Paper invoices, light and gas supplements "infringe the right of customers to correct their bills"

Apply a surcharge for electricity and gas bills just because you can not paper. Even though it is of common use, it is actually a "violation of the right of end customers to correct billing of consumption of electricity". energy". The Energy Authority has been repeating this for some time, adopting a series of sanctions and normative measures to certain energy companies. The last two are these days and concern A2A and Dolomites Energy. With regard to versatility in Lombardy, the Authority is challenging the "Safe price web +" and "A2A Click Gas" commercial offers, which respectively provide an increase of € 0.01 / kWh and € 0.025 / kWh respectively. those who disable the service. Bollett @ mail. The "details" appear in the A2A commercial offer form published on the Authority's "TrovaOfferte" website, under the heading "Ancillary services payable by the customer".

As for Dolomiti Energia, the guarantor contests the supplement of 1 euro per paper invoice expected in various offers of electricity and gas ("Family Web Gas", "Gas Discount20" and "Idea Gas"). In this case too, all the annotations are examined by browsing the site "TrovaOfferte". "According to both measures, the company violates the prohibition to apply to end customers additional fees for the receipt of" paper "bills, which result in lasting harm to the right of end customers to correct billing of their energy consumption ". The Authority then concludes by stating that "the elements acquired are a prerequisite for initiating (…) a procedure for the adoption of sanctions and normative provisions".

Both investigations will last up to 120 days and the adoption of the final disposition will be made in the next 100 days. For their part, A2A and Dolomiti Energia will have 30 days to send the requested information. In October, the Authority also took action against Edison, E.ON and Sorgenia, again because they had applied a price increase on paper bills, thus obtaining the adoption of certain commitments by the three companies. These include the return to all customers of shipping charges billed from July 2014; the periodic verification of the conformity of contracts with the law and the transmission of a summary report. In addition, E. On Energy (which overcharged paper bills with an increase of 50 cents per month) also provided a one-time bonus of 15 euros to all customers who choose the electronic invoice.

Always about the bills, it is precisely these days also the news on the two-year prescription for gasoline bill adjustments (from the previous 5 years), provided for by the 2018 Finance Act. The Authority, with a specific resolution, starts the new count as of 1 January 2019, obviously only for the delays due to the "responsibility of the seller or distributor ". In short, a good step forward to avoid ending up paying sums of money together, which often happens precisely because of delivery times (readings, blocking billing, broken counters, etc …). Sellers will have to issue a separate invoice containing only consumption amounts older than 2 years. Alternatively these the amounts must be clearly and comprehensibly highlighted on a single invoice. In any case, sellers are obliged to inform the client of the possibility of pleading the prescribed amounts and to provide a format facilitating the communication of his will not to pay. However, in the event of alleged responsibility of the customer, the seller must indicate on the invoice the amount of the amounts relating to the consumption to be paid, as well as the reasons for the alleged responsibility of the customer and the terms of sending the claim.

These provisions that the Authority considers necessary to make the communications of the companies more transparent and more comprehensible, in particular after the experience already acquired with regard to electricity. In fact, last March, the two-year prescription was made for slight adjustments. So many problems had appeared, so most consumers were not aware of this new law and how to exercise it. For example, some operators have continued to ask for adjustments over two years without hurting themselves, since it is the same regulation that provides that in any case it is possible to send adjustments over a period of two years. years, even if they are prescribed.