2. What are consumer rights?
→ Consumer rights are the fundamental
rights that help all consumers, when
purchasing a good or service. In India there
are six different rights: right to safety, right to
be informed, right to choose, right to be
heard, right to seek redressal and right to
consumer education.
→ Consumer is any individual who
purchases products or services for his
personal use and not for manufacturing or
resale is called a consumer.
3. Why are consumer rights important?
“Many businesses and producers exploit the consumer through variety of angles.” Mr
Patnaik, HOD of individual and societies
1. Consumer Rights to prevent consumers from fraud or specified unfair practices.
2. Consumer rights ensure that consumers can make the best possible choices as a
consumer and get their complaints heard.
Today with a rapid increase in the consumer purchases, consumer violations
have also rapidly increased. To ensure the protection of consumers many
countries have taken steps such as the Uk government giving the
Competition and Market Authorities to charge firms 10% of the global
turnover if violated their consumer’s rights or the Indian government
updating the consumer protection act 2019 replacing the earlier 1986.
4. 1. Exploitation of consumer
2. Physical harm to the consumer
3. The consumer being misinformed
4. Monopoly
5. Biased trade practices, and
unlawful trade practices
6. Misleading advertisements
There are 6 things which
consumer rights avoid:
6. Right to be informed
➢ Consumers have the right to be informed about the good
or service provided to individuals, so they don’t fall prey to
any high pressure selling techniques.
➢ For failing to inform the U.S. Consumer Product Safety
Commission that millions of the dehumidifiers they
marketed to American consumers were defective and
potentially flammable, a Chinese appliance maker and two
of its subsidiaries agreed to settle criminal charges. For
this they were charged 91 million dollars.
In 2012 according to The Indian Barely 20% of
Indian customers are aware of the Consumer
Protection Act (COPRA), and only 42% have heard
of consumer rights. Although the consumer
awareness level was only 18% and 34%,
respectively, five years ago, these results are
nevertheless positive.
7. Right to choose
➢ According to the Consumer Protection Act 1986 the right to
choose is ‘the right to be assured that a consumer has an
access to variety of goods at competitive prices.
➢ The existence of monopolies prove to be
counterproductive to consumerism
➢ Collusion of various companies which sell a similar kind of
product is unethical.
According to a report in the United States which
surveyed 800 retail stores employing 70000
people in order to check the violation of
consumer right to choose based on race and
ethnicity. They noticed that when the customer
was either Hispanic, Asian or their race was
black, they were often treated not shown all the
available products and dismissed them if they
had too many questions.
8. Right to safety
➢ The right to safety expresses the importance of the quality
of the product available in the market, and the safety
concerns that accompany it.
➢ Shopkeepers have a responsibility to the consumer to
either tell them or display the dangers that certain
products may cause.
➢ A common example would be through labelling the dangers
that the consumption of cigarettes can cause
First-time offenders face a fine
of up to Rs. 10 lakh and a 2-year
prison sentence. For each
subsequent offence, the court
may impose a fine of up to Rs. 50
lakh and a sentence of 5 years in
prison.
9. Right to consumer
education
➢ Right to Consumer education makes sure that
the consumers sources of information which are
easily accessible and would enable them make
better decisions as a consumer
The Consumer Price Index education in India had risen to
166 points as of March 2022. Consequently, there has been
an increase of 66% since 2012. The CPI for education in
another developing nation, like Libya, was 380 points. This
illustrates the differences in the curriculum and the
priority that each nation places on consumer education,
despite the fact that both are developing. This is
correlated with different cultures present in the countries,
and how that reflects on their education systems.
10. Right to seek redressal
Right to seek redressal includes having the right for a fair
compensation or filing a complaint against unfair trade and
exploitation of a customer.
Fair compensation includes:
➢ Repair defect free of charges
➢ Replace product with similar or superior product
➢ Issue a full refund of the price
➢ Pay compensation for damages / costs /
inconveniences, etc
The Indian government has received 5.65 lakhs
consumer complaints that were filed in 2019.
More than 98% of these complaints were
solved..
11. Right to be heard
➢ As clearly mentioned in the Consumer Protection Act
2019, ‘the right to be heard and to be assured that
consumers interests will receive due consideration
at appropriate forums’
➢ This right helps to empower the consumers for
putting forward their complaints and concerns
fearlessly
➢ Indian Government has not formed even one outlet
for hearing the consumers or their issues to be
sorted out.
➢ There is a website: Consumerdaddy.com, where
consumers can upload their criticisms as well as file
complaints.
The Consumer Response Annual Report
analyzes that in 2020 approximately 542,300
complaints received by the CFPB b. The
number of complaints received in 2020
represents a nearly 54% increase over the
approximately 352,400 complaints received in
2019.
12. Real life examples of violations:
- Volkswagen's cheated tests = In which they were required to pay
over 14 billion dollars, while deceiving consumers about the “eco
friendly” methods that they use in car manufacturing and limited
emissions by Volkswagen vehicles. This violated the Environmental
and Consumer Protection Act. Even Though at normal rates, the
cars were emitting almost 150 times than normal cars did! Violates
right to be informed and right to safety.
- Devry’s Deception = A popular university that
promoted and promised students that after
graduating they will be guaranteed a job within 6
months and high earnings. They claimed that at least
90% would have a job. However, according to
research form FTC it is shown that most has jobs after
graduating, however they were very low paying and
most had the jobs concurrent before graduation. This
violated the right to be informed and demonstrates
the lack of knowledge of consumer education for
students even in university at their age (18 to 24
years old).
13. The wide range of people
participating in the survey
shows the multiple
perspectives we have
considered in this survey
We have people of different
ages and professions
This allows us to get a more
diverse perspective
14. We asked people if it fair that a shopkeeper may be punished for not providing a range of products at competitive
prices. According to 62.3% this is fair to both and according the 21.3% it is fair to only the consumer
15. The objective of this question was to ask people if they are aware of the right to be informed(“informed
consumer”) and the right to be heard(“ignored by a shopkeeper”). Almost 62.5% of the people told us that
they were aware and only 37.5% told us they were not aware.
16. According to our research many people get injured by crackers every Diwali(religious festival of Hindu’s). We
asked people if they were aware this violated both the to safety and the right to consumer education. We found
that about 66% of the people said that they were aware and only 33.33% were not aware
17. We asked people if they were aware that they have a right to give feedback on all products(comes under Right
to be Heard). 75% said yes and only 25% said no
18. We asked people what is the best course for violation of rights for according to them. We learnt that almost 78%
people said that demanding for justice is the correct way; 12.5% people said informing the police was the correct
option a small proportion of people thought that violence and ignorance is the best thing to do.
19. We asked this question to get information about how many people were aware about the existence of the
consumer court. We came to know almost 86% of the people knew about the existence of a consumer court.
20. Consumer Discrimination
There are numerous instances of direct discrimination
where individuals, aged below 18, disabilities, race,
religions, sex, etc.
Direct Discrimination -
- Is when a shopkeeper or owner treats a
consumer differently or worse than another due
to protected characteristics.
Indirect discrimination -
- Is when a shopkeeper or owner implements a
policy that restricts all those will those
characteristics from buying in a certain way,
making it more disadvantage for them.
Consumer Discrimination consists of price discrimination,
in which most cases individuals are required to pay more
or less due to their race, sex, age, disabilities, etc.
21. Examples of Direct Discrimination
If an individual requests to book a hotel room for their summer
vacation, however possess a borderline personality disorder, and
inform them about it. She is denied for a hotel room. However,
when another individual who doesn’t have any disorder requests
for the room, they are given it. This is a light example of direct
discrimination towards consumers.
Examples of Indirect Discrimination
A common example of indirect discrimination is when
restaurants apply an age limit to enter(except bars which are
legally required). This is discrimination of age. Even though
this is a common occurrence in India it violates the consumer
rights.
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