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Almost nine months after the auctions that assigned the 4.5 million customers of the greater protection to the 7 operators that will manage the gradual protections, the process is about to get going. Those 4.5 million customers in the meantime have been reduced to about 2.8 million: 1.7 million users, in fact, in this period of time have been attracted to the free market. Those who remained in the gradual protections in the coming days are called to perk up their antennas: in particular, if they had chosen to have the bill debited to their current account, they must keep in mind that, for the first time, there will be an automatic transfer of the debit procedure from one operator to another. A novelty introduced by the law that established the end of the greater protection: He is nurturing and the Bank of Italy had set the rules before the summer to allow this transition without the customer having to authorize the new electricity supplier to make payments on their current account.
The first bill from the new supplier by mid-September
In the last days of July, customers assigned with the auctions for gradual protections received a letter from the new supplier (the assignees of the gradual protection lots are 7: Enel, Era, Edison, Illumina, Iren, Afa e E. Is) with which they were informed of the change of operator. The first bills drawn up by the incoming utility will arrive in mid-September: in the case of the Rid (direct debit) a few days after receiving the letter that amount will be debited by the new supplier to the customer’s account. In fact, the customer has already received all the data necessary to prepare this operation from the outgoing operator in July. The banks involved have also already received all the necessary instructions.
Anyone who no longer wants direct debit must revoke it now.
Therefore, if a user does not want to be charged by the new supplier, they must now take action with their bank to revoke the authorization to debit their account. Another aspect to pay attention to will be the commercial initiatives that the incoming suppliers will try to implement: as you will remember, the economic conditions are more convenient than those of the greater protection, a category in which for example the customers considered vulnerable have remained, but also compared to the free market. During the auctions held at the beginning of the year, the 7 operators who were awarded the customer lots had competed among themselves in terms of discount on the price, an economic advantage in favor of the users of the gradual protections that must remain in force for three years. In the first year, this overall discount will be 113 euros.
It is clear that guaranteeing this economic status for three years to operators costs money: therefore they will have an interest in bringing customers of gradual protections to their free market. Since they cannot make commercial offers to users of gradual protections, the path that will be taken is to send letters to customers asking for authorization to send commercial information. Once the ok is obtained, commercial offers will be launched to bring the customer to the free market.
