Why does the Antitrust sanction Vodafone, Wind, Telecom and Fastweb?

The Antitrust fined the companies Vodafone SpA for 400 thousand euros, Wind Tre SpA for 300 thousand euros, Telecom SpA for 200 thousand euros and Fastweb SpA for 100 thousand euros for unlawful conduct in the management of terminations of fixed and mobile telephony users, also in the hypothesis migration to another operator. This can be read in a note from the Antitrust. Critical issues have emerged in the management of internal procedures for termination of users, which have given rise – starting at least from 2020 – to situations of post-withdrawal billing or, in the event of migration, double billing by the user.

According to the Authority, «the illegitimate continuation of invoicing – after the request for termination of the service – is attributable to anomalies and technical misalignments between the IT management systems of the internal process of each company, with respect to which the same, even if different, have not adopted effective mechanisms of control and timely intervention”.

The Antitrust has stigmatized the cases of double billing in the migration to another supplier with the illegitimate request to the user to pay the invoices of both the new and the previous operator. The four telephone companies have been warned against continuing to implement the incorrect practice and within 90 days they will have to inform the Authority of the initiatives taken to this end.