Sale of Oi can make customer pay up to five times more, says institute

The sale of Oi to rivals Tim, Vivo and Claro raised a warning about the prices that consumers will pay after the change of operator.

The Idec (Instituto de Defesa do Consumidor) claims that the approval by Cade (Administrative Council for Economic Defense) for the purchase of the company this Wednesday (9) did not bring legal guarantees that customers who hired the cheapest services from Oi, in compared to competitors, will be able to maintain the price they currently pay when transferred to other operators.

A survey by the institute points out that Oi’s customers will be able to pay up to five times more in plans and data packages for internet and mobile telephony with the sale of the operator to other giants in the market.

Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency) has not commented on the price increase that Oi consumers may face with the change of operator, until the publication of this text.

For Procon-SP (Foundation for Consumer Protection and Defense), the consumer must have respected their right to maintain the payment terms provided for in the current contract.

“Changing the service provider without authorization or agreement of the consumer, in principle, prevents the conditions of the contract from being changed. It is necessary to pay attention to the validity of this contract and its closing clauses. If there is a change in the existing framework, to the detriment of the consumer, he must complain”, says Fernando Capez, executive director of the agency.

According to the Procon of Rio de Janeiro, the acquisition of Oi must respect the rights of consumers who are currently linked to the company. “The Consumer Protection Code prohibits suppliers from modifying or unilaterally canceling the contract signed between the parties, or from promoting readjustments in the amount paid,” the agency said in a statement. “Nothing prevents, however, that the new operator offers other plans to consumers, which, if accepted, will take effect in the relationship between the parties.”

Study shows lower prices at Oi

The Idec study analyzed prices of 16 plans from Oi, Tim, Vivo and Claro between October and November 2021, and pointed out that Oi offered the same amount of services at a lower cost in the regions of São Paulo and Recife (PE), where has strong performance.

The operator’s cost per GB (gigabyte, measure for data consumption in telephone plans) recorded in the period analyzed by the survey was two to five times lower than that offered by rivals.

For prepaid plans offered in São Paulo, for example, the cost per 1 GB offered in the period ranged from R$1 at Oi to up to R$4.99 at Vivo and Claro operators. At Tim, the gigabyte was sold for R$1.89.

Prices per GB – Prepaid plans in São Paulo

Source: Idec

Prices per GB – Postpaid plans in the 50 GB range in São Paulo

Source: Idec

Idec has been following the topic since 2020, participated in a public hearing on the subject and sent a statement to Cade about the risks of the transaction for Oi’s current customers.

According to the institute, the survey that compared the prices of the four competitors prompted Anatel’s Committee for the Defense of Users of Telecommunications Services to forward a statement to the Agency’s Board of Directors about the risk of the service becoming more expensive for users.

However, the opinions on the purchase of data by Anatel and Idec did not provide guarantees that current consumers will not pay more in the future, when they migrate, according to the institute.

“There was hope that the conditions imposed by the authorities to approve the operation would address the issue of consumer rights. In Anatel’s decision, last week, there are some points of consumer protection, such as the guarantee of portability and non-imposition of fidelity. But these are guarantees that consumers should already have anyway. Portability has been guaranteed for a long time and fidelity would not make sense to maintain, because there will be a change of operator providing the service”, says Camila Leite, lawyer and researcher at the Telecommunications and Digital Rights of Idec.

“Anatel tried to address the issues related to consumers, but they were still insufficient. Cade had a final decision that was rushed and ended up not addressing these rights, and none of them was specifically concerned with the issue of prices.”

The rapporteur of the process, counselor Luiz Braido, voted against the operation and recognized the operator’s more affordable prices, which aroused fear that its consumers would be helpless. According to Leite, Oi mainly serves the lower-income population.

“The rapporteur’s vote did not prevail and we have no imposition that consumers are served by equivalent plans in terms of prices. There is no explicit mention of this”, says Leite.

Senacon (National Consumer Secretariat), of the Ministry of Justice, said in a statement that both Oi and its buyers have a legal duty to make all information available to consumers during the transition.

According to the secretariat, the consumer is entitled to the portability of his number to another operator and must be aware of the terms of the transition, especially in cases where he is in a contractual loyalty period with Oi. In addition, after the portability, the consumer you may have to pay the proportion of what you used at the old operator during the previous period.

If you feel injured during the transition, the customer can file a complaint with the Procon of their region and on the consumer.gov.br website. According to the agency, the rate of conflict resolution by the portal in the telecommunications segment was 89% in 2021.