Consumer's Telegram May 2024

Insert of n. 38 - Editorial office: Centro Europeo Consumatori (European Consumer Centre Italy - Bolzano office)

EU

New Rules Concerning Artificial Intelligence

The European Parliament recently approved the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act. The new rules ban certain AI applications that threaten citizens’ rights, including biometric categorisation systems based on sensitive characteristics and untargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage to create facial recognition databases. Emotion recognition at the workplace and schools, social scoring, predictive policing (when it is based solely on profiling a person or assessing their characteristics), and AI that manipulates human behaviour or exploits people’s vulnerabilities will also be forbidden.
For more information.

GUARANTEE

What Rights can I assert with Refurbished Products?

Many consumers decide to buy a reconditioned electronic device, such as a mobile phone. These products are considered to all intents and purposes as second-hand products. Legislation provides for a two-year guarantee in such cases. However, it can be - and normally is - reduced to one year. Some online platforms or sellers allow this time frame to be extended by a further year, but for a fee. In the latter case, it is no longer a legal guarantee, but a contractual warranty: the conditions of the warranty are thus governed by the concluded contract and no longer by law, and, therefore, the resulting rights may also be restricted. Read on the website of the European Consumer Centre (ECC) what to look out for when buying refurbished products.

BEWARE OF THE TRAP

Fake Shops on Social Media

More and more consumers are asking the ECC for help because they ordered goods advertised on social media and received a poor quality product or even a toy version instead of an actually working item. In theory, a consumer could invoke the right of withdrawal and the right of guarantee in such cases and ask for a refund of the amount paid. In practice, however, this turns out to be impossible: the page on the social media platform can no longer be found, the telephone number used for the order by text or call is no longer operating, and no address appears on the package used for delivery. Since payment in these cases is made cash on delivery, it is not even possible to activate the so-called chargeback procedure - the possibility of requesting the reversal of the payment from one's credit card provider. The ECC recommends buying only from websites that provide a postal and e-mail address, verifiable VAT number, and accept payment by credit card. For more information on how to buy safely online.

CASE OF THE MONTH
Two Italian travellers had flown to Stockholm with a German carrier, from where they planned to continue their journey to Lapland. However, their luggage was not transported. As it would have been unreasonable to continue the journey north of the Arctic Circle at the beginning of January without the appropriate winter clothing, and buying new equipment would have been very expensive, the passengers decided to extend their stay in Stockholm by one night so that they could travel to the airport again the following day, in the hope that their luggage would be delivered in the meantime. They were indeed able to collect their luggage at the airport and continue their journey. They then contacted the airline to claim reimbursement of the cost of the additional night at the hotel and of the transport to the airport. The carrier however rejected their claim as, according to the carrier itself, only emergency purchases must be reimbursed in the event of a baggage delay. ECC Italy shared the case with ECC Germany, because according to the Montreal Convention, which regulates liability issues in air transport, the airline must compensate for damage caused by delays in the carriage of baggage. The carrier has finally accepted the claim and the travellers have been reimbursed.