The Valencian lawyer Francisco Javier Galán has compiled in a small manual his fight and judicial triumph against the unpleasant experience of harassment suffered by a telephone company, which insistently claimed him and his minor daughter, during months, a non-existent debt of 80 euros.
His triumph: having finally obtained a restraining order and a ban on communications in an innovative process not without setbacks, but which finally paid off in his favor and with whose publication he intends to help put an end to the abuses of these companies.
“It was not my 80 euros, but the 80 that they intend to obtain from all the people who have contracted their services. It is known as externalities in economics, actions that, despite having negative consequences for other people, are profitable because the benefits are much greater than the costs. Many people will end up paying and giving in so that they are not bothered”, points out Galán, author of the book “Phone harassment and the restraining order”, edited by Sendemà.
At the end of 2015, he decided to change the telephone company carrying out a portability that did not entail any cancellation fees, according to what his own company informed him. However, weeks later he received two invoices for 40 euros as a penalty for contract cancellation and another for 40.61 euros for a line bill, two months after having ported.
This client replied that he did not owe anything, but the company registered him in a registry of defaulters and began a process of sending calls and messages both to his terminal and to those of his relatives, including a minor daughter, who received calls even in teaching hours.
“It is no longer just that they harass you to seize your money, it is that on top of that they stain your honor by including you in delinquent records as if you were a bad payer or a criminal, and they publish it in the eyes of the whole world. They intimidate you to the point of psychological exhaustion so you will pay,” he laments.
JUDICIAL CLAIM
It was then that he processed a claim procedure before the Ministry of Industry, through which he was found to be right in the sense of corroborating that he did not owe the company anything, although the calls continued and he decided to file a complaint for harassment and fraud. which fell to the Court of Instruction number 1 of Valencia. This court opened preliminary proceedings in May 2016, but finally closed the matter.
However, the client appealed to the Provincial Court, which ordered the court to continue with the procedure and investigative steps for an alleged crime of telephone harassment, contemplated in the Penal Code after the last reform.