Uralsvyazinform, the telecommunications provider, admitted that the company had violated the existing legislation on consumer rights protection, reports Egor Tomilov of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog).

Rospotrebnadzor’s regional division received a complaint from Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service. The latter claimed Uralsvyazinform was forcing some of its customers to use certain tariff schemes.

The antimonopoly agency found no antimonopoly law violations there but saw this as a violation of consumer rights legislation.

Having looked into this claim, Rospotrebnadzor declared Uralsvyazinform was practicing one-sided change of the terms of its customer agreements, which violated Article 310 of the Administrative Code.

The agency kept collecting the unhappy customers’ complaints throughout September 2008 in order to take the case to court and insist on compensating the customers. Ten applications had been collected by the end of September, but the parties agreed on the out-of-court settlement at the end of the day, Egor Tomilov explains.

‘Uralsvyazinform contacted Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor, and a meeting was held at the end of September, in the course of which the company admitted all its offenses and promised to come to terms with each particular customer,’ he says.