Exchange customers refused: Vattenfall has to pay a heavy fine

With the help of its customer database, Vattenfall has systematically sorted out price-conscious consumers who would like to change their electricity contract. The energy supplier has to pay a fine of 900,000 euros for this.

They are called “bonus hoppers” within the industry, and they are horror for many energy suppliers: price-conscious customers who frequently change their electricity and gas companies in order to take advantage of cheap contracts and collect bonuses.

What Vattenfall did was directed against precisely these people. Between August 2018 and December 2019, the company was similar, according to information from NDR and “Süddeutscher Zeitung” routinely collect data from potential new customers with older customer data already available at the company in order to sort out bonus hoppers in a targeted manner. Around 500,000 customers were affected. The acting Hamburg data protection officer Ulrich Kühn has now imposed a fine of a good 900,000 euros in this context.

Cooperation reduces fines

Vattenfall’s approach was quite simple: Anyone who had previously been a customer of the company, had switched in the meantime and then wanted a new low-cost contract with Vattenfall, was rejected. The background: Energy providers are also allowed to store the data of former customers for a long time, up to ten years – but actually only for the tax office and similar purposes. Using them to identify consumers who are “willing to switch” is not permitted – at least not without first obtaining the consent of the customer.

This is exactly what Vattenfall did not do, according to data protection officer Kühn: “Since this affected around 500,000 cases, the imposition of a fine was indicated.” Vattenfall had cooperated extensively with the data protection officers in the process and stopped the “non-transparent data comparison” immediately after the data protection officers took action for the first time. “That is why the fine had to be reduced significantly. The amount imposed should be a warning to all companies not to neglect the statutory transparency obligations. Especially with a large number of those affected, high fines are clearly indicated, as in the present case,” said Hamburg’s top data protection officer.

Warning about a year ago

Spicy: Just over a year ago, data and consumer advocates had already warned against such an opportunity to sort out bonus hoppers. As NDR and “SZ” reported in September last year, the credit agencies Schufa and “Crif Bürgel” had planned databases with which customers willing to switch could be identified.

Vattenfall had already attracted attention, says Udo Sieverding from the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer center: “Back then, many customers complained to the consumer centers who previously wanted to switch over to Vattenfall and now and that was rejected there is a connection, but the customers did not know that they are still stored in the database. ” Consumer advocate Sieverding welcomed the fact that a “severe fine” has now been imposed: “We hope that this is also a signal to the industry.”

Prompt response from Vattenfall

Half an hour after a written request from NDR and “SZ”, Vattenfall published a press release on Thursday afternoon in which it was said that they wanted to prevent the “improper use of bonus-relevant contracts”. The customer data of Vattenfall Europe Sales GmbH were “at no time endangered or exposed to abuse, only the transparency could be improved from the point of view of the authority.”

The data protection authority had emphasized to the company “that it was not a serious and, moreover, (a) first-time violation”. Vattenfall sees itself confirmed in the fact that it will also be able to sort out bonus hoppers in the future. It has been agreed with the data protection authority that for the comparison for both new and existing customers, however, the consent of the consumer should be obtained beforehand. So if you want a contract with a bonus, you have to agree to the data comparison. However, if you refuse, you will not receive a bonus.