The Balearic Govern has sentenced two tourism companies, the airline Volotea and the travel agency eDreams, for charging their customers for services that they had not expressly authorized. The Directorate General for Consumer Affairs has qualified these behaviors as serious misconduct and has proposed sanctions amounting to 24,000 euros in each case.
In both cases the complaint was made by consumers who accepted the offer of a discount, without being aware that at the same time they were subscribing to a service, with a cost that exceeded the reduction in the price they were obtaining.
As stated in the aforementioned files, in the case of the airline Volotea, the consumer inspector pretended to buy a ticket for the Menorca-Asturias route, agreeing to an offer in which he saved just over five euros, but in doing so he was subscribed to the Megavolotea Plan, which meant a cost of almost 50 euros per year.
For its part, the travel agency eDreams also offered discounts that involved subscribing to the Prime service of this company, which entailed the payment of almost 55 euros.
Insufficient information from tourism companies
In both situations, the aforementioned department of the Autonomous Executive points out that the information provided to the customer by the tourism companies at the time of purchase of their trips was not sufficiently clear for the customer to necessarily be aware that they were making the aforementioned subscription, so that both companies are accused of charging a service to their customers without their express consent.
It should be noted that the case against Volotea is at the beginning of its processing phase, so it can present the allegations it deems appropriate, while that of eDreams is a resolution given that the company’s arguments have already been heard.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.