In the first nine months of this year, the institution of the ombudsman for consumer protection in Bosnia and Herzegovina received 851 consumer complaints, which is slightly more than 10 percent of the complaints compared to the same period last year.
As in previous years, citizens complained the most about services of general economic interest (supply of electricity, heating, garbage collection, water delivery, telecommunications). Commercial complaints were also recorded (complaints about product quality, warranty periods), while a smaller part of the complaints related to the tourist-transportation sector and the financial sector, was confirmed to Fena from the mentioned institution.
“As in the previous year, the Institution is quite surprised that less than 1 percent of the total complaints are related to price increases, and these are mostly complaints related to consumer comments about different prices in different stores,” say the Institution of Ombudsman for Consumer Protection in BiH and add that there has never been a more massive influx of consumer complaints about galloping price increases.
When asked if citizens complained about the quality of certain goods, especially fruits and vegetables, the Institution replied that they had received a significant number of complaints about the quality of certain goods, but in 99 percent of the cases it was related to purchased footwear.
Also, when asked if citizens complain that sometimes one price is on the shelves and the other is at the cash register, as well as special prices, which sometimes are not, the Institution of Ombudsman for Consumer Protection in BiH points out that the same applies to price increases, less than 1 percent of total consumer complaints related to such cases.
In the past three years, the Institution has also recorded an increase in the number of complaints related to online trade.
“What is evident all the time about these complaints is that they mostly refer not to complaints about regular stores and legally reported ones, but to the online purchase of products from unauthorized sellers (or natural persons, or fraudsters) via social networks. These types of complaints consumer rights arise and we refer the consumer to the local (county or entity) Ministry of Internal Affairs, since this is a criminal offense of fraud and embezzlement”, notes the Institution of Ombudsman for Consumer Protection in BiH.
