2023-11-23 09:16:13
Fraud Repression is issuing the alert for “Black Friday”. While it has recorded more than 215,000 consumer reports to date in 2023, the DGCCRF on Wednesday called on buyers to be “particularly vigilant” for their online shopping, which represents one in four reports, on the sidelines of this commercial operation .
The Internet “facilitates trade by allowing any professional to access the global market and a vast potential clientele”, but is also “a breeding ground for breaches of the consumer code and competition rules”, warns the instance in a report on online commerce published Wednesday evening.
“The cost of entry is often low. Fraud and abuse are widespread there and are likely to affect many consumers, using social networks, algorithms or manipulative processes” and “carrying out one’s activity from a distant country makes investigations or enforcement action more difficult. regulation of public authorities”.
The body has recorded 215,000 consumer reports since the start of the year, of which nearly 60,000 “concern transactions carried out on the internet or via an application, from a computer or smartphone”, she says again. In the majority, it is a question of a delivery problem (damaged product or no response from after-sales service for example) or concerning “the website itself”, whether it is misleading or a defect. information for example.
The DGCCRF says it has controlled more than 9,000 websites since the start of the year. “Half were abnormal even if this proportion must be put into perspective because the checks were not random and followed targeting or complaints. » Its director Sarah Lacoche, appointed in May, explained during an interview with several media that the defense of consumers online remained one of the “major priorities” of this service of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, requiring “more new ways of working” for platform control.
The body has recently taken an interest in fake online reviews, and explains that it “systematically” mobilizes agents during Black Friday, a commercial operation during which “the price reductions announced do not always reflect reality”.
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