28-day bills, historic ruling: ok for automatic bulk repayments

It has never happened so far, because to date operators have made refunds only to users who request them. This is despite the position of Agcom, which has always reiterated the need for automatic repayments. The tens of millions of users involved in the affair are entitled to a transfer in the bill of about 20-30 euros.

What the Council of State has decided

Specifically, Section VI of Council of State rejected the appeal filed by Vodafone against the Lazio Regional Administrative Court ruling which on the one hand canceled the 1.1 million euro fine imposed by Agcom against the company in December 2017 for not complying with the monthly billing obligation, considering that the previous sanctioning system should apply , on the other hand, however, confirmed the obligation of refreshment in favor of users decided by Agcom itself.

The ruling dismisses Vodafone ‘s appeal but in fact the judges refer to the activities of all operators. The question arose between the end of 2016 and 2017, when the main telephone operators decided to change the billing periodicity, sending the bills every four weeks, with a 8.6% increase in costs: to all effects an extra monthly payment for customers.

Agcom had ordered Vodafone, Tim, Fastweb and Wind Tre to return the consideration for the days eroded on the bill automatically, without asking consumers for active action. Now, the ruling of the Council of State rejects the appeal lodged by Vodafone, extending its consequences also to other operators.

“Unfair” and “subversive” practice

In addition, it highlights two very specific aspects of the choice of telephone companies: on the one hand, the reference to a temporal frequency extraneous, if not contrary, to the inveterate commercial uses ab immemorial, and on the other the operator’s attempt to force the tariff autonomy system by avoiding the obligations for to conceal the tariff increase and make it little or nothing intelligible to consumers.

The practice was “unfair” not only because it prompted users, thanks to the apparent small difference between 28 days and a whole month, to underestimate the discrepancy and not immediately grasp the increase. But also because “it seems to prevent or, in any case, makes it more difficult” for the user to understand that in this way the telephone operator receives, over the course of a year, the fee for 13, instead of 12 times.

Not only. The Council of State also clarifies that the choice of 28 days “drastically” limited the possibility of finding offers based on monthly time periods and made the exercise of the right of withdrawal “difficult, if not useless”, as alternatives other than the one thus adopted are no longer available on the market.

How to receive the refund

Vodafone and other telephone operators they will have to return the eroded days by providing the service for free, and therefore postponing an invoice, for a number of days equal to those eroded.

This form of indemnification does not impose on managers “any supply of capital neither in money, nor in services, nor in anything else other than, on the one hand, the mere realignment of the monthly billing schedule and, on the other, the consequent adjustment for the misalignment caused by different billing “.

What changes for users

For those who have already obtained the financial reimbursement or for those who have already accepted alternative compensation measures, nothing will change, they have already obtained their “compensation”.

Anyone who is no longer a Vodafone customer will still have to take action to request a refund of the amount wrongly charged. To those who are still customers, Vodafone should, from the first next useful invoice, provide the unduly subtracted days free of charge, postponing the issue of the invoice.