Millions of complaints

A recent survey by Eurobarometer (69.1/2008) has shown that some 80 million citizens “complained formally to a trader”. Another 30 million people “did not complain even though they had reason to do so”. About half of those who complained formally “were not satisfied with the way in which the complaint was handled”. Of those who were still dissatisfied, “about half (around 20 million people) contacted a third-party organisation for help”. Voicing dissatisfaction. The problem of consumers’ total or partial dissatisfaction following the purchase of a good or a service is a point of fact. To this regard the Commission has decided to develop an EU-wide complaints-classifying system (addressed to traders or to manufacturers, to the public authorities in charge or to consumer organizations). “The voice of dissatisfied consumers” must be heard “clearly and early enough both in their respective Nations’ capital cities and in Brussels”. Meglena Kuneva, EU Commissioner, said the Commission has launched a public consultation aimed at producing “an EU-wide method for classifying and reporting consumer complaints”. “The number of consumer complaints is a key indicator of market health”, she said. Seven hundred complaint-handling organizations. “Millions of consumer-complaints are filed” each year to the traders, to a regulator or to one of the 700 complaint-handling organizations existing across Europe”. Consumer-complaint “is a hard fact which could be a sign of a systematic problem in the market.” Complaints are “one of the five key indicators used by the Consumer Markets Scoreboard of how markets are performing for consumers, along with consumer satisfaction, prices, switching suppliers and safety.” But as Commissioner Kuneva pointed out, the lack of comparable data prevents classification and the adoption of related measures. The EU draft harmonised methodology is based on a series of common elements such as “the selling method” (store, mall or online purchases) the “type of business” (local retailers, supermarkets, gas station etc.), the “product category” (cosmetics, toys, electronic appliances, or even life insurances) the “price”, the “delivery system” and much more, in addition to the reason for complaint.Comparable data. The Commission invites comments on the proposal (http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/consultations) by October 5 2009. Complaint classification is intended for use by consumer-protection bodies and by families, “on a voluntary basis”, since it cannot be imposed by law. The Commissioner pointed out that the many hundred consumer-complaint organizations “use their own classifications, which makes an overview very difficult, even at a national level”. “The idea behind today’s proposal is to ensure” that these organisations “use a comparable classification method and then report their findings to the Commission” or to the authorities in charge. “The analysis of the EU-wide data will be a powerful way to help assess how different sectors and national markets are performing for consumers, and enable authorities at national and EU level to more quickly and effectively target markets which are failing consumers.” “La case is seriou”. Meglena Kuneva remarked, “”When a consumer decides to go through the stress and effort of filing a complaint this usually means that the case is serious”. The common grid of criteria for classifying cases is intended as a tool for consumer-complaint bodies “such as national consumer authorities, consumer organisations, ombudsmen, complaints boards or regulators. According to the Commission, The chief beneficiaries will be the EU consumers themselves, since the time needed for national and European policy makers and regulators to respond to consumers’ daily concerns should be reduced considerably.”