The European Union has cautioned online shoppers to be wary of the misleading tactics of electronics e-retailers, as it found that more than half of the online retailers are either misleading or cheating online buyers.
About one in four of the EU online shoppers buy electronics products such as digital cameras, game consoles, laptops and mobile phones, creating a market worth around €6.8 billion a year.
EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva has announced the results of the continent-wide survey-involving 26 member states and Norway and Iceland – into misleading advertising and unfair trade practices on websites selling consumer electronic goods. The clampdown covered 369 websites selling six of the most popular electronic goods to consumers in the EU – digital cameras, mobile phones, personal music players, DVD players, computer equipment and game consoles.
Ms Kuneva said: We discovered that more than half of the retailers selling on-line electronic goods are letting consumers down. This is a Europe-wide problem which needs a European solution. There is a lot of work to be done in the months ahead to clean up this sector, Europe’s consumers deserve better.
The results revealed that 55% of the websites investigated showed irregularities in particular relating to: misleading information about consumer rights; misleading information about the total cost of the product; or incomplete contact details for the trader.
The results showed that about 66% of the problem websites failed to inform buyers about their ‘right to return’- the right to cancel an order within a period of 7 days and return the product without giving a reason.
The study also revealed that about 45% of the problem websites gave misleading information about the total price of the product while 33% of them gave missing or incomplete contact details of the trader, so that they could not be contacted in case of problems.
National authorities will contact the traders and will ask them to clarify their position or correct the problems identified. Failure to bring a website in line with the law can result in legal action leading to fines or even websites being closed, the consumer watchdog said.
