The report also reveals that the majority of the cases of
non-delivery of goods it hears are not fraud related.
The ECC, which is funded by the European Commission, receives
complaints about illegal or unfair or inadequate web trading and
has found that Germany has nearly double the number of complaints
registered against it than the number two country, the UK.
Swedish people are the most frequent complainers about web
traders, well ahead of France and Ireland. The high cost of living
drives trade online and a well-established consumer protection
structure are likely causes of the Swedes' high ranking, said the
ECC report.
The most common complaint received concerns the non-delivery of
goods. Though the ECC has released a statement claiming that one in
three items bought online fails to arrive, in fact the statistics
say that 38% of the complaints received by the body relate to goods
not received.
The report also reveals that most of these cases are due to
ineptitude or fixable problems, and not fraud. "In some cases, [the
reason for non-delivery] can simply be a matter of fraud," said the
report. "However, inadequate order processing, poor administration,
or the fact that the company simply does not have the advertised
goods in stock, gives rise to the majority of complaints."
The number of cross-border complaints has risen significantly on
previous years, but this does not necessarily indicate that traders
are becoming more dishonest, the report said.
"The large increase of cases since last year’s report is
definitely noteworthy," said the ECC report. "Nevertheless, it is
not likely that European webtraders are suddenly behaving much
worse than in previous years."
"The increase of cases is probably only a reflection of the fact
that cross-border e-commerce as a whole has increased. But even if
the webtraders’ sales have increased, it also shows that the
consumers still experience the same degree of problems."
Meanwhile telecoms regulator Ofcom has warned that the internet
is less regulated than any traditional medium but that consumers
still expect to be protected when shopping or surfing online.
"Consumers expect to be protected from fraud and other forms of
harm whether online or not," said Ofcom's Research Into Consumer
Protection on the Internet report. "Successful consumer protection
on the internet has generally involved a much higher degree of
self-regulation than has been the case for other media."
The report concludes: "In the future, we believe that consumers
will have to assume greater responsibility for protecting
themselves online if they are continue to enjoy the benefits of
plurality and diversity of content and services the internet
brings."
