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COSTA RICA |
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Sutel Investigates ICE For Abrupt Cuts of
Telephone Service
The Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (Sutel)
is investigating the practice of the
Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad
(ICE) cutting telephone service immediately
following the due date to a number of
customers it considers "high risk", based on
a blacklist produced by the state telephone
company.
ICE says it has adopted the practice of
suspending service the day following the due
date to those customers who are typically
later payers and/or have accumulated a debt
with the institution for other services,
like another telephone service under the
same name.
The currentl regulations dictates that
telephone service operators - so far ICE is
the only provider of cellular and fixed line
telephone service in the country - an eight
day grace period following the due date.
Let us explain. If a telephone bill was due
Friday, November 6, ICE must give customers
until Friday November 13 to pay up before it
cuts service. As a practice, since most ICE
agencies are closed on Saturday and Sundays,
the cut off date would be on the Tuesday
following, allowing the customer to pay up
on Monday.
However, ICE says that it has about 200.000
customers who it has identified as constant
late payers and to whom it feels don't
warrant the grace period.
Some 100 such customers have filed
complaints with the Sutel, prompting the
investigation.
In some arguments before the Sutel,
customers say that if ICE allowed the
non-payment to continue for several months,
it is the fault of the institution and not
the customer, thus it wrongly applies the
immediate cut of service.
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