The proposals, outlined in the draft Consumer Rights Bill, streamline overlapping and complicated areas from eight pieces of legislation into one consumer Bill. They also introduce new rights for consumers and businesses. Currently consumers spend more than 59 million hours a year dealing with goods and services problems. This deregulatory measure will reduce the effort consumers and businesses have to make to resolve problems.
Under the draft Bill consumers will have the right to:
– get some money back after one failed repair of faulty goods (or one faulty replacement)
– demand that substandard services are redone or failing that get a price reduction
– get a repair or a replacement of faulty digital content such as film and music downloads, online games and e-books.
The draft Bill also proposes a set 30 day time period for when consumers can return faulty goods and get a full refund.
The draft Bill will benefit businesses. Many already go well beyond the minimum obligations set out in these proposals. But even the best businesses still have to spend significant time and resource understanding the law and training their staff to apply it, more than they should have to.
Business, consumer groups and enforcement bodies have engaged extensively in developing these proposals and further scrutiny of them is now welcomed to ensure they are as effective as possible.
Consumer Minister Jo Swinson said: “For too long the rules that apply when buying goods and services have been murky for both consumers and businesses. The situation is even worse in relation to digital content.
“It is about time consumers knew what their rights are and businesses have clearer information on what is expected of them when problems inevitably do arise. That is why we have put clarity and fairness at the heart of the proposed Consumer Bill of Rights.
“We want to make sure consumers are confident about their rights in everyday situations be it their washing machine breaking down or an online game they purchased always crashing. This will also benefit businesses as they are going to spend less time working out their legal obligations when they get complaints from customers.”
Which? Executive Director, Richard Lloyd, said: “The new Bill of Rights will bring consumer law into the 21st century at last, making it easier for everyone to know their rights and giving people more power to challenge bad practices. There are many welcome measures in the Bill, including reforming the law on unfair terms and conditions and giving consumers clear rights when digital downloads go wrong. This will be good for consumers and good for businesses that try to do the right thing by their customers.”
