Services Standards: Defining the Core Consumer Elements ... - ANEC

Hans-W. Micklitz
• Billing: billing documents should be transparent and comprehensible to
the layman. It should be presented in paper or in electronic form as
agreed, contain fundamental information on the parties, the contracts
and the period, indicate the method of price calculation, the price of
separate elements as well as the final price if there is need. A standard
format should be developed 452 ,
• Payment modalities: Modes of payment should include cash vouchers,
debit or credit cared and electronic fund transfer, such as payments
through internet, debits from bank account. Any surcharges related to
particular modes of payment should be clearly indicated 453 . Advance
payment should in principle be prohibited. If the consumer is requested
to pay in advance he or she should be given securities,
b) Rights and remedies (withdrawal, compensation and liability)
EC law provides only very basic rights and remedies to consumers. A major
exception is the right of withdrawal, which essentially applies to goods and
services. However, this does not mean that there are no rights and remedies
beyond the right of withdrawal. These may be usually found in national private
legal orders. Standard-setting may therefore refer to the relevant national rights
and remedies and/or develop a European wide approach.
• Cancellation rights: technical standards should foresee the right of the
consumer to cancel the contract, thereby referring to the relevant
national rules 454 ,
• Compensation for improper information supply 455 : if the service provider
does not provide the information which he is required to provide under a
given technical standard, the contract should be regarded as being null
and void,
452 See in particular BS 8463:2005 Specification for customer billing practice, which
distinguishes between the billing process and the billing document, lays down the
respective requirements with regard to periodic billing and provides for a set of
recommendations for bill presentations.
453 ISO/IEC Draft Guide 76 Development of service standards – Recommendations for
addressing consumer issues, 8.7.2.
454 This seems necessary as cancellation implies the question of whether and to what extent
the consumer will have to compensate the service provider for the service he has already
provided up to the time of cancellation.
455 The vast majority provide for insufficient remedies, even for those types of services which
have been harmonised by the European Community. This has been officially recognised by
the European Commission in the Green Paper on the Revision of the Consumer Acquis,
COM (2006) 744 final, 12.2.2007, p. 22.
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