In this article, Sushant Pandey, Trina Banerjee, Suyash and Anubhav Pandey talk of steps for ensuring consumer awareness this Christmas.

Introduction

If the holidays are an exciting time for you to buy things then it is even more exciting for the retailers and manufacturers. There are ways for the marketers target their customers. And they do it in such an intelligent fashion that we get fish-hooked by them. It is not at all surprising for you may already know that you are a victim too.

It is all about reading the psyche of the general population. Hiking the sales in the time of festivals, especially Christmas holidays, does not require an MBA graduate. What it does indeed require is the basic sense that the customers will hover around the shop in dire need to shop for friends and families. And in case they don’t, they can always make you an offer you cannot resist.

From the design of the packaging to the fake pricing strategies, they are determined to lure your deepest desires. So one would say, it’s a festive season after all and why not treat yourself? After all, that’s what holidays are all about. But don’t be fooled by the marketing pranksters trying to make profits out of your loss.

Often it happens that when families go out to shop during festivals, they see these flashy offers outside retail shops or, for that matter, at the malls too. A washing machine or a T.V. or clothing articles are bought with the utmost excitement. Oh, what a joy it is to shop with family! But the sad story begins when the items turn out to be defective. And when you ask for an exchange, you are denied of\ such kind of services. These only are the tricks for the manufacturers and sellers to increase their sales in the holiday season. And the easy targets are those who do not research their rights as consumers and the validity of such ‘no exchange no return’ policies.

How do they get away with this?

There are numerous routes by which shoppers are abused. A couple of them are:

Sub-standard Products – Items whose quality is far beneath the required standard;

Defilement – Adulteration of food is exceptionally basic in food articles during Holiday seasons things and could turn out to be profoundly damaging to one’s well-being;

Item chance – Drugs that are unsafe, restricted or past expiry date, electrical apparatuses with lacking wellbeing precautionary measures, and so forth;

Offering at higher costs – The cost charged for the item won’t be proportionate to the quality;

False Claims – Manufacturers make false portrayals about their items in the media with a view to deceive the customers. Guaranteeing that utilization of a specific oil will cure hair loss, utilizing an organization’s decency cream for a particular period will make one reasonable, and so forth., are for the most part run of the mill cases of overstated, misdirecting promotions; and

Guarantee/Annual Maintenance Contract – In many cases, however, the item will have a guarantee or will be under yearly upkeep contract (AMC), when an issue emerges, the purchaser is informed that specific parts won’t be secured and they should pay.

No Return No Exchange policies– Since the sellers sell a good bulk of products during the holidays, they very smartly use this policy to avoid exchanges. For a customer who liked a product and from it home with him, he is bound by the policy which ensures that he does not get any money back or the item returned in case it turns out to be non-functional and defective.

Let us understand how consumers are deceived with this fictional Christmas tale

X from Christmas Land requested a combo bundle including the cake from Christmas Cake Store, an online bakery specialist and blessing store that ensures same day conveyance and the “conveyance of crisp items – dependably.” Christmas Cake Store neglected to convey the item on a predetermined day, and when they, at last, delivered it the following day, the cake was “crushed up, made of modest wine” and of a quality that was completely inadmissible to the client.

At the point when X endeavored to grumble about the non-conveyance of the item on the booked day, she found that the client mind numbers showed on the site were not going to. She figured out how to discover contact points of interest of their Lala land based sub-merchant, just to be informed that they had just gotten their requests from Christmas Cake Store to India the morning after the planned date.

After five days, X griped about the deferred conveyance of a substandard item finished a talk discussion with the organization agent, of Christmas Cake Store, who, as indicated by her was impolite and paid no regard to her dissensions.

X at that point moved toward a group which helped the consumers on such issues. X realised whatever took place was an Unfair Trade Practices under Section 2 (1) (r) of the Consumer Protection Act. On the off chance that the merchant did not discount everything to X and pay Rs 50,000 as remuneration for her misfortunes, badgering and burden.

Things consumer should keep in mind this Christmas

• Keep in mind the 4 P’s when shopping this Christmas – Price, Place, Product and Packaging.
• Christmas can be a season loaded with weights to purchase the most recent must-have toys. Stock deficiencies can send edgy guardians into the arms of fake dealers with shoddy, conceivably unsafe fakes.
• Government agencies are constantly attempting to handle the issue yet it is fundamental buyers stay cautious as well.
• Guardians ought to be careful when purchasing toys this Christmas and not fall for the main arrangement they see.
• Make a point to purchase from trustworthy shops, be careful with items that are radically less expensive and take a look at the bundling of the wholesaler’s subtle elements.

Do not be deceived by the HO HO HO offers! Check the product quality and ensure genuiness before buying.

Fake product trends

Brand business, its development/rivalries and so forth has prompted accessibility of fakes due to the reality mark offers and makes you outstand and accordingly the need to duplicate, privateer, fake has risen alongside the development of brands.

The greatest concern is, in any case, the clients’ fascination towards these privateer items is specifically relative to the cost of these items which are sold at 40 to 45% lesser incentive than the first. A typical man with constrained information falls for the fake items because of its modest or marked down costs. The requirement of laws against forging isn’t so strict in India which is another enormous shock for the brand business.

As counterfeiting has become an economic problem of international importance and has been growing dramatically across the globe, manufacturers of the original products and government find themselves in a constant battle against counterfeiters. This has led to a variety of countermeasures based on lawful, political, administrative, or business techniques. The framework also considers the interplay of attitudes, purchase intentions, and dissonance that leads to coping processes and in turn influences attitudes and decisions. Counterfeiting appears in two different forms, as deceptive and non-deceptive counterfeiting. Under receptive counterfeiting, the consumer is not aware of the fact that he/she purchases a copy rather than the original product and cannot be held accountable for the behavior. Focus is on non-deceptive counterfeiting, where consumers intentionally purchase fake products

The most well-known fake market is apparel, trailed by shoes, watches, cowhide products, and adornments. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Burberry, Tiffany, Prada, Hermes, Chanel, Dior, Yves St Laurent, and Cartier are every now and again counterfeited.

Survey on fake product

A survey by the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) has discovered that there is a flourishing business in counterfeit items in the State.

The report says:

• Fake items crosswise over different areas, for example, car parts, pharma, natural prescription and beauty care products have caught a market size of Rs. 15,000 crores through illicit channels.
• The chamber gauges say counterfeit items esteemed at Rs. 4,000 crores were sold in vegetable oils, ghee, flavors and watch segments, of which an extensive piece originated from the offer of watch parts.
• The chamber said the laws in the State do not prove to be effective deterrents for the offenders either by way of monitoring penalties, damages or criminal prosecution.
• It has suggested setting up of separate economic offense courts for trying cases in this connection
• The requirement for stringent techniques to counter the offer of deceiving items.
• The offer of fake items isn’t kept on top of the line ones.
• There are even makers who join the `Made in China’ tag, as the items from China have popularity.

Tactics and techniques used by the shopkeeper for misleading consumers

The festive season is on, and you can find the market areas filled with people buying, bargaining, fighting with the shopkeepers and even doing window shoppings. India is a multicultural, multilingual country where you will come across with lots of festivals of different culture and religion and these festival times are considered to be the gems for the shopkeepers because its brings lots of profits into pocket of the shopkeeper and they make full use of the advantage of the increase in demand for the festival product and thus shopkeepers often use the method of fraud to mislead the consumers.

In early days it was difficult to mislead the consumers because of the limited demands and conservative type of living but today, with increased industrial revolution, liberalisation and globalisation, our wants have increased manifold and this has given plenty of scope for malpractices and when any festival falls in between it gives the green signal to the shopkeepers and companies to apply different techniques to mislead the consumers.

Some of the techniques usually used by the Retailers/Shopkeepers are:

• No Exchange No Return Policy

Shopkeepers usually use this policy in the festive season which means the consumer who has purchased a product will be restricted from returning back to the shopkeeper even if he has witnessed some defects or problems in that product. By this, consumers are restrained from returning it back to the shopkeepers in exchange for the price given to the shopkeeper.

• No Guarantee & Warranty Policy

The products are being sold to the consumer with no guarantee or warranty over it. Shopkeepers and retailers use the advantage of festival demands and thus employ such unethical policies which are not in the interests of the consumers but only serve the interests of the shopkeepers/retailers.

• Packing Chinese Products with the label of “Made in India”

As the present Government is focusing on boycotting the Chinese products and awaring people not to buy Chinese products because it leads to an outflow of money from India. This initiative of Government has become a challenge for those retailers who are dealing in Chinese products. You can find the great impact Chinese products in Indian Festivals be it Diwali where you will find Lakshmi Ganesh made in China or be it Holi where You will find Chinese colours or Christmas where You will find Santa’s mask or dress made in China.

Now coming into the question how the retailers are misleading consumers to purchase such Chinese products in festivals. They do not employ any rocket science but by simply packing those Chinese products with the label of “Made in India” so the patriotic citizen with the proud heart can buy those Chinese products which are of low quality and does not has any guarantee over it.

• False Claims

Manufacturers make false representations about their products in the media with a view to mislead the consumers. Claiming that use of a particular oil will cure baldness, using a company’s fairness cream for a specific period will make one fair, etc., are all typical examples of exaggerated, misleading advertisements.

• Selling Products at higher price in Festive Season

This is the most common malpractice and technique used by the seller. When any festival knocks the door or is in the pipeline the demands of the festive products gets increased then the shopkeepers sell the products at the higher price even if the product is not proportionate to the quality.

• Adulteration of food products

This malpractice is considered to be serious because such malpractice is linked with the health of people as it can affect the health, such practices are usually done by retailers or shopkeepers in the festive season where they get the full chance to make the profit by doing adulteration in food items.

What should be the modes of Awareness?

Awaring people about such malpractices and also the laws has become important. It is important to make a layman know about the malpractices so he can easily differentiate between wrong and right because consumers often comes into the influence of the shopkeepers even if the shopkeepers is talking nonsense and is totally wrong.

And awaring the people about the laws has become important which protects the interest of people and which provides for the remedy to the affected consumer.

Such awareness can be made through:

• Advertisements

Advertisements has its own craze. Jaago Grahak Jaago” or Advertisements on purchasing of gold which has ISI mark. Such advertisements draws the plot and scene are done by the professional actors so as to have an impact on the minds of people and it could be easy for a layman to understands the laws on consumer protection when it is accessed through advertisements.

• Newspapers

Awaring people through newspapers has also an impact on the people and people who follow the newspapers can get aware oft such malpractices and laws through print media.

• Consumer Protection Programme

This programme is considered to be the best initiative by The Department of Consumer Affairs where their focus lies on educating more than 100 crores of people of various categories on various subject matters of consumer interest which are being dealt with by different Ministries/Departments is a gigantic task and the same cannot be undertaken as a sustained national programme unless the Planning Commission approves a substantial budget. Therefore, Department of Consumer Affairs has proposed an allocation of Rs.200 crores during the 10th Plan period for generating and strengthening consumer awareness in the country.

• Social Media

With the fast changing life and increase in trend of social media among the people the people are getting more attached to social media. Thus the Social Media has become a tool to aware the people and especially youth about such malpractices

What are the laws which ensure consumer protection?

Interest of the consumers are being protected by different enactments such as Sale of Goods Act, 1930, the Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marketing) Act, 1937, the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, the Indian Standards Institution (Certification Marks) Act, 1952, the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, the legal Metrology Act, 2009 and the most Important Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

Consumer Protection Act, 1986

Consumer Protection Act enlightens the rights such as:

• Right against the marketing of goods and services which are hazardous to life and property
• Right to be informed about the quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of goods or services, the consumers have the right to know the full details of the product he is buying
• Right to choice, wherever possible through access, to a variety of goods and services at competitive prices
• Right to be heard and to be assured that consumers’ interests will receive due consideration at appropriate forums;
• Right to seek redressal against unfair trade practices or restrictive trade practices or unscrupulous exploitation of consumers
• Right to consumer education and
• Right to clean and healthy environment

And provides the remedies such as

• Removal of defects from the goods
• Replacement of the goods
• Refund of the price paid
• Award of compensation for the loss or injury suffered;
• Withdrawal of the hazardous goods from being offered for sale or
• Award for adequate costs to parties.
• Removal of defects or deficiencies in the services.

Before initiating legal proceedings follow this step

Before starting any legal process, a legal notice is to be handed over to the defaulter whom you want to sue. The legal notice is to inform him of the complaint and non-resolution of which might lead the matter to consumer forum. A sample legal notice format is provided here which might be of your help.

Sample Legal Notice on redressal of Consumer grievance

Date

Address of manufacturer

SUB: NOTICE BEFORE FILING CONSUMER COMPLAINT

Dear Sir,

1. Give details of your purchased product or service (cash memo number and date).
2. Give information about the warranty or guarantee promised to you at the time of purchase.
3. Give details of the deficiency in the product or service.
4. List the problems you are facing due to this deficiency.
5. Give the details of your efforts to inform about the grievance in the past to which the party has not responded.
6. Give a time limit of at least 15 to 30 days to settle your grievance by asking for a refund of full amount with suitable interest, or replacement of the product along with proper compensation, else you will file a consumer complaint with the Court as you are protected under the Consumer Protection Act of 1986.
7. Inform that if your problems are not redressed within a reasonable time, appropriate legal steps will be taken against him and you seek compensation for the deficiency in services or defect in goods.

Yours truly,

Your signature, name, and address

How to file a consumer complaint

Step 1 – Approaching the right court.

There are two ways of deciding which court to appear.

First is the place where the sale of good took place or the territorial jurisdiction. Deciding on the basis of the area where the goods are purchased or the service is availed is not the sole criteria for deciding the court.

Second, on the basis of the cost of the product is the second criteria. If the price of good bought is upto 20 lakhs, one will have to approach District consumer forum, or, if the price of the good bought is above 20 lakh but below 1 crore then State consumer forum, and, if the price of the good bought is above one crore the National Consumer forum. The two criteria have to be kept along together for deciding which court one has to appear.

Step 2 – Drafting of Consumer complaint.

For this purpose, one should consult a lawyer as consulting a lawyer will be more effective rather than drafting the complaint on your own. Here are few key points which must be in your draft complaint.

• Introduction: Introducing yourself in 2-3 lines.
• Transaction: Detail of goods purchased, date of purchase, memo number, other such details.
• Defect: In this complaint about the defect in the goods or service. An example can be a deficiency of services arising out of refusal to honour a valid warranty.
• Rectification: In this complainant should rectify what steps were taken by him to redress the matter before approaching the court. An example could be, approaching the manufacturer many times, informing him about the defects over phone and letters, etc.
• Evidence: In this, the complainant should mention the memo receipt, eye witnesses, which supports such purchase and defects.
• Jurisdiction: Here is where a lawyer will come handy. If a complaint is made to court with no jurisdiction over the matter, the complaint will outrightly get rejected.
• The relief claimed: It is here all the relief which one seeks as a compensation is to be mentioned. An example could be, new mobile phone (in a case where the phone had latent defects, and the warranty was also not honored by the manufacturer.) Along with this, one should always claim litigation expenses incurred while fighting the matter in the court as a relief.

Step 3 – Payment of court fee.

If one is approaching district forum, the court fee is

• INR 100 for matters upto 1 lakh rupees,
• INR 200 when the matter is between 1-5 lakh,
• INR 400 when the matter is between 5-10 lakh,
• INR 500 when the matter is between 10-20 lakh INR.
• When matter concerned with is above 20 lakh then matter will be with state commission.
• INR 2000 for matters between 20-50 lakh,
• INR 4000 for matters between 50 lakh- 1 crore and
• Matters above 1 crore is dealt by National consumer forum and the court fee in such cases is INR 5000.

Step 4 – One can argue the case on their own or may hire a lawyer. If arguing on your own, here are few points to be kept in mind-

• Dress code → Person arguing must not necessarily be in lawyer’s attire. A Decent formal dressing will suffice the situation.
• Copies of complaint → three set of copies if the matter is in District Forum or State forum and four set of copies if the matter is in National Forum.
• What will be the complainant called in the court →  A complainant will be referred to as Consumer Complaint (C.C.) and
• After result → Free certified copy will be given to the litigants.

Within how many days should a consumer complaint be filed

The complaint must be filed within two years from the date of receipt of purchase. If the limitation time has exceeded then an additional time might be granted on providing with sufficient reason which will be subject to the understanding of the court.

Beware of Adulterated Food products this Christmas

How to lodge a complaint about food adulteration

It is Christmas and New year season. Be aware of fake products and adulterated food . Enjoy your consumer rights as well as uphold your duty to raise voice against consumer malpractices. Merry Christmas from team iPleaders!