Protecting EU consumers: More than half of second-hand online traders fail to meet EU consumer laws

Every year, millions of European consumers use online traders to buy second-hand goods, such as clothes, electronic equipment, toys, and more.

When buying second-hand goods, European law states that consumers are entitled to the same guarantee and information on a product, on their rights and the trader they are buying from, as when buying any other goods.

The EU is committed to ensuring consumers are not misled by traders’ commercial practices and that EU consumer protection laws are enforced.

For this, the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities of 25 EU countries, Iceland and Norway, recently conducted a screening (“sweep”) of 356 online traders, operating websites or platforms selling second-hand goods, to check whether their practices were compliant with EU consumer law.

They identified that 52% of the reviewed online traders were in potential breach of EU consumer law.

• 40% did not inform consumers about their right of withdrawal in a clear manner, such as the right to return a product within 14 days without justification or cost;
• 45% did not correctly inform consumers of their right to return faulty goods or goods that do not look or work as advertised;
• 57% did not respect the minimum period of one year legal guarantee for second-hand goods;
• 34% of traders presented environmental claims on their website, of which 20% were not sufficiently substantiated, and 28% were false, deceptive, or qualified as unfair commercial practices.

The EU is dedicated to ensuring that consumers are provided with better information on the durability and reparability of goods and the consumer’s legal guarantee rights at the point of sale.

Consumer authorities have earmarked 185 traders for further investigation and will decide whether to take further action and request compliance according to their national procedures.

For more information European Commission.