Maria Eracleous
The Consumer Association has begun receiving complaints about deceptive product offers as Black Friday draws near. Particularly, there have been 15 complaints so far, which concern instances of products that were on sale but whose prices, according to the complaint, had dropped the day before. They also deal with discounted products that have different prices when being ordered from the website, as well as a price increase right before the discount to make the offer's value appear higher. Some of the complaints also mention stock shortages; in these situations, a customer places an online order from a Cypriot website and is later informed that the product is out of stock.
90% of the complaints concern one particular company, while the remaining 10% concern various other companies.
According to Mr. Droussiotis, it is anticipated that the number of complaints will rise over the next few days. As a result, they will all be evaluated after Black Friday and forwarded to the Consumer Protection Service, which is the appropriate authority, for further investigation. "There may or may not be merit to some complaints. We will report complaints to the Consumer Protection Agency if we believe they are legitimate and there has been a legal violation."
The recommendations
In the days leading up to Black Friday, the Association issued a notice of recommendations. In addition to these suggestions, Mr. Drushiotis emphasized that consumers should make purchases based on the final price rather than the percentage of the discount, in case products without a discount are sold at a lower price than those on offer.
He also stated that consumers should not be enticed by offers and make unnecessary purchases, and emphasized the importance of conducting market research prior to purchase in order to form a complete picture of the product's price and the discounts involved.
[This article was translated from its Greek original]
