from What's Up
December 2009 The world of telecommunications is a perennial battleground for companies, which are fired each other to the sound of complaints and for consumers who, in constant balance between a mine and a bureaucratic technique, never sure of having made a definitive "buon'affare" sign in this or that rate. Luckily, to impose a cease-fire and to punish those contenders, sometimes intervenes, the Antitrust Authority. The last company that has delivered a fine view
"for having put in at
to an unfair business practice intended to interfere with the right customer "was Tiscali . The company founded by the former governor of Sardinia Renato Soru
"has prevented some consumers who had expressed a desire to migrate to another fixed operator to exercise the right of withdrawal" . So reads the press release that the Antitrust Authority, after numerous complaints from consumers, found an activity, rather, inaction by Tiscali in facilitating the transition to other operators. The telephone company while disrupting telephone service and Internet continued to charge the same customers, hindering and creating
"inefficiency" in legitimate process for termination of the contract by the customers themselves. The fine imposed on the operator is 50,000 €, a very small thing compared to more than 316 million annual turnover, but in any case, revenge for those who are literally trapped by the bureaucratic and technical flaws of the large houses telephony. Yes, because
"Tiscali also - specifies the Antitrust -
is being repeated already been subject to such measures" . It is not surprising considering the fact that among the large companies telephone these seem to be common practices. Recently, the Competition and Market has also punished
Tele2 and Wind
, with fines of € 120 thousand and 90 thousand respectively, due to lack of information on the speed of ADSL services and the time rate that, unbeknownst to consumers, recorded the use of the router when your computer is turned off. But not all. Going to search through the press releases of 2009 there are many other interventions sanzionanti
always the same "obstructionist conduct" and "delays in the delivery of code migration . The members
TY fined are all about:
Fastweb ,
Telecom, Vodafone
and, indeed, Wind, Tiscali and Tele2. For some fines have been heavier. Vodafone, for example,
"would have led customers to withdraw their demand for portability in proposing a non-transparent [...]
calling plans with discounts and custom particularly advantageous economic conditions, which, however, were not activated in those terms," . It is also not uncommon to find real examples of fraud worthy of "Band of the hole" version of hi-tech, such as sending text messages to customers requesting a change of operator:
"Please remember to send SMS to the number 49990650922383 with written revoke mnp ". The customer may think this is the confirmation of his request for waiver of the contract, rather confirms the withdrawal of its request for waiver. The Authority's website (
www.agcm.it ) there are dozens of such cases. The phone companies seem to make us not pay much attention, preferring to pay and continue to maintain an attitude common to all relapsed. Maybe with tougher sanctions ...