The state telecom, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), announced an amnesty for all late payments, saying it will not charge interest on all overdue payments on telephone services, both for cellular and fixed line.

The amnesty runs between June 6 and September 5, when customers can pay their overdue account without the accumulated interest charges.

The amnesty applies to all personal and commercial accounts for both residential, business and personal telephone services.

Francisco Calvo, a manager at ICE, says the suspension of interest charges is applied to some 400.000 overdue accounts. The telecom official did not disclose the amount overdue by its customers.

Calvo explained that the move is to allow customers to bring their accounts up to date with the suspension of interest charges,.

Other charges on overdue accounts, like judicial charges, late fees and reconnection fees, do apply, however, explained Calvo.

The ICE official added that if the customer pays up their bad credit rating at the telecom will be erased, any judicial processes would be stopped and customers can obtain new services without any problems.

ICE does not allow a customer with an overdue account to obtain new services and limits changes to existing accounts held by the same customer.

For example, a person or company with an overdue account cannot obtain a new or different service or add international calling or other features, though it is able to withdraw those types of services if not done so already by ICE's credit department.

ICE says that after September 5, all interest charges will be added again for all unpaid accounts.

To learn of the amount of your debt to ICE, you can send a text message with the word "deuda" at 4231 an your cedula or by calling 1115 for fixed lines phones and 1193 for cellular phones.

From:  http://www.insidecostarica.com