Italy Finance Police Probe Telecom Companies on Maritime Roaming

(Bloomberg) --

Italy's antitrust authority said it's investigating telecommunications operators over practices involving roaming charges at sea.

The probe of Telecom Italia SpA and other phone carriers will assess possible unclear or incorrect charges, the regulator said in a statement dated Dec. 4. Customers may get hit with these when, for example, they are aboard ferries operating in the Mediterranean.

Finance police carried out inspections at the offices of the telecommunication companies, according to the statement. These officials routinely conduct raids on company sites to gather information.

A spokesman for Telecom Italia declined to comment.

The regulator said it's also examining possible “aggressive” practices by the phone carriers of providing clients with services they didn't request, and a possible failure by the ferry operators to give passengers relevant information on phone charges.

--With assistance from Daniele Lepido.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jerrold Colten in Milan at jcolten@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rebecca Penty at rpenty@bloomberg.net, Jennifer Ryan, Andrew Blackman

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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