DUBAI - The Commercial Compliance and Consumer Protection sector in the Department of Economic Development, DED, in Dubai, has received 32,650 complaints from consumers and 1,657 from businesses in 2018, as DED continues to enhance communication with different customer groups and encourage them to use its diverse complaint resolution channels.
On average, the department received 2,720 complaints a month in 2018, and 96 percent of them were resolved to the satisfaction of the complainants within four working days, a substantial achievement given the efforts of Dubai government entities to improve service quality to the levels attained by the most developed economies.
The increase in complaints reaffirms the role of Commercial Compliance sector in protecting the rights of consumers as well as businesses, and also reflects the success achieved by the sector in reinforcing Dubai’s competitiveness as a shopping destination.
Consumer complaints relating to the services sector accounted for 24.2 percent of total in 2018, followed by the electronics sector (17.2 percent), e-commerce (13.7 percent), automobiles (8.2 percent), car rentals (6.5 percent), garments and accessories (4.3 percent), furniture (3.3 percent), textiles and personal accessories (3.2 percent), car repair workshops (2.8 percent), decoration and maintenance of buildings (1.2 percent ), and salons (0.7 percent ), while 11.4 percent were from other different sectors.
Majority of the consumer complaints (29.5percent ) were related to non-compliance with the purchase agreement, while 18percent involved refunds.
Defective products caused 14.9 percent of the complaints, while commercial fraud (7.7 percent), VAT (4.4 percent), warranty (4.2 percent), replacement (3 percent), after-sale service (2.9 percent), surcharges (2.3 percent) non-compliance with promotional offers (1.43 percent), price list mismatch (1.27 percent), additional charge on service/product (1.11 percent), failure to comply with laws (0.7 percent), refusal to repair (0.7 percent).
Non-adherence to declared business activity (0. 6 percent), bad stitching (0.3 percent), cheating in gold and jewellery sales (0.1 percent), and non-compliance with standards (0.01 percent) where the other issues involved. Various other issues contributed to 7.2 percent of the complaints.
As a sector, services accounted for majority (37.1 percent) of the business complaints, while electronics (8.9 percent), foodstuffs (8 percent), shipping (5.9 percent), building materials (5.7 percent), construction, decoration and maintenance of buildings (5.4 percent), cars (2.3 percent), furniture (1 percent), accessories (0.9 percent), labour supply (0.8 percent), and car rental, transport and communications (0.7 percent) were the other sectors involved.
Non-compliance with the terms of agreement was behind 79 percent of the business complaints, while the others related to commercial fraud (5.1 percent), after sales service (2.1 percent), non-compliance with specifications and standards (1.5 percent), non-compliance with security requirements (1.5 percent), additional charges on service/product (1 percent), non-compliance with declared business activity (0.9 percent), non-compliance with shop policy (0.36 percent), non-compliance with price list (0.18 percent), replacement (0.06 percent), faulty product (0.18 percent) and various other issues (8.2 percent).
Mohammed Ali Rashid Lootah, CEO of CCCP, said the overall statistics from 2018 underline a successful year for CCCP in enhancing awareness among consumers and traders in Dubai.
Nationality-wise, UAE citizens had a majority among the consumer complaints (30.7 percent) and business complaints (36.5 percent) raised in 2018, while Indians stood next in both categories at 15.4 percent and 17.2 percent respectively. Egyptians stood third (10.9 percent) in the share of consumer complaints and fourth (5.7 percent) in business complaints, while Saudis came third (6.3 percent) in business complaints and fourth (7.49 percent) in consumer complaints.
© Copyright Emirates News Agency (WAM) 2019.
