Horia Constantinescu: ANPC asked ENEL for a reimbursement schedule for the amounts it incorrectly collected from over 44,000 consumers

2023-10-23 19:27:00

The President of ANPC, Horia Constantinescu, said on Monday that the Authority asked ENEL for a reimbursement schedule for the amounts it incorrectly collected from over 44,000 consumers, before sanctioning the operator, showing that over 25 million lei were collected improperly, according to News.ro.

ENELPhoto: Sara De Marco / Alamy / Alamy / Profimedia

Constantinescu also showed that, following discussions that lasted until 10 at night, they finally agreed not to provide a repayment schedule.

According to him, the obligation to return this money to consumers still remains and they will follow the phenomenon and in the conditions where it is not fulfilled according to those established by the normative acts, other sanctions may appear.

“The normative act on the basis of which the sanction was applied provides as a minimum sanction 1% of the turnover, that is, even if we had wanted to apply a smaller sanction, it would not have been possible, because, I repeat, this is provided for in the normative act”, said the head of the ANPC, in the program Project of the country: Romania, from Prima News, regarding the fine received by ENEL.

Horia Constantinescu showed that “they had discussions before this sanction, until 10 at night, with the representatives of the economic operator, in which the Authority asked them through the correspondence they carried to present them with a repayment schedule of the amounts they have incorrectly charged over 44,000 consumers”. “Until the time when it was decided and the decision was taken to apply this sanction, we did not manage to receive a clear schedule.

However, we must take into account that these 41,000 consumers were harmed over the course of 8 months. This means somewhere around 300 or so thousand contraventions, because each of the invoices with deviations represents a contravention, or, if we also put this algorithm on the page, it will certainly not seem very small to us that over 25 million of lei were somehow improperly collected from consumers’ pockets”, explained Horia Constantinescu.

The President of ANPC also showed that “reimbursement does not become a story that ended with the application of the sanction”. “The obligation to return this money to consumers still remains, or we will follow the phenomenon and in the conditions where it is not fulfilled according to those established by the normative acts, other sanctions may appear, which I would like to believe that ENEL has taken it into account and will proceed to refund the money”, Constantinescu also said.

The ANPC representative emphasized that this economic operator also has the right to challenge, just as any economic operator can challenge the documents concluded by any of the control authorities”. “Certain measures related to the health and life of consumers are not suspended when the control document is contested, but all others, in a fairly large proportion, are suspended until the merits of the case are judged,” Constantinescu said. .

Horia Constantinescu explained that such appeals are judged only in court. “From the discussions I had with the Minister of Economy, with Mr. Oprea, he too is of the opinion that they should be established apart from sanctions and measures, so that such situations do not repeat themselves. (..) The most important thing is that the 44,000 consumers get their money back. It is exactly the thesis that we discussed with the ENEL representatives, until 10 at night, when they finally agreed not to give us a graph from the reimbursement”, said the head of ANPC.

Commissioners of the National Authority for Consumer Protection (ANPC) fined the company Enel Energie SA with over 52 million lei for not invoicing the monthly electricity consumption at the rates stipulated in the legislation. ANPC sent that those affected by the faulty calculation of invoices must contact Enel Energie SA for the restitution of the differences.

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