Obligation to indicate the cost of calls

It went unnoticed by many, but it shouldn’t.

The Decree-Law 59/2021 applies to telephone lines for consumer contact, made available by suppliers of goods or service providers and by entities providing essential public services, being obliged to provide consumers with a free telephone line or, alternatively, a telephone line corresponding to a geographic or mobile numbering range.

Any entity that, under the terms of this decree-law, provides telephone lines for consumer contacting must disclose, in a clear and visible manner, in its commercial communications, on the main page of its website, on invoices, in written communications with the consumer and in contracts signed with them, when they are in writing, the telephone number or numbers provided, to which updated information on the price of calls must be associated in an equally clear and visible manner.

When it is not possible to present a single price for the call, due to the fact that it varies depending on the origin and destination network, the following information must be provided, as the case may be, as an alternative:

a) «Call to the national fixed network»;

b) «Call to national mobile network».

Fines

The violation of the above constitutes a serious or very serious economic offence, punished under the terms of the RJCE (Legal Regime for Economic Offenses), subjecting the offender to a fine of between €1700 and €3000 if committed by a micro-enterprise and between €4000 and €8000 if a small company.

This decree-law comes into force on November 1st 2021 but only takes effect from June 1st 2022.

As always, Granconta is available to clarify any doubts.