Public services such as taxis have fixed prices: a ride of a certain time and distance always costs the same. Instead, the apps of cars with drivers —like Uber, Bolt or Cabify—, which go down when few people use them and go up with high demand: at some concerts in Madrid, . The Ministry of Consumer Affairs approved this Thursday a decree that modifies the consumer and user law to prohibit these abusive price increases when demand increases in situations that can be classified as a civil protection emergency.
Thus, the Council of Ministers approved this Thursday a decree that modifies the law to establish that companies that personalize prices automatically – that is, those that have dynamic rates – do not raise them in emergency or catastrophe situations. The modification refers to those cases in which the price of a commercial offer cannot be accurately set due to the nature of the service or product. These are cases in which prices end up being personalized in an automated way, as happens, for example, when booking trips in VTC vehicles or renting accommodation on an automatic basis. online.
Although Pablo Bustinduy’s department does not mention any specific company—and companies do not usually talk about their internal functioning either—many economics applications collaborativelike Glovo, apply these same dynamic rates. The same thing happens with pages like Amazon or Booking, and also with the websites of large airlines (tickets go up if several people search for the same flight at the same time). Although some sources put Airbnb in this group, the company denies it: “We do not set prices dynamically, it is the hosts who always decide the price of the accommodations they advertise,” says a spokeswoman.
Under normal conditions, price variations at a time of high demand can be framed in the free market, but in extreme situations it can cause serious harm to the most vulnerable. The regulatory change has established that there cannot be increases in the final sales price in “contexts of urgency, risk or need of the consumer”, as detailed in the text, referring to any situation that can be classified as a civil protection emergency, in the terms regulated in the Law of the National Civil Protection System. Thus, the protection that consumers have in times of catastrophe such as the Dana that devastated Valencia is reinforced.
“To guarantee access to essential goods or services in this situation, it is necessary to prevent potential abusive price increases through the personalization of prices that make access to them difficult or impossible,” explain sources from Pablo Bustinduy’s ministry. “That is, this price customization cannot lead to increases in the final sales price when there is an increase in demand in contexts of urgency, risk or need of the consumer,” they add. The ministry itself, together with the consumer authorities of the autonomous communities, will be in charge of monitoring the prices of this type of applications.
Limitation on car sales
In this same Royal Decree-Law, it has been agreed to limit the price for the sale of motor vehicles within the Restart Auto+ Plan. This plan has been approved to provide financial aid to all those people, natural or legal, who need to buy any type of motor vehicle because they lost theirs during the damage, and specifies that points of sale that adhere to this program cannot sell cars to the affected people at prices that are higher than those on October 28, the day of the flood.
This limitation is specified in that the points of sale of this type of vehicles that wish to join this plan must sign a responsible declaration that it will not alter the prices that the vehicles offered in their establishment had before October 28, 2024, in addition to fill out a form available at the electronic headquarters of the Ministry of Industry and Tourism. In this way, the aid offered by the Government for the acquisition of new vehicles is linked to the limitation of sales prices that were set before the damage occurred.
According to ministry sources, this limitation follows the line that was implemented in the decree approved on November 11, when Consumer Affairs introduced an article to prohibit funeral services from offering prices higher than those in force or those announced prior to October 28. . “A tragedy of these characteristics cannot be a context that gives rise to the economic benefit of any operator,” Bustinduy stressed.
