The Council of State has ruled that the refund for 28-day bills must be automatic. Here's what changes
The news that all users have been waiting for for months: the refund for 28-day bills must be automatic and must not be requested by individual customers. To decide the Council of State with a judgment published February 5, 2020. Also in this occasion, as in the previous sentences, the Council of State gives reason to Agcom that had obliged telephone operators to promptly reimburse users.
To call into question the administrative body was Vodafone, who had appealed against the resolution of the Authority for Communications Guarantees that provided for automatic reimbursement. According to the Council of State, the transition to 28-day pricing was an "unfair" gesture that went against the rights of customers. And for this reason, the refund must take place immediately and without a formal request. In recent months, in fact, telephone operators have set up plans of reversal that provide as an alternative to monetary reimbursement, the activation of premium services. And everything is done on the websites or by calling the customer service: if a user is not aware of the news, he does not receive the refund.
Bills at 28 days: how to ask for reimbursement
Hitherto to obtain reimbursement of the days eroded by billing at 28 days must be the same users to request it through the tools made available by the various operators. With the ruling of the Council of State everything changes and defines how refunds must be made: automatically.
A decision that most likely will not please the telephone operators, but that establishes once and for all a precise criterion. Moreover, the Council of State has established that Agcom has the power to impose its decisions on companies. The Authority for the guarantees in the communications was ready to take the field to enforce the resolution by fining the individual operators.
28 days tariff: who asked for the refund
According to the data collected by the newspaper La Repubblica, so far only 5% of those entitled has sent the request for reimbursement. Now the percentage should have an upsurge and arrive up to 100%, if the operators will decide to respect the judgment of the administrative body.