Melita Revises Pricing Structure To Fall In Line With Central Bank Of Malta Instructions
Melita, one of three Maltese telecommunications companies investigated by the Competition Office over prices, issued a statement responding to questionable changes in their tariffs.
In their statement, the company said that their revised pricing structure “is in line with instructions from the Central Bank of Malta”.
The changes will come into effect on July 1st.
The instructions they refer to are based on provisions of the revised EU Payment Services Directive which have controversially caused additional charges, recently flagged by MEP Alex Agius Saliba, of between €1 to €2 for people who don’t pay via direct debit.
“The charge, which for many years has applied to customers who do not pay their bills automatically through direct debit or pre-authorised credit card will be replaced by an increase in the price of €1 for Melita products,” they wrote.
“This means that the extra cost of manual processing of payment has now been incorporated into the price of the product rather than being applied separately.”
“On the other hand, all customers who pay their bills automatically through Direct Debit will receive a discount of €1 on all Melita products.”
In a press statement, Melita said that there was “absolutely no change” to the actual cost of services for their clients, but rather, in how the charges are represented.
Their statement followed a similar one issued by GO, who termed the change as a purely ‘legislative’ one and maintained that the only changes taking place will be in how prices are reflected in bills.
MEP Alex Agius Saliba
Agius Saliba said that GO, alongside Epic and Melita, had originally tried to seek an exemption from a law obliging telecommunications companies to inform their clients of any new tariffs and give them 30 days to exit the contract without getting penalised.
The Malta Communications Authority rejected this request and therefore the companies agreed among each other to send these letters to consumers at the same time, to inform them that people who don’t pay via direct debit will be charged an additional monthly tariff of between €1 to €2.
He warned that this move will likely have the most impact on pensioners who aren’t comfortable with online banking services.
After he flagged the case, Minister for Inclusion and Consumer Affairs Julia Farrugia Portelli announced that she has asked the Competition Office to investigate whether the telecommunications companies are breaching competition law.
Do you think this is an example of price-fixing?