Online transaction complaints surge during quarantine, DTI reports - Android

It’s so rampant that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) have reported a surge in consumer complaints involving online transactions during the lockdown.

Ruth Castelo, DTI undersecretary, reported during a House committee hearing on Thursday that they received a total of 8,059 complaints from April and May that involved both sellers and buyers.

In contrast, in the first quarter of 2020, before the ECQ was imposed in most parts of the country, the agency only got 985 complaints.

Castelo said that the subject of these complaints is mostly about defective products and sellers who make deceptive transactions. It includes product-related issues, non or late delivery, or the product delivered is not exactly as advertised.

The complaints rose to 78.22% in April and May as the country felt the peak impact of ECQ.

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On the other hand, the complaints that Lazada and Shopee were involved with decreased by 40.99%. These are two of the biggest e-commerce sites in the country. However, the complaints about individual sellers in Facebook Messenger spiked to 62.16%.

DTI’s numbers also show that overpricing complaints greatly increased at 51% with 6,992 cases reported. The main products involved were alcohol, face masks, and other items that are beyond DTI’s scope. Hence, these complaints were transferred to agencies like the Department of Health to be addressed properly.

Castelo also reported that they have confiscated about Php100 million worth of products from 500 different unlawful merchants.

However, the undersecretary said that merchants are not always at fault, and consumers must also be responsible for checking the merchant’s background so it would be easier to file a complaint in case issues occur.

This article, Online transaction complaints surge during quarantine, DTI reports, was originally published at NoypiGeeks | Philippines Technology News, Reviews and How to's.