Bills, the transition to a free electricity market is fast approaching. The antitrust law requires sanctions for wild telemarketing

Auctions additionally to assign weak customers to operators. Discount for people switching to the gradual security service confirmed in the range of EUR 130 for 12 months. A call for greater determination in the fight against the phenomenon of unbridled telemarketing, in the face of the availability of sanctions.

Safety finish

There is just over a month left until the transition to a free market for non-vulnerable electricity customers, and this delicate supply center may hear from the antitrust authority. A short summary of the historic second: from July 1, the outdated security system will be forgotten, under which the value of electricity is determined every three months by the universal public authority Arera. Those who are under 75 years of age or do not receive a social bonus (or other needs), the so-called “weak” ones should find a new operator on the free market. If he doesn’t do something, he’ll get himself into it Graded Safety Service (Stg). To see which operators would accept customers intended for Stg, extremely aggressive auctions were organized, largely to make it the most favorable market of all.

Auction success “while avoiding buyer inertia”

The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection “expresses its appreciation for the public sale system,” he says during the hearing President Roberto Rustichelli before the Chamber’s Manufacturing Activities Committee. So a lot, so that at that time those on the free market could be higher, returning to guardianship, and then transferred to Stg.

However, it emphasizes: “The danger should not be underestimated that buyers obtained in this way will passively comply with the graduated security service until its expiry, also due to the significant reductions detected in the tender, which, moreover, seem to repeat this expectation.” The concern is that StG may develop “uncritical customer loyalty to a profitable service provider” in addition to a lack of trust in any higher-end alternatives available on the market.

Therefore, the Office provides oversight “with prudence and rigor in the conduct that graduated security service operators could implement to take care of buyers acquired through auctions and hinder or influence their transition to the free market.”

Think about making them extra for the weak

Precisely on the idea of ​​\u200b\u200b”success” in terms of value for buyers who can be entrusted with the progressive security service (under questioning, Arera estimates annual “low cost” of EUR 130 for 12 months compared to the previous enhanced security service), the Antimonopoly Office helps speculate that even weak clients are assigned to operators through auctions: “The Office assesses – we learn from listening – very positively the availability of aggressive procedures in addition to the task of handling vulnerabilities, because auctions play a key function for every company and client, emphasizing however, there is an urgent need to ban them by early 2025.”

Simpler fees

There are two elements related to listening. First of all, Rustichelli asks for “a intervention promoting simplification of the current tariff structuremaking it easier for customers to feel the relative comfort of gifts and thus stimulating competition between companies.”

Sanctions for telemarketing

The second security question considers the aggressive practices of named companies, for which AGCM hopes for “extremely strong regulatory intervention that can help stop this phenomenon and secure an alternative for customers to not be targeted by unwanted solicitations.” Rustichelli says that “it is necessary to monitor, among other things, introduction of truly dissuasive fines, prohibition of telephone contact for business purposes with customers who have not previously given their express consent by submitting an application for entry into the applicable public register“. Which admits that the reform of the general register of objections, although “aimed at limiting the invasive way of operating of telemarketing operators”, ultimately produced “completely unsatisfactory” results.

What is required for buyer safety? Experience says: “Systems that constitute a specific and preventive alternative to the service (opt-in), rather than a mechanism enabling its refusal (opt-out), guarantee simpler security for buyers“.