Fed up with spam calls? This is how you can block them on your mobile
The Organization of Consumers and Users (@consumers) warns of the lack of information and the traps hidden in many of the telephone offers that consumers receive to contract a new electricity or gas rate. Among the most common, four stand out:
1. Discounts that hide high prices. Some attractive prices actually hide a very high price that will be activated automatically once the promotion ends, without the need for any notice.
2. Commitments to maintain prices are diluted. There are more and more offers that do not include a commitment to maintain the price or the term is very short (one quarter, six months…).
3. The price is what it is… plus the CPI. It is never indicated over the phone. But there are many contracts that update prices with the annual CPI on January 1, including tolls and charges that already change according to their own review system.
4. In electricity, the price of the kilowatt-hour (kWh) is not everything. By telephone it is easy to give a price for the economical kWh, if the price of the fixed term is not reported and all decimals are not given: An advertised price of €0.11/kWh, which is actually €0.11999/kWh, hides an annual extra cost of 45 euros.
In addition, OCU warns that the bad practices of “energy advisors”, consultants and outsourced call centers. Through deception, such as impersonating your marketing company, the user is urged to respond affirmatively to an SMS that supposedly offers a juicy discount, when in reality they are changing companies.
OCU already reported this type of abuse to the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) last year.. Specifically, he warned that many of these intermediaries have so much personal data of the client (sometimes even the bank account or the CUPS number of the contract) that it is difficult not to distrust their bad commercial practices. The same thing that pointed out the serious lack of transparency: they do not provide basic information about the conditions of the supposed offer or the identity of the marketer. Now OCU hopes that the new Regulation prohibits contracting gas and electricity by telephone, except when they are initiated at the will of the client, not by an unsolicited call from a salesperson.
In short, according to the OCU, “the recurrent use of deception by many telephone service salespeople discourages this type of contracting, the current one for up to 15% of consumers.”. And it is much more prudent to consult online the rates of various marketers, for example, in the OCU comparator and take advantage of the best offers. However, to ensure that the chosen rate is contracted, it is advisable to read it before accepting it, comparing it with the advertised conditions.”
