Which commodities and services have received the largest number of complaints? Yesterday, the Provincial Consumer Protection Committee released the statistics on complaints accepted by its system. In the first half of 2016, consumer protection committees at all levels across the province received a total of 5765 consumer complaints, accepted 5762 of them, involving 17.8792 million yuan in involved funds. Among commodity-related complaints, the top five categories with the highest number of complaints are: automobiles and their parts, communication products, food, clothing and shoes.
Automobiles and their parts are one of the hardest-hit areas for complaints. It is reported that 435 consumer complaints were received in the first half of the year, representing an increase of 16.27% compared with the same period last year.
"First of all, there are many quality problems. For example, main components such as engines, gearboxes, chassis and instrument panels develop problems such as oil leakage, air leakage, unstable idling and inaccurate instrument indication after a short period of use. Consumers spend tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of yuan on the car, but they cannot use it with peace of mind." The person in charge of the Provincial Consumer Protection Committee stated that the second problem is after-sales service. When a car breaks down, it still cannot be fixed after multiple repairs, which also becomes a trouble for car owners. "Some 4S stores play tricks on the parts used during maintenance. There are huge differences in quality assurance among original factory products, qualified manufacturer products and third-party products. During automobile maintenance, the maintenance contract has unclear markings, making it very difficult to protect consumers' rights and interests."
When purchasing a car, there are also irregularities in the contract. For example, there are many current "zero interest rate" preferential activities for car loan mortgages, but "zero interest rate" for car loans does not equal zero handling fee. Operators play down the latter fee when selling cars, leading to car purchase disputes. In addition, there are relevant provisions on the deposit in the contract. Some consumers do not notice this when signing the contract, and the deposit is often turned into a penalty for breach of contract because they fail to perform or do not fully perform the contract.
In recent years, the interior odor of new cars has also become a focus of attention for car owners. The suspected excessive formaldehyde from decorative materials in some new cars has also led to an increase in consumer complaints.