PRESS RELEASE: Monthly Monitoring Report No. 9/2019

Prague, 18 September 2019 – If the Czech Post (Česká pošta) uses an ambiguous term in its Postal Terms and Conditions without further clarification, it is fair to interpret it always to its detriment. This follows from a final decision on the objections to the resolution of a complaint of which informs the September monitoring report. A sender filed a complaint on a lost postal item sent abroad, claiming it contained used postage stamps for collection purposes.

In response to the complaint, the Czech Post refused to pay the lump-sum compensation for damages for the lost postal item, explaining that according to the Postal Terms and Conditions, postal items may not contain “objects of cultural, artistic or collectible value regardless of the age and price thereof.”

CTU decided, that not all postage stamps are of collectible value. Current Postal Terms and Conditions does not specify definition of a term “subject of collectible value”. Therefore, it was up to the Post to claim and prove, that the postal item contained postage stamps of collectible value in order to derive that the content was prohibited. However, the Czech Post did not honour this obligation, so CTU agreed with the objections and granted the sender the right to a compensation of damages at a flat rate of CZK 998.

The monitoring report further informs, that CTU deals with complaints against the new per-minute billing introduced by Vodafone. After fulfilment of legal conditions, the operator can unilaterally change a contract. However, the subscriber is entitled to refuse such change and terminate the contract without any penalty. However, the customer cannot force the provider to continue providing the service to them under the original conditions (not even by filing a complaint with CTU).

The monitoring report is available here.