Experiences & complaints of e-consumers
Edith Appelmans – European Consumer Centre Belgium
A European network for consumers
• Project of the European Commission (DG Sanco)• To promote consumer confidence in the Internal
Market• How:
Through solving consumer complaintsThrough information provision and education
• Subsidized by European Commission (50%) and by the Member States (50%)
• ECC Belgium exists since October 2001
ECC-Net statistics 2011
• ECC-Net handled 70 207 demands from consumers in 2011 :
• 28 108 information requests
• 42 099 complaints
Complaints from e-consumers
• cross-border consumers
• contacting ECC-Net
• purchasing service or product online:56,6%
E-consumers complaints per type ECC Belgium
• ECC Belgium received 1822 complaints (55%) from e-consumers in 2011
E-consumers complaints per sector ECC Belgium
Online cross-border mystery shopping of ECC-Net
• 18 ECC’s puchased and returned 20 products between €50 and €150 in 17 other EU-states in Jan-March 2011
• Analysis of information on websites, of purchase procedure, return procedure and reimbursement
• Positive results for pre-contractual information:– Name easy to find (90%)– Geografical address (86%)– E-mail address (80%)
• but: – no information on delivery time (26%) or delivery costs (7%)– Only 82% mentions right of withdrawal & in 20% info is false
• Delivery: 62 % in the week after payment, 89% in 2 weeks after payment. Mean: 8 days between payment and delivery
• Reimbursement: 46% in 7 to 14 days after receiving returned products, 90 % in 30 days. 10 % not reimbursed
• 57% did not reimbursed delivery costs
Only 17 % of the websites displayed a trustmark (52 websites)
New ECC-Net report to be published in October 2012
The last 4 years the key categories, given rise to most complaints, have remained the same
ECC-Net workshop on fraud in 2012
• ECC-Net will present its report
• prevention is the best way to avoid consumers to be trapped
• Brochure ECC Belgium
More info?
European Consumer Centre Belgium
www.eccbelgium.be www.cecbelgique.be
www.eccbelgie.be