Since the Line Rental was made available to Alternative Operators in 2009, Movistar started losing business as customers finally had the chance to break free but the Telco giant has managed to keep some customers on board by offering an “Economic Line” which of course ends up being an even more expensive alternative!
When Direct Telecom announced the launch of DT OneBill in 2009, new and existing customers inundated our call center relieved to hear that they could finally get away from the blue and green invoices which were only in Spanish and charging for unwanted/unknown services 9 times out of 10. For the first time in Spain’s Telco history, customers finally had the liberty of choosing their provider for their land line service as well as their calls &/or Internet services without involving Movistar. The fact that Movistar suddenly lost thousands of customers to alternative Telcos such as Direct Telecom comes to no surprise to anyone….but as usual, Movistar had another card up their sleeve.
Movistar used what seems to be a semi-secret underhand counter offer to retain the customer!
Hundreds of Direct Telecom customer testimonials as well as countless reports available in the Internet revealed that Movistar used a counter offer to retain the client which is not only NOT available as an official product/service from them, but it is also extremely misleading! To sum things up, basically Movistar contacted the customer that has put in a request to migrate their Land Line service to DT OneBill to make them a special deal. The ‘special deal’ in this case, meant offering the customer an ‘economic line’ which would cost only 6,90€/month instead of the 13,97€/month (official price set by the CMT). Of course, more than one found this offer appealing and decided to stick with Movistar. All goes well, of course until you receive your next invoice from them to find that…….you have been charged for your calls TWICE.
Fist of all, it is clear why this ‘economic line’ does not form part of their official product catalogue. They wouldn’t want their millions of clients suddenly paying half for their line rental, so this was exclusively designed to retain the customers that were considering alternative providers.
Even so, they were not just going to cut out 50% for the sake of keeping a customer, so they threw in some interesting conditions in the microscopic small print.
After zooming into the small print we find the interesting part which explains not only how they are going to make up for the loss, but quite cleverly make even more money!
Basically, if you have opted to take the ‘Economic Line’ offer, Movistar will charge you an EXTRA 5.9cts/min for ANY call you make, EVEN if you have your Low Cost Call service with ANY alternative Telco such as Direct Telecom. Movistar will charge you a minimum of 180 mins/semester regardless plus it costs 29,75€ to switch to this service (not including IVA). It wouldn’t be too bad if their per minute charge was acceptable, but it is already almost double the going rate with Direct Telecom!
So, if you are a ‘Economic Line’ customer, you can expect to see 2 invoices. One from your alternative provider billing you for your calls correctly, and another from Movistar billing you 5.9cts/min for the exact same calls! not to forget you will also be billed the monthly fee for the ‘Economic Line’, which might not look so ‘economic’ anymore by now.
The morale of the story is….
Don’t get caught out with this offer that eventually works out to be more expensive for you.
There is a solution so don’t worry.
If you find that you are still getting an invoice from Movistar charging you for a ‘Linea Económica’, feel free to contact us. We will be delighted to assist you in reverting this back to a standard Line Rental with DT OneBill so that you pay for your calls just once and keep getting your invoices in your language.
If you still have your Line Rental with Movistar and wish to break free like thousands of others like you have done already, then let us take care of it for you.
Without a doubt, there is no safer and more económic solution for your Line Rental & Calls than having DT OneBill + Line Guard.
Contact us on 902 107 111 or visit:
http://www.direct-telecom.es/index.php/en/cheap-international-calls/35.html
If you are curious about the small print, we have dug it out for you. (in Spanish only) c_p_linea_economica