The Hungarian Competition Authority (Gazdasági Versenyhivatal, GVH) approved the commitments undertaken by Vodafone Magyarország Zrt. In accordance with the submitted commitments, Vodafone will reimburse the balances that were deleted due to a change of tariff to those subscribers who switched between 1 November 2012 and 1 May 2014 to RED VitaMAX tariffs from their previous tariff packages.

The GVH in its competition supervision proceeding investigated whether Vodafone had infringed the provisions of the Act on the Prohibition of Unfair Commercial Practices against Consumers through its advertisements promoting RED VitaMAX tariffs, as these advertisements did not make it clear that the 30-day balance usage period, which is much shorter than the average, applies not only to balances after a change of tariff but also to previously accumulated outstanding balances. The company undertook to refund the deleted outstanding balances to all of those customers who were disadvantaged by the above-mentioned rule, provided the balances of the customers exceeded the amount of HUF 100 and they are still subscribers of Vodafone.

The GVH – without establishing the existence or non-existence of an infringement – accepted the commitments of Vodafone, as it considered that through the fulfilment of these commitments the affected consumers could be fully compensated. The reimbursement of amounts less than HUF 100 was considered unessential due to the minor disadvantage that would be suffered and the administrative burden it would impose. Furthermore, the compensation of non-Vodafone subscribers – due to the difficulty to find the previous subscribers and their negligible number – was not sufficiently justified. As no infringement was established, the GVH did not impose a fine on the company.

Case number: Vj/15/2018.

18 December 2018, Budapest

Hungarian Competition Authority

 

Information for the press:
sajto@gvh.hu
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Further information:
GVH Customer Service:

Phone:  (+36-1) 472-8851
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