Early withdrawal of pension funds (freepik photo, Pixabay)
The subcommittee of the Economics Committee for the Examination of Consumer Failures, chaired by MK Limor Magen Telem, convened today to discuss the implementation of the amendment to the Consumer Protection Law, which requires businesses that operate a telephone service center to provide a professional human response within 6 minutes. The termination of the contract was intended to significantly shorten the waiting times, and in a precedent-setting manner was also applied to the banks and insurance companies.
The chairman of the subcommittee, MK Limor Magen Telem, said at the beginning of the meeting that when a consumer chooses the option of a repeat call from a representative within 3 hours – either they do not return at all or they return but at the beginning of the call there is a disconnect. She also noted that if the customer is on call waiting – the repeat call is disconnected and the call is closed. She also pointed out other difficulties in implementing the law, such as recruiting staff, cumbersome routing systems and more. The chairman of the subcommittee wondered why the companies do not return to customers who left a message in order, when it is their turn in the first call to the call center.
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MK Simcha Rotman said that there are problems with the law in the sense that it applies to service providers, who also have a business interest in providing a quick response to the customer. “If a company does not provide a good service – just do not call it,” he said. The provisions of the law apply to non-monopolistic business services – they are redundant, but emphasized that the law does not apply to government ministries, which are a kind of natural monopoly, and precisely where waiting times are extremely long.
The Consumer Protection Authority’s Advocate, Adv. Hannah Weinstock, reviewed the various amendments introduced to the law, with the aim of providing consumers with a call to a human representative in the companies listed in the Second Schedule, within a short and clear time frame. She also noted that due to the practical difficulty of answering all calls within 6 minutes, an arrangement was made possible according to which as long as there is a designated regulator for one of the companies – the regulator can determine with respect to a specific company that a certain percentage of all calls can exceed 6 minutes. Regarding the option of a repeat call, Advocate Weinstock clarified that there is no provision in the law regarding the order of return to clients.
The Advocate of the Israeli Consumer Council, Adv. Sharon Meir, noted during the hearing that there are failures in the implementation of the law and the result is that the consumer is harmed: “There is a problem in balancing the weak customer “Through the regulator and not compensation to the consumer. If the consumer receives compensation, it will be a powerful tool for him in front of the supplier.”
The Deputy Supervisor of Banks at the Bank of Israel, Oded Peretz, said that since the law was enacted and came into force in July 2019, the Bank has been working to enforce the law. In this context, she detailed that the Bank of Israel issued a proper banking management directive to the banking system in which clear percentages were set in relation to the number of calls excluded. “In the last report we see compliance with almost one hundred percent in the regulations set by the bank, the exceptions are really minor,” she said.
The representative of the Capital Market, Insurance and Savings Authority, Adv. Yifat Hasson, stated that the authority ordered that every relevant institutional body, including all types of services, should answer telephone inquiries within 5 minutes, with the possibility of deviating from these times by ten percent of all calls. Hasson noted that raw data for 2021 show that insurance, pension and provident companies met targets, in at least 85 percent of cases. Age 67 will be transferred directly for human response.
The director of the Enforcement and Control Division at the Ministry of Communications, Eitan Kasif, noted that his office emphasizes the issue of supervision, which is measured based on the companies’ data, public complaints and audits of the ministry as an undercover customer. He further explained about the enforcement actions and said that the Ministry of Communications imposed financial sanctions, due to deviations from the deadlines set by law, on Partner, Bezeq International, Hot Mobile, Rami Levy and more. For example, Hot Mobile was fined NIS 343,000, while Partner was fined NIS 272,000. According to him, after the fines were imposed, there were significant improvements in the response times of these companies.
At the end of the discussion, the chairman of the subcommittee called on the Consumer Protection Authority to examine, in cooperation with government ministries, the problems and failures that arose during the meeting and to examine whether legislative amendments or increased enforcement are needed in relation to the following issues. Patients and government ministries; Examination of the possibility of providing financial compensation to customers who have experienced a violation of the law; Giving priority to senior citizens while waiting for service representatives; The chairman of the subcommittee, MK Magen Telem, demanded that the Consumer Protection Authority forward to the committee its reference to these points within two months.
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