A judgment with a bittersweet flavor, for consumers. The Court of Milan confirms the right of Tim users to reimbursement for the 28-day tariff affair and – as in a similar July sentence on Wind 3 – also extends the time value. But the strongest demand from consumers fails: to obtain automatic reimbursements, provided for in an old Agcom resolution never respected by operators.
In short, refunds remain only at the request of users.
For Movimento Consumatori, which denounced the operators to the Court, it is a victory: “because with Tim as with Wind 3 the judge extended the reimbursements by a few months with respect to the provisions of the resolution and because the principle established by Agcom (Authority communications guarantor), that the 28-day rates are illegitimate “, says Alessandro Mostaccio, secretary general of the association.
Basically, the one on Wind 3 and this one on Tim are the first victories in court over the 28 day affair, however declared illegal also by a state law.
The immediate practical effect is limited. In the case of Tim, the court recognizes that the reimbursements must be calculated starting from April 2017, while the resolution made them start from June 2017. Two more months: a few euros for individual users, but millions of euros to be paid for the operator . Worse had gone to Wind 3, which the judge asked to backdate starting from 2016. Wind 3 opposed the ruling.
The judge also asks to reimburse former customers who had this type of tariffs on fixed telephony. Tim and Wind 3 already do it, though, even if probably only a few users know about it. Some practical effect, in terms of new requests for reimbursements, may also come from the judge’s request to operators to publish a notice on this possibility: on their website, on the invoice, in some national newspapers and with a letter to former customers. .
Only a minority of users have requested refunds so far. The notice may increase the number, with damage that could also be substantial for the operators’ coffers, which have already been suffering for some time.
The automatic refunds would have been much more disruptive to the market. For now, therefore, the operators have avoided this risk, by hundreds of millions of euros – if we consider that millions of people have lost the equivalent of a few euros every month for a year of 28-day tariffs.
The Council of State had also confirmed Agcom’s power to impose automatic reimbursements, but the Authority – whose board of directors has changed in the meantime – does not seem willing to insist on this path. Perhaps deemed too punitive for a market already on the ropes.
“We have had the umpteenth confirmation – states Mostaccio – that the path taken, in synergy with Agcom to oppose an incorrect, deceptive and suitable commercial practice to distort the economic behavior of consumers, is the right one. We will carefully follow the procedure. work of Tim SpA in such a way that it fulfills all the disclosure obligations prescribed and activates a procedure to accept refund requests from consumers “.
The ruling does not establish new principles – apart from a temporal extension of the same – but it can stimulate the reimbursements of current and former customers; and thus affect the accounts of the operators.
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