• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • TikTok
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
CDE Almería – Centro de Documentación Europea – Universidad de Almería

CDE Almería - Centro de Documentación Europea - Universidad de Almería

Centro de Documentación Europea de la Universidad de Almería

  • HOME
  • WHAT´S ON
    • EU BULLETINS
    • EU NEWS
    • Activities
    • EU Calls and Awards
    • Radio Program «Europe with You»
  • DOCUMENTATION
    • Bibliographic Collection
      • Almería EDC Digital Collection
      • UNIVERSITY OF ALMERIA LIBRARY
    • Documentation by topic
    • EU Media Collection
      • Web Space
      • MEDIATHEQUE REPOSITORY
  • Europe on the net
    • Institutions
    • EU Representation in Spain
    • European information network of Andalusia
    • EU official journal
  • ABOUT US
    • Presentation
    • People
    • Contact
  • English
  • Spanish

The EC and the consumer protection authorities demand clear information on prices and discounts

Inicio » EU News » The EC and the consumer protection authorities demand clear information on prices and discounts

26 de February de 2019

The consumer websites examined across the EU show that many consumers encounter unclear information about prices and discounts when they shop online.

Gráficos circular sobre sitios webs que presentan irregularidades en cuanto a precios y descuentos. 60% de los 560 sitios comprobados.

The European Commission and the national consumer protection authorities recently published the results of a detailed EU-wide review of 560 e-commerce sites offering a wide variety of products, services and digital content, such as clothing or footwear, computer programs or tickets for shows. Nearly 60% of these websites had irregularities in relation to EU consumer protection regulations, especially in terms of the way in which prices and special offers are presented.

In more than 31% of the websites that offered discounts, the responsible authorities of the consumers saw indications that the special offers were not authentic or discovered that the way to calculate the discounted price was not clear.

On 211 websites the final price at the time of payment was higher than the initial price offered. In 39% of these websites, merchants did not include adequate information on mandatory commissions added to the delivery, payment methods, booking fees and other similar surcharges. The EU consumer protection legislation requires traders to submit prices that include all mandatory costs, and when these costs can not be calculated in advance, they must at least clearly inform the consumer of their existence.

Other irregularities in relation to the information requirements:

  • In 59% of the 560 websites examined, merchants violated the obligation to provide an easily accessible link to the online dispute resolution platform (RLL), which is mandatory under EU law. The RLL platform allows consumers and merchants to resolve disputes without going to court.
  • In almost 30% of the websites there were irregularities related to the way of presenting the information on the right to withdrawal of consumers. According to EU legislation, consumers must receive clear information about their right to cancel the purchase when they buy online.

Next stages

The authorities responsible for the protection of consumers shall ensure full compliance of the merchants involved by activating their corresponding national coercive procedures when necessary.

Context

A systematic examination of websites across the EU (a “sweep”) is a set of checks that consumer protection authorities carry out simultaneously in different countries. These checks show whether traders respect EU legislation on consumer protection. When the checks highlight potential breaches of EU consumer protection legislation, the consumer protection authorities contact the companies involved and invite them to make corrections.

The previous “sweeps” focused on the following areas: airlines (2007), mobile content (2008), electronic products (2009), online ticket sales (2010), consumer credit (2011), digital content (2012) ), travel services (2013), guarantees on electronic products (2014), Directive on consumer rights (2015), comparison tools in the travel sector (2016) and telecommunications and other digital services (2017).

More information

Access to the complete news

Related publication: Consumer markets scoreboard: Making markets work for consumers: 2018 edition

In-depth examination of websites across the EU

Cooperation for the protection of consumers

Publicaciones relacionadas:

Economic policies in EU: some progress, challenges remain Mini robots to create patterns inspired by nature Brote verde sale de la tierra trabajadaCommission increases national support to farmers up to €25,000 Parliament to host conference on abolishing the death penalty EU invests over €10bn in innovative clean technologies

“This is a space for debate. All comments, for or against publication, that are respectful and do not contain expressions that are discriminatory, defamatory or contrary to current legislation will be published”.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Publicaciones relacionadas


Economic policies in EU: some progress, challenges remain


Mini robots to create patterns inspired by nature


Brote verde sale de la tierra trabajadaCommission increases national support to farmers up to €25,000


Parliament to host conference on abolishing the death penalty


EU invests over €10bn in innovative clean technologies

Footer

Logotipo en negativo del Centro de Documentación Europea de Almería
  • CDE Almería
  • Edificio Parque Científico-Tecnológico (Pita)
  • Planta: 1ª, Despacho: 2904120.
  • Ctra. Sacramento s/n. Almería (Spain)
  • Teléfono: (+34) 950 015266

HOME
NEWS
DOCUMENTATION
EUROPE ON THE NET
ABOUT US

  • LEGAL NOTICE
  • PRIVACY POLICY
  • COOKIE POLICY
  • ACCESSIBILITY
  • SITEMAP

Copyright © 2023 CDE Almería · Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

<p>El Centro de Documentación Europea de la Universidad de Almería utiliza cookies propias y de terceros para facilitar al usuario la navegación en su página Web y el acceso a los distintos contenidos alojados en la misma. Asimismo, se utilizan cookies analíticas de terceros para medir la interacción de los usuarios con el sitio Web. Pinche el siguiente enlace si desea información sobre el uso de cookies y como deshabilitarlas. ajustes</p>

Politica de privacidad

El Centro de Documentación Europea de la Universidad de Almería utiliza cookies propias y de terceros para facilitar al usuario la navegación en su página Web y el acceso a los distintos contenidos alojados en la misma. Asimismo, se utilizan cookies analíticas de terceros para medir la interacción de los usuarios con el sitio Web. Pinche el siguiente enlace si desea información sobre el uso de cookies y como deshabilitarlas. <a href="/politica-de-cookies" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Más información</a>

Cookies estrictamente necesarias

Las cookies estrictamente necesarias tiene que activarse siempre para que podamos guardar tus preferencias de ajustes de cookies.

Básicamente la web no funcionara bien si no las activas.

Estas cookies son:

  • Comprobación de inicio de sesión.
  • Cookies de seguridad.
  • Aceptación/rechazo previo de cookies.

Si desactivas esta cookie no podremos guardar tus preferencias. Esto significa que cada vez que visites esta web tendrás que activar o desactivar las cookies de nuevo.

Cookies de terceros

Esta web utiliza Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager y Yandex Metrika para recopilar información anónima tal como el número de visitantes del sitio, o las páginas más populares.

Dejar estas cookies activas nos permite mejorar nuestra web.

¡Por favor, activa primero las cookies estrictamente necesarias para que podamos guardar tus preferencias!

Política de cookies

Pinche el siguiente enlace si desea información sobre el uso de cookies y como deshabilitarlas. Más información