Daksha Hathi is a consumer court reporter and writes regularly on consumer issues, health, gardening and the environment, on her website The Canny Catnip Nook, as well as Sulekha.com.
You get cheated by untrue promises of beauty products? You can get justice by the courts. But more worrying is the way the products are tested, and what goes into making them.
No, a pill can’t make you grow taller. The ASCI has banned over a thousand such ads promoting risky medicines, potions, clinics, pills, lotions etc, all with dubious or impossible claims. As a consumer, you should be alert.
From relatively unknown operators to high profile firms, travel agents have been known to bungle or even cheat customers outright. These cases, from Mysore to Kolkata, will tell you what to look out for.
Citizen Matters launches a new column, Consumer Caveat, to bring you consumer stories from different cities and alert you to the various risks as a buyer of goods or services. In the first, a look at some cases against health service providers.