Communications regulator Anacom has ruled that telecom operators must take remedial measures as they have been increasing service prices without notifying customers who, if they did not agree to rate changes, could terminate their contracts without penalty.
According to Público, the operators targeted by Anacom's decision of March 17th are Meo, Nos, Vodafone and Nowo, which used to be called Cabovisão.
The operators seem simply to have ignored an amendment to the Electronic Communications law and should have sent "new notices to subscribers, informing them of the granting of a new period of termination without charge" or, alternatively, restore "the contractual conditions existing before those changes", according Anacom which has been flooded with complaints, 1,700 in the second half of 2016 alone.
The vast majority of these complaints have been about the way price changes have been communicated. This triggered an investigation by the regulator which found that "when they made contractual amendments, operators did not inform customers of the right to terminate their contracts without charge if they did not like the price rises.”
The Ministry of Economy already has highlighted the importance of the regulator's decision and it’s now down to the phone companies to respond with compensatory price reductions and credits.
