PosteMobile, fine of 1.5 million euros from the AGCM

L’Antitrust commissioned a fine of 1.5 million euros to PosteMobile, the virtual operator of mobile telephony in Italy. L’AGCM sanctioned the pay-as-you-go pricing mechanism that applies to offers already active, if the credit is insufficient for monthly renewal.

PosteMobile, comes the fine of 1.5 million euros from the Antitrust

L’Competition and Market Authority (AGCM) sanctioned yesterday with the Provision n.30286 the operator PostePaycompany of Poste Group who manages the brand PosteMobile. The latter is a virtual operator operating in the mobile connections market.

The problem encountered concerns what happens when users run out of credit before renewing their connection. Indeed PosteMobile allows you to continue to use outgoing traffic for calls, messages and data traffic. But it automatically applies a pay-as-you-go rate, which coincides with the operator’s basic plan.

The Guarantor already last October had presented an investigation for the alleged violation of the articles of Consumer Code, with PostePay which had made a commitment to change the situation. But last March the AGCM had judged these commitments insufficient.

For this reason it has commissioned a fine of 1.5 million euros from the provider. This is because according to AGCM there was little transparency on the part of the operator: users were informed only after the activation of the pay-per-use tariff, which charged 3.50 euros per dayo.

According to AGCM PosteMobile was not clear on consumption and explains that users were unaware of the “onerous charges”. More information on the affair is available on the Authority’s website.