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Consumer's Telegramm European Edition
If you wish to be informed monthly about European consumer news, just subscribe our free newsletter.Consumer's Telegram October 2008
Insert of n. 67 - Editorial office: Centro Europeo Consumatori (European Consumer Centre, Bolzano - Italy)INTERNET SCAM
Cases of Fraudulent Online Sales of Second-hand Cars Emerged
The European Consumer Centre has been contacted several times by consumers who had been cheated when buying a second-hand car on the Internet. As it seems, these are not isolated cases as the Italian Consumer Magazine "Salvagente" reports in its edition from September 11th to 18th. The fraud is carried out according to the following scheme: On various homepages, also very reputable ones, private sellers, most of them apparently living in Great Britain, are offering used cars or motorbikes at very low prices. If purchasers show their interest they easily get a copy of the vehicles documents, which are apparently all right. The seller offers to send the vehicle by a courier service in order to show it to the purchaser before making the final contract. Consequently, the consumer gets an email from the supposed courier service and is asked a caution for the delivery which should be paid by Western Union. When the payment is made, the consumer will never hear again from the seller and the courier service. The money is gone, the car or motorbike will never be delivered. The only possibility remaining to the consumer is to report the case to the police and institute legal proceeding against unknown. Our advice to the consumers: Be especially careful when buying something on the Internet. If cash transfers by Western Union or Money Gram are asked, you should pay special attention. These quick-cash transfer services are not safe for payments to unknown people and are often misused for frauds.
EMERGENCY NUMBER 112
European Emergency Number-Infringement proceedings against Bulgaria, Romania and Italy
EU Telecoms rules require Member States to make sure that people can call the single European emergency number 112 free of charge nationwide from any type of phone. They must also ensure that 112 calls are answered and handled efficiently and that operators provide information on the caller's location to emergency services (police, ambulance, fire and rescue service).The European Commission has decided to refer Bulgaria and Romania to the European Court of Justice, if they will not be able to guarantee the full availability of the number 112 within this year. In Bulgaria, 112 is still not operational nationwide. In Romania, caller location, which helps emergency services find accident victims, is not provided for all calls
Also Italy will get a letter of formal notice by the Commission about the effectiveness of 112 calls handling and answering. The various emergency response systems of many Member States, including Italy, in particular police, ambulance, fire and rescue service, run separate call centre systems using different numbers. These Member States have to ensure that the handling and answering of 112 calls is as effective as for calls made to other national emergency numbers. This is not always the case in Italy because call centres of the emergency service in charge of receiving 112 calls cannot transfer callers to the centres of other required emergency services.
You can get further information about the European emergency number 112 on the homepage of the European Commission.
The Case of the Month
This time, the case of the month is a story that happened to an Italian consumer. On a fair she had signed a form at the stand of an Austrian book club, thinking that she was only giving her permission to getting information and advertising material about the products of the editor, without any obligation of purchase. However, a few months later she got a letter by the editor, asking her to order books as established by the contract.The mentioned form, which had been signed by the consumer, was in reality, as you can guess, a subscription to the book club and the consumer had given her consent to buy at minimum one book every three months for two years at least. If she did not order anything, the editor house would send her a book of their choice, which she had to pay. The consumer had not been informed that the consumer code for purchases off shop says that she had the right to retreat from the contract within 10 working days by writing a registered letter with reply. When the consumer contacted the European Consumer Centre, the deadline for rescission had already passed. However, it was possible to put pressure on the company, referring to the fact that the consumer had not been properly informed about her right of rescission. In the end, the book club agreed to annul the contract and to do so without any further demands.
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