CASE on Blogshops Complaints in Singapore

This article on Safeblogshopper reinforces the idea that maintaining law and order in the blogshopsphere is main a task done by the participants as the authorities do not generally get involved.

From: http://www.safeblogshopper.com/2011/01/05/announcements/news-updates-blogshop-complaints-on-case.html


I saw this newspaper report yesterday on ShinMin regarding on CASE (Consumers Association of Singapore) receiving 41 cases of blogshops complaints. Let me do the translation on this article for you.

*Translation*:

Yellow Title: The rising trend of purchasing online

Purple Title: CASE received 41 cases of complaints against online sellers.

As more Singaporeans are shopping online, CASE received 41 cases of complaints against online sellers. The number reported is twice the number reported in 2009!

The complaints were mostly on sellers who did not deliver the items to the consumer or delay in item deliveries. Some of the consumers complained that they have received fake brands or damaged goods without any compensation.

One of the consumers bought a skirt costed $28 from an online shop last year June. After making the payment, the seller mentioned that the skirt is out of stock and requested her to chose another item. Despite that the other item that she chose was also out of stock after a month, the seller did not make any refunds.
The seller finally mailed the skirt to her after CASE was involved.

Currently CASE is resolving another similar case. As for the rest of the 39 cases, the consumers did approach CASE for advice, but decided to resolve it themselves.

The Secretary of CASE, Mr. Seah Seng Choon believed that there were even more people with these unhappy experiences. But they did not report to CASE as the money involved is not huge. "They may take this as a learning lesson and stop shopping from the online shops or websites."

Mr.Seah Seng Choon also said that it was difficult to resolve such cases as consumers did not have the contact name and address of the online shops. Some websites were even from overseas countries.

Advice from CASE: CASE advised consumers to meet the seller when purchasing items that are of high worth. Also, they must beware of websites which did not reveal any contact address or contact number.
Consumers should report to the police once they find anything amiss.

According to one of the marketing companies survey, Singaporeans spent $6,890,000 on online purchases last year. This amount is 15 times more than the amount reported in 1999. The most popular online items are apparels, shoes and electronic appliances.  ~ End of article

Note from Editorial:

I have personally called CASE before the report was out last month asking if they deal with complaints against blogshops. The customer service told me they do not deal with blogshops, except registered companies.

We all know the difficulties of nabbing online blogshops because of the lack of contact information. Therefore we need all the cooperation from the public to work together and form a strong community in defending our consumers' rights and pockets.

SafeBlogShopper already helped resolved over 7 cases and reported over 36 complaints and scam blogshops. We will continue with what we are doing even if is not easy to attain a perfect score.
We hope all shoppers will feel safe when shopping, knowing that we are always here to help. =)

Happy 2011!

With many loves,

Irish