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Contractele la distanţă reclamate tot mai des de utilizatorii de comunicaţii electronice
11.02.2014
In 2013 the Romanian National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) received 1,155 complaints from the electronic communications users. Almost half of these complaints concerned aspects related to the contracts concluded with the operators in writing or by way of distance communication means. Of all the categories of electronic communications services (fixed telephony, mobile telephony, Internet and audiovisual programme retransmission), the largest amount of complaints the Authority received in 2013 referred to the mobile telephone services (37% of all complaints).
In 2013, the main source of dissatisfaction among the Romanian communications users continued to be the contractual relationship with the providers of electronic communications services (48% of all the complaints lodged to ANCOM referred to the contractual relationship). The signalled aspects envisaged the execution, extension, cessation of the contracts or the non-inclusion in the contracts of certain minimum mandatory clauses. The users denounced most often the execution of the contracts for audiovisual programme retransmission services (68% of the total complaints in this segment), followed by those for fixed telephony (66%) and fixed Internet access (60%).
The means of concluding the distance contracts (over the telephone, e-mail, fax, online application etc.) is an issue more and more denounced at ANCOM. The complaints the Authority received in this respect in 2013 were by three times more numerous than in 2012. The majority of these complaints denounced the conclusion of distance contracts for mobile communications (mobile telephony and mobile Internet).
For instance, a number of complaints denounced the refusal of a provider to terminate without early termination penalties the contract for mobile data for which the user expressed the agreement over the phone, during a promotional campaign within which the provider was offering a free mobile internet stick. In light of the fact that, neither during the telephone conversation nor subsequently in writing, the provider communicated the users that they can unilaterally terminate the contract in 14 working days, ANCOM settled the complaints in favour of the plaintiffs and fined the provider.
In other cases, several users denounced the failure of the providers of telephone and Internet services to transmit in writing the detailed loyalty contractual offer agreed upon telephonically. In such circumstances, the Authority obligated the operators in question to inform the users in writing and offer them the possibility to terminate unilaterally the contract without penalties. Other users complained about the fact that, during the phone conversation in which they concluded a new telephony contract or amended an existing contract, the operator did not communicate them certain mandatory information, such as the right to unilaterally terminate the contract within 14 working days or the date on which the contract is deemed to be concluded. In such circumstances, ANCOM imposed the operators in question to send the information in writing to the plaintiffs and give them the right to terminate the contract.
Other matters the users signalled in 2013 referred to misunderstandings concerning the billing of services (14%), porting related problems (8%), technical faults in the supply of services (7%), as well as cases where the quality of services was below the subscribers’ expectations (7%).
As for the categories of electronic communications services, the most numerous complaints the Authority received in 2013 concerned the mobile telephone services(37% of the total complaints), followed by Internet access (15%) and mobile Internet (13%). The ANCOM aggregated data for 2013 show that most of the complaints lodged by the users referred to the electronic communications services provided by S.C. Orange Romania S.A. (17%), S.C. Romtelecom S.A. (16%), S.C. RCS&RDS S.A. (14%), S.C. Vodafone Romania S.A. (12%) and S.C. Cosmote RMT S.A. (12%).
ANCOM may intervene in the cases where the providers (of telephone, Internet, television services) breach the users’ information rights, do not offer the number portability service, do not include certain information in the contract or do not observe the specific legislation in the electronic communications field. Further details on distance contracts are available on the ANCOM website, under the section dedicated to the users: www.ancom.org.ro/Users/Info Centre/ A to Z contract issues.The users have several means at their disposal to denounce problems related to the provision of the electronic communications services, which are presented in detail on the ANCOM website, here.
