CAPTION: Consumer Council of Fiji CEO Premila Kumar. Photo: SHALENDRA PRASAD.
THE Consumer Council is closely monitoring promotions and competitions that are being run by traders to ensure disclosures and accurate information.
This comes in light of concerns raised by consumers on some of the competitions’ terms and conditions and transparency over the awarding of prizes.
While the Council has received consumer complaints on promotions that work through mobile texting platforms, it is also keeping a close watch on other competitions such as those that involve purchasing of products and submission of receipts, wrappers, barcodes etc.
In some cases promoters do not fully disclose information on the non-cash prizes on offer. For example in a recent case the Council confronted the promoter after it did not disclose the brand and model information on a computer tablet that was on the prize list. Some businesses simply use the generic terms “tablet”, “smartphone” etc but do not disclose the brand, model and other details which can give consumers an idea of the value of the prize.
The Council is calling on businesses that run these promotions/competitions to provide clear, unambiguous and accurate information about conditions of entry, prizes, collection of prizes, etc. We have found that some traders inform consumers that prizes can be redeemed at their branches or authorized outlets, but these collection points are not available Fiji-wide and consumers have to incur costs to get to these points.
The Council is gathering information, posters and other documents on ongoing promotions/competitions and will be tracking these from their inception to their closure. We are tracking each one in terms of when the competition ends, draw dates and information on winners. The Council is calling on those running these promotions that they must publicly disclose the winners, or at least disclose the winners to those customers who had entered the competition.
Premila Kumar
Chief Executive Officer