Bills, new Antitrust investigation into Enel: “The emails on the renewal of the conditions were packaged in such a way as to end up in spam”

Last year’s fine wasn’t enough. The Antitrust announces that it has launched a new investigation into Enel to ascertain a possible unfair commercial practice linked to the methods of communication on contractual renewals. “Some users report that they regularly receive invoices via email (or on the app), but that they have not received any notification of renewal of the bills […]

Last year’s fine wasn’t enough. L’Antitrust announces that it has started a new investigation on Is in the to ascertain a possible unfair commercial practice linked to the methods of communication on contractual renewals. “Some users report receiving invoices regularly via email (or on the app), but that I have not received any communication of renewal of the economic conditions through the aforementioned channels and to have found it by chance in the spam an email, coming from Enel Energia, to which the renewal noticefollowing the deadline, of the economic conditions of supply”, explains the authority’s bulletin.

The Agcm intends to verify whether really, as it seems, “the email in question would have been ‘artfully packaged to be intercepted by the anti-spam filter‘ also due to the relevance of the graphic part; the same, indeed, it lent itself to being interpreted as a mere promotional message and not as a document having a significant impact on the contract of supply, also taken into account neither in the header nor in the textual part of said email was there any evidence of its object (i.e., the modification of the economic conditions)”.

The complaints (over 600) of consumers and micro-businesses “received them from January 2024”: many “complain of having received, during the billing cycles relating to the four-month period October 2023 – January 2024, bills bearing a significant price increase of gas and electricity supplies compared to the bills referring to the same time period in the previous year”. What alarms users, “in addition to the difficulty of sustaining disbursements quadrupled or quintupled compared to the past”, is above all the fact “of not having received any prior information in written form (via electronic or paper mail), by Enel Energia, regarding the contractual renewal and that it was therefore unable to exercise the right to withdrawal, nor choose a different energy supplier”. The suspicion, in fact, is that the group deliberately sent those communications to spam so that customers wouldn’t read them.

Already last November Enel Energia had been sanctioned by the Antitrust (together with six other companies) for 10 million. The company, according to the Agcm, had adopted aggressive business practices conditioning consumers to accept increasing changes in electricity and gas prices, in contrast to the regulatory protection resulting fromarticle 3 of the Aid Decree bis. President Roberto Rustichelli quantified the damage caused to 4.5 million families and small businesses by the companies at over 1 billion euros aggressive business practices of energy companies to convince consumers to accept worsening unilateral changes of electricity and gas prices.

Enel Energia “believes that it has always acted in full compliance with primary and sector legislation, as well as with contractual regulations” and “is confident that it will be able to demonstrate the full correctness of its actions in the continuation of the proceedings”.