Consumers

Health shopping today is one of the sure-shot ways of losing not only cash, but also our mind, because quacks have invaded the markets in hordes! They are as huge, unscrupulous and harmful as the creepiest creatures and ghouls crawling out of a Stephen King chiller or a Lord of the Rings movie! Several recent advertisements put out by some of the biggest and the smallest drug companies in India for selling their potions, lotions, clinics, tablets and treatment for all sorts of ailments have been banned by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), because they violated the Drugs…

Five hopeful Mysorians, had planned a four-day trip to Singapore with Go Holiday Makers in Mysore which arranges national and international trips for consumers. The five consumers, Pushpa Talawar, Radha, Govindaraju, Dasegowda B.S. and Vittal Talawar, had paid up hefty amounts to Sri Bhaskar, owner of the Go Enjoy Holidays, for a package trip. They were promised a wonderful holiday with airport drop and pick up, hotel transport, hotel rooms, breakfast, lunch, dinner etc and they paid up a total of Rs 330,000 to Sri Bhaskar. When they reached Singapore, they were dismayed to find that no one had come…

In the increasingly consumerist world that we live in, not a day goes by when we don’t shop -- whether it is for small things like vegetables, fruits or chocolate, or bigger stuff like cars, refrigerators and phones. And it is quite maddening when the vegetable seller palms off some spoilt cauliflowers on us, or gives us stale fish that even the cat turns up its nose at. Your new refrigerator might stop working in the middle of a very hot day or the stitches of the expensive dress you bought at the mall may come apart in a day’s…

A few months back, Baiju P V, who owns a Vodafone postpaid connection, noticed that his monthly phone bill included charges for Value Added Services (VAS). “The charge was Rs 250 plus GST. I had neither requested any VAS, nor got any message informing me that VAS had been activated,” Baiju says. As per regulations of TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India), VAS - which includes caller tunes, live streaming etc - can be activated only with the double consent (explained below) of the subscriber. Baiju called Vodafone customer care and got the bill revised. But he was charged for…

Some 25 years ago, most of us knew that sound, air and water pollution were the most common forms of pollution in the world around us. Accordingly, our efforts were also directed towards reducing noise, smoke from vehicles and the like. But then some people pushed me, and I made an effort to understand the problems about which I had been ignorant. And I learnt that our land may also get polluted. Just as plastic, thermocol etc can pollute our water and air, land too could be directly or indirectly polluted by their use, affecting our food chain as well.…

Three years back, Chithra Rajan ordered a Dell laptop from a major Indian e-commerce company. There was an ‘offer’ on the laptop - while it usually cost over Rs 40,000, the offer was for Rs 27,000. “The laptop was delivered to my office, and I only opened it when I got home. I was shocked to find that the laptop was not manufactured by Dell at all, but by some unknown company. It also did not have Microsoft OS installed as mentioned in the product description,” Chithra says. When she called the customer care number of the e-commerce company, she…

This January, Neha Suri, a Delhi resident, got refund and compensation from the builder who took money from her offering an apartment and never handed it over. Neha had paid Rs 46 lakh to the builder in 2007. The builder had promised to hand over the apartment in 2010, but never did. In 2015, Neha filed a complaint at the National Consumer Redressal Commission. This January, the Commission ordered the builder to refund her Rs 46 lakh along with simple interest of 10% per year on this amount, and litigation costs of Rs 10,000. In another consumer case this April,…

Everyone in Bengaluru city is a consumer of goods or services. Goods are purchased and services sought on an ongoing basis. The common man is however not always aware of his / her right as a consumer and ends up living with substandard or poor service. This programme is organised by Co Media Lab (a joint initiative Radio Active CR 90.4 MHz & Citizen Matters initiative) in association with Consumer Care Society, Bengaluru. Where: Radio Active, 1/1-1, Atria Towers, next to Raddison Blu (earlier Atria), Palace Road When: Saturday 4th November 2017, 9:30 am to 1pm Register here: comedialab.in/consumer-workshop-1415 This…

Whether as “India’s Great Migration Challenge,” or its “landmark tax reform” or the current government’s “most significant legacy,” the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax, in short GST, has hogged media headlines for a considerable while now. There are news flashes about the different tax rates fixed for specific goods and services, various discussions on its likely impact on the Indian economy as well as debates over the basic wisdom of the form in which it is currently going to be implemented. With an overload of information and analysis, the common man cannot be blamed if he feels slightly…

The Karnataka government passed an order on May 2, 2017 capping prices of movie tickets at Rs 200, based on the proposal made in the 2017 budget. A lot of Bengalureans whine about the exorbitant prices of movie tickets in multiplexes, and were happy with this move. Prices of movies tickets were quite high in Bengaluru, sometimes reaching 700-800 rupees for a blockbuster release on a weekend. Though, more commonly, one would have to pay Rs 300-400 for a movie ticket in a multiplex. Many people found this unaffordable as they could not make as many visits to the multiplex…