AGCM

PRESS RELEASE

ON LINE PURCHASES: THE ITALIAN COMPETITION AUTHORITY FINES EIGHT COMPANIES FOR ALMOST 1.7 MILLION EURO FOR OFFERING DISCOUNT VOUCHERS THROUGH THE SUBSCRIPTION OF A COSTLY MONTHLY SERVICE IN A DEDICATED WEBSITE.

Fines were imposed on the companies Webloyalty, Alitalia, Airone, Ryanair, eBay, TicketOne and eDreams.

Many consumers complained about unwittingly subscribing to a web service called “Acquisti e Risparmi”, with a 12 euro monthly fee, due to the promise of discount vouchers to be used for purchasing goods or services on line from several important on-line selling companies. Such commercial practice was fined by the Authority for almost € 1,700,000.

This practice, which the Authority fined as unfair, was carried out by the company Webloyalty, which offered the consumers, in a non-transparent way, a service called “Acquisti e Risparmi” at the cost of € 12,00 per month, which were automatically withdrawn from the consumers’ credit cards. The subscription took place through the web platforms of some commercial partners that the Authority identified also thanks to the cooperation with the Italian Finance Police. These partners, namely Ryanair, Alitalia, Airone, eBay, Ticket One and eDreams, received payments from Webloyalty against every page visited and every subscription (with the exception of eBay).

After purchasing on-line goods and services from the abovementioned companies, consumers were offered a discount voucher of an amount between € 10,00 and € 20,00 for the purchase of other goods or services from the same professional, through a message which was not immediately identifiable as a commercial offer. After inserting their personal data, consumers unwittingly subscribed to the service provided by Webloyalty, thus authorizing a monthly withdrawal of € 12,00 from their bank account and subscribing to a “cash-back” service (i.e., you pay to get a discount in the form of a refund).

Therefore, consumers were hooked, from the website of the company from which they had purchased goods or services, through a banner offering a discount voucher in case of further purchase. Characters, graphic  and colours of this banner were the same (with the exception of eBay) as those of the website where they had just carried out the purchasing procedure: that is, such banner was not identifiable as belonging to a different company and consumers were thus encouraged to go on by the promise of a discount voucher. No information were provided about costs or characteristics of the service and even going on with the surfing only little information were provided about the actual savings allowed by the subscription and its limitations. As further evidence of the actual little attractiveness of the service, the data acquired during the proceedings show that in a period of little more than a year, over 62% of the unwitting subscribers asked for the service to be deactivated.

Here below the individual fines, which take into consideration the considerable amount of consumers hooked, but also size and financial statement of each company, mitigating and aggravating circumstances and for eBay of the lesser seriousness of the infringement:

1) Webloyalty International Sàrl and Webloyalty International S.r.l: € 800,000 (eight hundred thousand) jointly;

2) Ryanair Ltd.: € 420,000 (four hundred and twenty thousand);

3) Alitalia: € 145,000 (one hundred and forty five thousand);

4) Airone: € 25,000 (twenty five thousand);

5) Vacaciones eDreams, S.L.: € 220,000 (two hundred and twenty thousand);

6) eBay (UK) Ltd: € 20,000 (twenty thousand);

7) TicketOne S.p.A.: € 50,000 (fifty thousand).

Rome, 28^th February 2014

• PS8530