The Council of State has rejected the appeal of telephone operators who will now have to make a refund plan by July 4
After almost a year, the issue of refunds for 28-day bills has come to a conclusion: on May 21, the Council of State expressed its opposition to granting a further suspension for refunds requested by telephone operators. Tim, Vodafone, Wind Tre and Fastweb will have to prepare a transfer plan to be presented within July 4th, when the State Council will issue its judgement.
For the telephone operators that had adopted the 28 days bills scheme, this is the umpteenth judicial defeat and now they will be forced to refund the users. And even from this point of view there are news, customers can choose two ways to cancel: a refund in cash or buy free services offered by telephone operators. For the moment we do not know what these services are, telephone operators will inform customers in due course. With the final opinion of the Council of State should end the querelle that sees opposed the Agcom (Authority guarantor of the telecommunications) from a side and the telephone companies from the other.
Reimbursement of 28-day bills: what changes for users
After two years since the introduction of 28-day bills (the novelty was launched in June 2017 and lasted until April 2018 after the intervention of Agcom), a solution has finally been reached: telephone operators will have to prepare a reversal plan for customers. For what reason will phone companies have to refund customers? The remodulation of tariffs from 30 to 28 days, which entailed the payment of an extra bill per year (from 12 to 13), raised the protests of consumer associations, Agcom and in the end the regulation was not considered correct by the Council of State. Politics also intervened, promulgating a law prohibiting 28-day billing. Therefore, it will be impossible to decrease the timing of bill payments in the future.
Initially, refunds were scheduled for December 2018, then the date was moved to March 2019 and finally to May 2019. On July 4, the date by which phone operators will have to refund customers will be decided.
How to get refunds for 28-day bills
The Council of State has not yet decided how phone operators will have to refund their customers. It is assumed that users will have two options: cash refund or the use of premium services. We will see what will be the proposals of the various companies and in the coming weeks we will also understand how to get the refund in the bill.