Rkman: Consumer Complaints on the Rise, Exceeding 25 Thousand Annually

The number of inquiries and complaints from Croatian consumers exceeds 25 thousand annually, with a noticeable trend of growth, and inquiries are becoming increasingly complex, emphasizes Ilija Rkman, president of the “Consumer” association – Croatian Association of Consumer Protection Organizations, on the occasion of World Consumer Rights Day, which is celebrated every year on March 15.

As the most common areas related to consumer inquiries, Rkman mentioned electronic communications, trade, online shopping, the conclusion of consumer contracts outside the business premises of traders, material defects and product warranties, utility services, enforcement, financial and insurance services, unfair, misleading, and aggressive business practices, violations of the code of business ethics, as well as tourism and hospitality services.

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He marked the years 2015, 2016, and 2017 as years of complaints in the areas of enforcement, material defects on technical products, and electronic communications. He also warned about Eurobarometer reports from the previous four years, which rank Croatia at the bottom of the EU regarding consumer rights.

He pointed out that the Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship, and Crafts has reduced funding for the operation of their advisory offices, that they had to wait until May of that year for the allocated 800 thousand kuna for 2016, and a similar situation occurred in 2017, when they operated for three months without funds for salaries and “cold operation”.

Rkman notes that the 840 thousand kuna that the Ministry is providing this year is also insufficient, and without co-financing from local governments, the cities of Zagreb, Osijek, Pula, and Split, which assisted them in 2016, it is a big question, he states, how they will pay employees, the accountant, and advisors, such as those for telecommunications and energy.

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As shown by research from the Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship, and Crafts, based on their database of complaints and inquiries from citizens, the majority of consumers in Croatia, 42 percent, have complaints about product defects, especially electronic devices, while the category of public services follows with 23 percent, where electronic communications are most prevalent.

HAKOM: Insufficient Consumer Awareness and Operator Transparency

When it comes to electronic communications, the biggest problem is the lack of user awareness regarding what they are contracting and the provision of insufficiently transparent information by operators, stated the Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Activities (HAKOM), which received just under 2600 inquiries or complaints from the field of electronic communications last year.

HAKOM notes that it often happens that users contact them because they misunderstood the terms or prices of a service and therefore want to terminate the contract prematurely.

Additionally, complaints about excessively high bills, or the calculation of billing system costs, are also common. In such cases, they note, the positive aspect for the user is that they do not have to pay the disputed amount, nor may the operator initiate forced collection, if they have timely filed a complaint, until HAKOM makes a decision in the dispute.

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“A particular problem, although rarely expressed, is seen in cases where there has been some kind of malfunction that cannot be easily resolved but keeps recurring or the repair takes a long time. Users are especially frustrated then because they do not have service, especially if the malfunction is such that no other operator can offer the service,” HAKOM stated in response to Hina’s inquiry.

Experiences from electronic communications also show that consumers are not willing to pay sufficient attention to information about purchasing conditions, especially if they think that reading or studying the offer will take too much time.

In this regard, HAKOM advises that any user who does not fully understand the terms, prices, or provisions of a contract for a service should not sign the contract immediately but only after everything is clear to them and only after they are aware of all possible costs.

The problem with services with special tariffs, in terms of various “entertainment” content, is primarily the problem of user harassment through unwanted advertising, and less “bait-and-switch,” HAKOM assesses.

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In this context, a user who is “hooked” on a service signs up for something they actually do not need, it is charged expensively, and then they feel deceived. When it comes to classic deception, users are misled on the internet into believing they have contracted a virus, to download antivirus software by sending an SMS message, while in fact, the user is signing up for a service to receive three MMS messages per week at a higher price.

HAKOM emphasizes that the operator issuing the bill has nothing to do with such services with special tariffs, and the user, if they disagree with the bill, should dispute it in a timely manner.

European Parliament Member Borzan Engaged in Several Initiatives for Consumer Rights Protection

Croatian Member of the European Parliament Biljana Borzan has recently initiated and engaged in several initiatives regarding consumer rights protection, particularly highlighting research that proved the different quality and price of seemingly identical products in Croatia and Germany.

As she stated for Hina, at the beginning of her mandate, officials from the European Commission (EC) told her that different quality was not a problem as long as the product was safe for health, but last September, after years of research and proof, the President of the EC Jean-Claude Juncker marked different quality as one of the priorities in his annual State of the Union address.

Borzan, who was recently appointed the European Parliament’s rapporteur on different food quality, is currently drafting the Parliament’s first position on this issue, which should result in changes to European laws.

“After the publication of my research, HIPP withdrew a lower quality baby food from the Croatian market, but we cannot rely on the goodwill of the manufacturer we ‘caught’ in the research. There must be a clear law that prohibits this,” Borzan stated.

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Borzan has also been engaged in banning programmed obsolescence of devices and the need to introduce a minimum durability label, and as she states, she is currently in negotiations on the Directive on Warranties, which clearly states that manufacturers must provide information about the expected lifespan of devices.

“The industry strongly opposes this, and it remains to be seen whether it will remain in the text until the end of negotiations. In any case, this situation is unsustainable; we constantly witness device failures after the warranty period, a lack of spare parts on the market, and significant environmental pollution,” Borzan says, noting that it is necessary to break the prejudice that repurposing or repairing will destroy jobs.

As she states, research has shown that reuse or repair is much better even than recycling products because it creates over 10 thousand new jobs.

She also mentions that she receives many consumer inquiries from citizens, and that at the EU level, consumer rights are one of the most important policies, and that many advantages for which representatives advocate in the European Parliament are directly transferred to national legislations.

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“An example of this is the directive on the prohibition of discrimination based on residence, so-called geoblocking, which I worked on. From autumn, consumers will be able to shop anywhere in the EU. Until now, consumers from smaller countries like Croatia have often been directed to websites with different prices or their orders have been rejected,” Borzan states.

She emphasizes that her Regulation on Cross-Border Parcel Delivery was just voted on Tuesday, which will bring transparency to the market by giving greater authority to regulatory agencies, in our case HAKOM. In this regard, all prices that do not correspond to actual delivery costs will be reported to the European Commission, which will lead to lower delivery costs.

“In this way, order is introduced into a very illogical market where, for example, delivery in one direction was three times more expensive than delivery for the same distance in the other direction. Also, this is great news for Croatia, as cross-border delivery to smaller member states is usually at least twice as expensive as to larger ones,” Borzan emphasizes.