Gradual protection: automatic bill debiting in September from the new operator

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 into full swing. Those 4.5 million customers have in the meantime been reduced to around 2.8 million: 1.7 million users have in fact been lured into the free market over this period. Those who remained in the gradual safeguards in the coming days are called upon to raise their antennae: in particular, if they had chosen to have their bill debited to their current account, they must bear in mind that, for the first time, there will be an automatic switchover of the debit procedure from one operator to another. A novelty introduced by the rule that established the end of the greater protection: Arera and the Bank of Italy before the summer had set the rules to allow this changeover without the customer having to authorise the new electricity supplier to arrange payments to their current account.

In the last few days of July the customers assigned with the auctions for gradual protections received a letter from the new supplier (the assignees of the gradual protections lots are 7: Enel, Hera, Edison, Illumina, Iren, A2A and E.On) informing them 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 (debit on account) a few days after receiving the missive, the amount will be debited by the new supplier from the customer's account. It, in fact, has already received in July all the necessary data to prepare this operation from the outgoing operator. The banks involved have also already received all the necessary instructions.

Therefore, if a user does not want to be debited by the new supplier, he should contact his bank now to revoke the account debit authorisation. Another aspect to which to pay attention will be the commercial initiatives that the incoming suppliers will try to put in place: as will be recalled, the economic conditions are cheaper than those of the greater protection, a category in which 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 awarded lots of customers had competed with each other in terms of price discounts, an economic advantage in favour of the users of the graduated protections, which is to remain in force for three years. In the first year, this total discount will be EUR 113.

It is clear that guaranteeing this economic status for three years costs operators money, so they will have an interest in bringing gradual protections customers to their free market. Since they cannot make commercial offers to users of graduated protections, the way forward is to send letters to customers asking for permission to send commercial information. Once the OK is obtained, commercial offers will be made to bring the customer to the free market.