E-commerce, energy, loans and insurance. These are the sectors in which they are most concentrated consumer scams and on which he most often intervenes the Antitrust. Last year the Authority conducted 89 investigations for unfair business practices, violation of discipline consumer rights, unfair terms, accessibility of payments and non-compliance. The total of fines has reached its quota 74,663 million euro, up from around 65 million in 2018. The numbers are contained in Report on the activity carried out in 2019 by the Antitrust, presented on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the creation of the Authority. For the occasion, the president Roberto Rustichelli was received by the Head of State, Sergio Mattarella.
E-COMMERCE
In e-commerce, the Authority aims its sights above all against the practice of buy and share, a scam that involves involving consumers in a pyramid scheme. Basically, sellers offer expensive products at a third of their value (or even less) and ask you to "reserve" the purchase by paying the sum immediately. To actually get the goods at that price, however, you need to get a certain number of people to book themselves. But it doesn't even mean that in the end the purchase will be delivered: "The Buy&Share mechanism - explains the Antitrust - is able to work thanks to the adhesion of a growing number of consumers attracted by the misleading prospect of the possibility of buying at a discounted price of goods which, in reality, are not available for delivery”.
ENERGY AREA
As regards the energy sector, the Authority explains that the most common fraudulent practices concern "incorrect commercial offers, incorrect promotion and marketing of photovoltaic systems and misleading promotion of fuel". For example, an energy company was fined one million euros for presenting one of its offers as flat – i.e. at a fixed monthly fee and without further costs – hiding a series of limiting conditions which in the end caused customers' bills to rise.
LOANS AND INSURANCE
Finally, in the finance and insurance sectors, the majority of unfair commercial practices have to do with "combinations of consumer credit with insurance policies - the Antitrust continues - the combination of real estate mortgages with insurance policies and current accounts or services of pay TV". On this front, the Authority underlines that all "practices aimed at tying a main financial service to the purchase of a different and unrelated insurance service are to be classified as aggressive conduct in violation of the Consumer Code".
