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07 December 2019 The Competition and Market Authority has concluded two preliminary investigations against Wind Tre and Vodafone Italia respectively, ascertaining violations of the Consumer Code. In this context, it imposed penalties amounting to 4.3 million euros to Wind Tre and 6 million euros to Vodafone, for a total of over 10 million euros.

The Authority, a note informs, noted, specifically, that Wind Tre and Vodafone, violating the art. 22 of the Consumer Code, since June 2018 they have not provided clear and immediate information in the promotion of "personalized" winback offers for mobile telephony services aimed at former customers, mainly contacted via SMS, limiting themselves to indicating only the conditions of the tariff plan proposed in terms of price and traffic included and omitting, in the message, vice versa, to give an account of additional costs or restrictions on the use of the offers. Such conduct was deemed appropriate to mislead the average consumer with regard to the content of the proposal and to make him take a commercial decision that he would not otherwise have made.

The Authority has also ascertained that, in violation of art. 65 of the Consumer Code, in the phase of consumer acceptance of all mobile telephony offers, Wind Tre and Vodafone have pre-activated different services and / or additional options with respect to the main offer, with additional costs, without the budget and express consent of the consumer.