Online purchases are still very risky

(Final report of 2013)

(Prague, March 4, 2014) Results of inspection action carried out by the Czech Trade Inspection Authority again proved that shopping in unknown or unchecked e-shops still poses high risk to consumers. Anonymous environment of virtual shops enables jacklights to attract especially less experienced or careless customers when offering them unreal prices, non-existent goods or services that are usually paid by consumers in advance but are never delivered or delivered in unsatisfactory quality. Inspectors detected violations of obligations in almost 80% of 1,296 inspections. Besides formal shortcomings, vendors most frequently used unfair commercial practices that were proven in more than 40% of cases and breached consumer rights concerning claims. In 2013, 936 fines totalling to more than 6 million CZK were lawfully imposed for detected shortcomings. Consumers should check trustworthiness of the particular seller, check online discussions and be careful concerning advance payments.

The complete press release is available in the attachment.


Celá zpráva zde:

2014-03-04-pr-online-purchases-2013.doc (, 54.00 KB)

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