Yet another fine by the Antitrust against a telephone company. This time it's the turn of Telecom Italia which will be forced to pay 4,8 million euros for two violations of the Consumer Code. This was decided by the Competition and Market Guarantor Authority at the conclusion of its investigation.
According to the Antitrust, from June 2018 to February 2019 Telecom violated article 22 of the Consumer Code by not providing "clear and immediate information in the promotion of winback 'personalised' offers (commercial practice to recover a lost customer, ed) for mobile phone services aimed at former customers”, explains the authority in a note.
In detail, once the customer decided to leave Tim for another company, he was contacted via text message or call center with which the company tried to "win him back" by offering him a cheaper commercial offer. During the call or in the text of the message, the operators only indicated the conditions of the proposed tariff plan in terms of monthly price and traffic included, however failing to account for additional costs or restrictions on the use of the offers, such as the activation cost and that of the SIM (respectively equal to 12 and 10 euros), the recurring cost of the tariff plan at the base of the offer (two euros per month), the contractual constraints of minimum contractual stay (24 months).
“She felt like that conduct likely to mislead the consumer medium with regard to the content of the proposal and to make him take a decision of a commercial nature that he would not otherwise have taken". This is the reason why the Antitrust has decided to fine the company.
The second violation ascertained concerns article 65 of the Consumer Code. In the phase of joining all mobile telephony offers, without requesting the consumer's consent, Telecom pre-activated various additional services and/or options with respect to the main offer, including the answering machine, 1 Giga spare, Tim traveling Full. All services that have resulted in an increase in costs compared to that expected by the customer. Lastly, the Competition and Market Authority emphasizes in its provision that both practices are still ongoing.
Telecom Italia shares lose 0,66% in Piazza Affari at 0,5087 euros. In the last month the decline reaches 7,5%.
