Consumer organizations such as OCU or Facua, among others, have been warning for months that the cheapest rate for natural gas consumers is the rate regulated by the Government, better known as TUR, but it was not until it was decided to create a TUR specifically for communities of owners that many of these users have become aware of this reality.
Yesterday, Monday, while the Government finalized the text that the Council of Ministers will approve today with this new TUR for neighborhood communities, the telephones of the four companies authorized to provide that rate were smoking. In the case of gas
It wasn’t just a bad day. The companies acknowledge that the demand from consumers who contact “at least to find out about the regulated rate, has risen considerably.” The escalation in gas prices has been driven by this trend for months, but it was Holaluz’s decision to transfer its customers to the regulated market, first, and then the Government’s decision to create a new TUR, as a solution to the escalation of gas bills in neighboring communities next winter, which has thrown the market out of control.
Until now, only one in five users had contracted the regulated gas rate. “Perhaps they paid little attention to the councils of associations and the Government itself, but going to the BOE is something else,” they say from the sector. Based on this “laziness” the companies’ attention services were dimensioned for a contained demand. “The change in trend of the last week is exceeding the capacity of attention in the usual waiting time and quality levels”, they assure from another of the four marketers of the TUR.
Over the past week, Endesa’s website has had problems accessing the site where the form is accessed, as some users have complained on social networks and La Vanguardia verified yesterday, although Endesa’s technical services assure “ not having detected any irregularity in the operation of its website”. But like the rest of the companies, the unquantified increase in communications related to the regulated gas tariff is palpable.
“The Government has repeatedly recommended that bill, just like us, but the decision to approve a regulated rate for neighborhood communities as a solution to the alert that it would be possible for them to meet the bills is what has convinced many of that this is the cheapest option at the moment. And that doesn’t interest the big ones” assures Rubén Sánchez, spokesperson for Facua Consumers in Action.
Yesterday this organization launched a direct accusation against Naturgy. In it, it warns that it has stopped offering the possibility of contracting the regulated rate through a form and leaves only the telephone option. One of the reasons why you are facing the saturation of your telephone service.
“It is not illegal at all, because there is no regulated legal procedure that obliges companies to allow contracting through a form,” Rubén Sánchez points out. The company assures that “it is a technical problem that it is trying to solve as quickly as possible.”
But, from Facua they consider that the Government should regulate it since “telephone contracting, in addition to being complicated and with waiting that can discourage the client, leaves him very exposed to possible abuses.”
The consumer organization is going to transfer this request formally to the Government. According to Rubén Sánchez, not only will it be required to allow all customers to have the option of being able to request the rate change through web forms, it will also be requested that the customer receive a “mail from confirmation” of that management.
“Only in this way will it be possible to demonstrate that the company complies with the mandatory invoice transfer periods and thus claim that the gas be charged at the TUR price from the correct moment in case of non-compliance. If the hiring is done by phone it is almost impossible to prove anything”, says the spokesperson for Facua.
