is available to handle any requests that may arrive in the days immediately following 31 October,” the company points out. Date of October 31 also referred to Tim as a term for "activating in a free promotion" some alternative and compensatory offers.
In short, dear telephone users, get busy. And it is Agcom itself that indicates a possible path, that of conciliation, for the resolution of disputes, which "can be carried out free of charge and electronically before the Regional Communications Committee (Corecom) competent for the territory through the conciliaweb platform".
