After the death of the elderly Caterina Giovinazzo who received a wrong bill, the initiative to the ministries to have a law that protects citizens
Does it seem right to you to die for a bad bill? It is the story of Caterina Giovinazzo, the 88-year-old disabled pensioner from Camporosso di Ventimiglia who, after receiving a water bill of 15,339 euros, instead of 55, felt ill. An error later admitted by the same company that manages the water network in the area. But no one knew it at the time. 7,669 euros would have been automatically withdrawn from the lady's account, eliminating her little savings. Hospitalized due to illness, Caterina first lost her speech, she then died, her heart couldn't handle it. The family said that they were unable to explain to her what had happened, the mistake, and that the amount would be returned. The woman had consumed only a few cubic meters.
The news passed into the general cauldron, generating a few more newspaper headlines and was declassified as a news story among many. It's a fact: in our society of mass idiocy the weakest are often a nuisance even for information. “There is a serious problem and it must be resolved as soon as possible,” he says Italian Business the Fratelli d'Italia deputy Gianluca Vinci, “The withdrawal of incorrect amounts from the current accounts of users who choose the payment instrument of household utility bills through direct debit banking”
We've seen so-called crazy bills being sent before, and in this case the charge was lethal
Yes, today with direct debit, which many users use for convenience, the consequences of a disproportionate and immediate withdrawal from the current account can lead to truly very serious consequences, as we have seen”
What did she do?
I presented a question to the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, the Minister of Business and Made in Italy, the Minister of Economy and Finance asking for the elimination of this upstream risk. Even if the direct debit of payments of invoices relating to the consumption of services and supplies of a public utility nature, including gas, electricity, water or waste collection, could also be seen as a favorable solution for users , however this payment instrument also contains an objective and not rare financial risk for the consumer which can turn into a concrete risk. We are referring to the damaged integrity of the availability present in bank accounts, with consequences on the state of health of the people who decide to activate it
And how do you propose to intervene?
By imposing on suppliers of the relevant public utility services, gas, electricity, water, communications and others, not to be able to automatically debit, in the reference year, amounts on consumers' current accounts that exceed the highest value by 50% among those invoiced during the previous year
So can mistakes like the one that led to Mrs. Caterina's death be avoided!?
Yes, the error was attributed to an employee of the company that had subcontracted meter reading who mistook the woman's meter reading with another, probably a company, requesting a very high amount, for a residential home , of the incorrect bill
And you therefore asked the ministries to intervene…
If they urgently intend to undertake relevant regulatory initiatives aimed at preventing the recurrence of events such as the one narrated in the introduction, or at prohibiting the withdrawal of incorrect amounts from the current accounts of users who use direct debit
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