Consumer's Telegram January 2024

Insert of n. 6 - Editorial office: Centro Europeo Consumatori (European Consumer Centre Italy - Bolzano office)


E-COMMERCE

Buying from E-commerce giants: Risks and Cautions

Extremely low prices and the chance to get your hands on unobtainable or otherwise too pricey items, this is how the new marketplaces often based in China are attracting more and more people, especially the youngest ones. However, it is questionable whether one is really getting a good deal. Counterfeit products, difficulties in enforcing legal guarantee claims and lack of product safety are just some of the problems that are often overlooked in the shopping frenzy. More information on this topic can be found on the website of the European Consumer Centre (ECC).


BEWARE OF THE TRAP

Online Coaching - Better Watch Out

Achieving financial prosperity without working a regular job, becoming a coach of professional sports athletes or a renowned nutrition coach: these are just some of the promises that coaching videos offer - online tutorials in which self-styled influencers apparently reveal their followers the secrets of their financial or personal success. As so often, however, not all that glitters is gold. Once the fee is paid, the new members discover that, in reality, the phantom secret to earning money basically consists in attracting other unfortunate people to the platform to follow the coaching videos. The European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net) has received many reports around Europe about contracts concluded for online coaching courses from which people can no longer withdraw. Read on the ECC website what this is all about.

GEOBLOCKING

EU Parliament Against Geoblocking

The Geoblocking Regulation 2018/302/EU prohibits online sellers of goods and services from placing unjustified restriction and other forms of discrimination based on consumers' nationality, place of residence or place of establishment, such as automatically redirecting the users to other country-specific pages from which they are browsing (re-routing) or providing unjustifiably penalising terms and conditions. However, there are still certain areas where geoblocking is allowed. The EU Parliament wants to try to remove these remaining barriers in the single market. The cross-border delivery of goods, for example, is not mandatory under the current regulation, and the streaming of audiovisual content, such as films, series and sporting events, is also excluded from the ban on geoblocking. In relation to these areas, the EU Parliament has asked the EU Commission and the Member States to examine whether and how it might be possible to remove the current limits. However, it remains uncertain whether European consumers will be able to enjoy audiovisual content from European providers from wherever they are in the EU in the near future. For further information.

CASE OF THE MONTH
An Italian consumer booked flight tickets for a weekend in Marseille through a Spanish online travel agent. On the day of departure, however, the consumer got an unpleasant surprise: the flight of the Irish airline was cancelled due to an air traffic controllers' strike in France. The consumer was offered a replacement flight the following evening, but as this would have reduced her planned weekend in Marseille to a stay of just one day, she refused this offer. She should therefore have received a refund of the price of both the outward and return flight. The airline had soon informed her that the amount had been credited to her 'wallet', but this was not the case. Instead, the amount may have ended up in the intermediary's 'wallet'. The European Consumer Centres Network was able to help the consumer in this case and, after the intervention of the Irish European Consumer Centre, the airline transferred the amount owed to the consumer to her bank account.