Which categories of goods and services receive the most complaints? Yesterday, the Provincial Consumer Protection Committee released statistics on complaints accepted by its system. In the first half of 2016, consumer protection committees at all levels across the province received a total of 5765 consumer complaints, accepted 5762 cases, involving 17.8792 million yuan. Among commodity-related complaints, the top five categories with the highest number of complaints are: automobiles and auto parts, communication products, food, clothing and shoes.
Automobiles and auto parts are one of the hardest-hit areas for complaints. It is reported that there were 435 consumer complaints in the first half of the year, an increase of 16.27% compared with the same period last year.
"First of all, there are many quality problems. Main components such as the engine, gearbox, chassis and dashboard develop problems such as oil leakage, air leakage, unstable idling speed and inaccurate instrument readings after being used for a short period of time. Consumers spend tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of yuan to buy the car, but cannot use it with peace of mind." A person in charge of the Provincial Consumer Protection Committee stated that the second issue is after-sales service. When a car breaks down, it still cannot be fixed after multiple repairs, which has also become a trouble for car owners. "Some 4S stores use problematic parts during maintenance. There are huge differences in quality assurance between original factory parts, qualified factory parts and subsidiary factory parts. During vehicle maintenance, the maintenance contract has unclear markings, so it is very difficult to protect consumers' rights and interests."
When purchasing a car, there are also non-standard problems in the contract. For example, there are many current "zero rate" preferential activities for car loan mortgages, but "zero rate" for car loans does not mean zero handling fee. Operators downplay the handling fee when selling cars, which leads to car purchase disputes. In addition, there are relevant agreements on the deposit in the contract. Some consumers do not pay attention to this when signing the contract, and the deposit is often turned into a penalty for breach of contract due to failure to perform or incomplete performance of the contract.
In recent years, the interior odor of new cars has also become a focus of attention for car owners. The suspected excessive formaldehyde emission from decoration materials in some new cars has also led to an increase in consumer complaints.