€380,000 ‘unfair practices’ fine for Sky Italia
December 12, 2011
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Italy’s Authority for Competition and Markets has issued two fines totalling €380,000 to pay-TV operator Sky Italia for “unfair business practices”. The main focus of the investigation was the management of cancellation requests from subscribers and charging for calls to a help centre.
According to the Authority’s weekly bulletin, Sky Italia “continued to charge its users, the fees for the use of the service even after they had asked to cancel.” The operator also “delayed the execution of requests for cancellation” and applied a penalty in case of non-payment of the invoices subsequent to the requests.
The Authority also established that Sky Italia imposed the use of a toll number as the only means to contact the customer service to seek clarification on cancellation requests or other administrative issues.