FTC and access to information

Gaining access to basic consumer information seems to have more hurdles than one would expect.
A few months ago I approached the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) and asked them for a copy of the Terms of Reference (TOR) of the consultants assessing the Price Cap. I also asked for the dates for their work.
I wasn’t asking for what they were paying the consultants from taxpayer revenue to tell us some things we could determine for ourselves. I felt that as a taxpayer I was entitled to know what they were supposed to be doing so I could enhance any submission on the Price Cap, which affects the pockets of the most vulnerable in our society.
It seemed quite reasonable. The response was that both items of information requested were “internal” and not available to the public.
Well, in August I enquired about the number of people who have been waiting for basic telephone service and the date of the last report.
Surprise! This is also not public information.
Well, what is surprising is that we live in a world where all administrations, including the new Government, talk about transparency and good governance.
But without access to basic information consumers cannot advocate on matters that affect their interests.
So to deny consumers elementary information is tantamount to failing to perform a fundamental public responsibility, that of transparency in public office.

Hallam Hope

Fatal dose of Medicine

For those of you who put so much medical faith in Western Medicine I invite you to take a look at this. For those of you who have suffered or had family or friends that died, you have survived to tell the tale so tell it. The only health security you have is to avoid everything European and American.

Please click on this link: Fatal Dose

More Consumer Protection

It was with amusement that I watched Mr. LeHunte on TV tonight trying to talk about market forces driving prices. He is obviously disappointed with the Central Bank's new position to regulate bank charges to their customers.

For too long these charges were at the whim and fancy of the bank. Who is Mr LeHunte fooling that there is any real competition in the banking sector. They have always and continue to do thier own thing individually.

At this time when inflation is a factor, there is within reason, a bar beyond which charges should never go because of the nature of the industry. Banks have thousands of customers and to collect even a cent from its customers is a lot of money. Like the gas stations, a gill from every gallon adds up because of the volume of sales. That is why every gas pump should be calibrated by law.

So Mr. LeHunte, I am sorry, It is about time. Next should be the insurance companies. Imaging charging thirty dollars for a returned cheque and less than a dollar if it don't bounce. That is a penalty and I am one who believe that penalties should be paid into the consolidate fund and not go into the pockets of an unscrupulous banking sector to beef up their profits at the expense of small businesses that can least afford it and who always have cash flow problems. If customers did not write cheques, small businesses would not have a cash flow problem.

Not only that, the way banks operate are like thieves in the night. Incur an expense on you and then proceed to take it out before they notify you. Do not give people a change to budget and pay. They just take and don't care what you had planned, so they have their customers feeling guilty and at thier mercy. This is unfair. No other institution gets away with this and the banks should not.

Furthermore, banks just take and take and take without giving back. Of course you don't give back because you are in it for making money. The token things I have seen the banks involved in seem the least they could do to generate some kind of goodwill; if that is necessary.

NGOs for example do not get anything from banks. They are the last we go to and even some when that is so we don't remember them because they have the reputation of being the stingiest. Tried with them a few times and never got pass the talk. Somebody will always pass you onto somebody else who can make the decision only to find out that somebody else has to make the decision who would never likely to be in at anytime that you visit the bank.

So banks do not have goodwill but we tolerate them so we don't have to put our money under the cellar but they are taking advantage and monopolising the situation.

Digicel and Cable & Wireless

Date: Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 1:09 PM
Subject: Digicel and Cable & Wireless
To: Bdosconsumer@gmail.com

Digicel

I frequently make calls to Guyana from my Digicel prepaid cell phone. On one occasion while making such a call I noticed that the call timer of the cell phone was running while the cell connection was ringing but not answered. This obviously is not normal as the timer should only come on when the call has been answered by the receiving party, thus initiating charges. Since no one answered I hung up and checked my balance which should have been $10 dollars since I had just recharged the phone with the said amount. It was not $10 but $9.12. I made a mental note but did nothing.

However, I started noticing more and more that the same thing was happening so I decided to call Digicel customer care. I was told by a representative that Digicel was experiencing a problem with calls to Guyana and that she on behalf of Digicel was sorry and wanted to know if I wanted a refund. I said no and that all I wanted was for them to fix the problem because I have to make frequent calls to Guyana and I should not be charged for calls that were not connected. The customer representative assured me that they were actively working on the problem and hoped to get it resolved soon.

A week went by and the problem seemed to have been solved. Unfortunately it recommenced, so finally I decided I couldn't take it any more after realizing that I was losing about $20 a month in calls that were never connected. I called Digicel customer care and told the representative that I wanted a refund for the the last call I just made (I estimated the refund to be about 89cents). She told me that I was not going to get a refund because

1) Digicel was not the responsible carrier. It was the Guyanese company that was at fault.
2) I did not know the exact amount of money that was initially on the phone card before I made the call.

In response to this I said that:

1) Digicel was the responsible carrier since I was making the call through them and it was Digicel and not any company in Guyana that was deducting credit from me. They were the ones taking my money!
2) It seems illogical for someone to have to take the time to constantly check the balance of their phone before they initiate a call. How many people do you know that do that? Once you know that you have money on your phone you just dial.

My response fell on death ears and I got no refund....(remember I was asking for less than a dollar). Doesn't Digicel have the technology to see the last call that was made from a cell phone?

With the high Guyanese population in Barbados, the vast exchange between the two countries and the number of people that do not look to see if their money is being deducted for unanswered calls, one can safely estimate that Digicel is getting rich for not even providing a service. Alternatively, getting rich from providing a terrible service. Digicel must be getting rich by just silently nickel & diming persons. Especially Guyanese who might be illegal in Barbados and therefore will not complain.

Please make the general public aware of this.


Cable & Wireless

If you did not know, Cable & Wireless has been traffic shaping and throttling the internet to their customers disadvantage.

See the link below:

http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs#Barbados

There have been many times recently that I have been downloading legitimate files from the internet from sites like Rapidshare, when suddenly the download connection was severed due to Cable & Wireless over agressive traffic shaping and throttling policy. Thus wasting lots of my time as sometimes these files were transferring for over twenty five minutes.

Our North American neighbours have realised what some ISPs like Cable & Wireless have been doing and have taken successful action:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080711.wgtcomcast0711/BNStory/Technology/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080711.wgtcomcast0711

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1859/125/


Please help save the freedom of the Barbados internet or next we will find that blog sites like yours or the Barbados Underground or the Barbados Free Press are being cut off from the public by an ISP over stepping it's bounds!


Please reply and let me know what you think
A very concern bajan

Public Counsel in Landmark Case: Kimone Phillips v Courts (Bdos) Ltd.

Well! Well! Well!

Barry Carrington, Attornet-at-Law, The Original Public Counsel!

Stand up! Raise yuh hand!

Consumers, you have something to shout about and a man to thank for his tireless work as Public Counsel. Though Barry has moved on up, he has left a legacy of cases before the Consumer Claims Tribunal, over a four year period of championing the cause of Consumers; a well kept public secret.

Imagine that Barry took Mrs. Ram before the Tribunal ten times between 2004 & 2005 and won all. Not only that, after the tenth time, Mrs. Ram like she decide that she ain't coming back (brought her to her knees) to the Tribunal because there are no entries with any of her companies since then, so she got to be settling everything before it get there. A serious victory for consumers.

Moreover, just prior to his departure, Barry successfully argued a landmark case fitting for a good send off and for a job well done. This is Case No. 87: Kimone Phillips v Courts (Bdos) Ltd. where the facts of purchase or arrangement are not in dispute since Courts agreed to give a refund. The matter in question is, "What is a refund?"

What makes this a Landmark Case?
First, the Tribunal's record states, "At the commencement of the hearing in this matter, we were alerted to the fact that many of the local commercial enterprises and their representative body, the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry, were anxiously awaiting its outcome. This is not surprising. The hire-purchase transaction, the subject matter of the dispute in this case, is a popular means of the acquisition of consumer durables in Barbados, and the enterprises which engage in such transactions are anxious for an exposition of the impact of the Consumer Guarantees Act 2002."

Second, the findings of the Tribunal States..." We are mindful of the advice of both counsel to the Tribunal that we should not seek to make law and, indeed, we are diametrically opposed to doing such. However, there are, strictly speaking, two senses in which we may speak of making law, and while we are not competent to make law, in the sense of passing a law (constitutionally a matter for Parliament alone); nevertheless, we are called upon in this case to make law in the sense of declaring, for the first time, what the law is in relation to the true nature of a refund after goods have been rejected in a hire-purchase transaction. We do so by seeking to ascertain the intention of Parliament as best we can."

Having only just got the website I will go through it to see if there are any cases which can serve as a precedent for some of the issues raised in this blog. The facts of this particular case are as follows:

The Facts
According to the complaint, Ms Kimone Phillips’s mother, Arlene, purchased on October 27, 2005, one (1) HP DV-1325 LA Notebook on behalf of the Complainant from the Respondent on hire-purchase terms. A deposit of $230.00 was paid immediately and it was agreed in writing that there would be thirty-five (35) further monthly payments of $193.00 and a final payment of $170.91. The total hire-purchase price, inclusive of the Courts Supa-Shield, was $7,155.91.

Sometime during August or September 2006, the laptop computer malfunctioned and, when it was taken to Courts’ Service Centre, Ms. Phillips was informed that the screen needed to be replaced. However, subsequent attempts by Courts to source a screen proved futile and Ms. Phillips was then instructed by the Respondent to return the computer accessories and to choose a replacement notebook.

When she attempted to do this, she was told further that if she took the replacement she had an option of 2 payment plans:(i) to complete the payment of the hire-purchase price over three (3) years; or(ii) to complete the payment in ten (10) months.Neither of these arrangements found favour with Ms. Phillips who then, in her words, “opted for a refund”.

The Respondent agreed to this, but insisted that a sum of only $1967.19 would be refunded out of the total sum paid to that date of $3729.52. The remainder, Courts told her, would be payment for the use she had enjoyed of the computer for the period of its retention.

Unwilling to accept this, Ms. Phillips reported the matter to the Office of Public Counsel where she was advised that “a refund is a refund of any money paid”. All reasonable efforts to obtain redress for her complaint having failed, the matter came on before the Consumer Claims Tribunal for a resolution.

The Decision
After arguments on both sides the Tribunal gave its decision in favour of Ms. Phillips. I leave you to imbibe the decision:

DECISION: It is the decision of the Tribunal that under the Consumers Guarantee Act 2002 there is no difference in the nature of the refund to the consumer on a rejection of goods which have substantially failed to comply with a guarantee whether these goods were acquired by means of hire-purchase or by direct sale.

We so hold for the following reasons in this case:
(i) We accept the statement of Gault on Commercial Law that there is nothing in the Act to suggest that there should be a pro-rating of the refund in hire-purchase transactions when goods are rejected.
(ii) We do not accept that the decision in Stephens v. Chevron Motor Court Ltd. compels us to conclude that the nature of the refund in hire-purchase transactions on the rejection of the goods is identical to that in direct sales transactions.
(iii) It is our view that Parliament had in contemplation the hire-purchase transaction at the time of the passage of the Act, given the definitions of “acquire”, “supplier” and “supply” in the Act and the presence of the provision in section 52 which stipulates a particular method for the assessment of damages in hire-purchase transactions.
(iv) While we recognize that grave injustice might result in certain cases if the literal and plain meaning of the refund provision was to be applied, such cases must from their very nature be rare, given the lapse of time between acquisition and appearance of the defect. This lapse might suffice to cause a loss of the right to reject or to present a difficulty for the consumer in establishing a causal link between the defect and the supply of the goods.
(v) In those cases where the lapse of time is not substantial, it might still be argued, as it was in this case, that the result of a full refund is unfair to the supplier. However, given our earlier stated view that Parliament must have considered the possibility of such a result and chose to abstain from statutory intervention, we would be patently guilty of attempting to do what Parliament was itself loath to do. This is not permitted to us. Parliament will have to be persuaded to change its apparent mind.
(vi) Based on the above, there is no argument which persuades us to deny the clear words of the provision and to hold that a refund in hire-purchase transactions differs in any way from the refund as defined in section 24(2).We ORDER therefore that the Respondent Courts (B’dos) Ltd. refund to the Complainant, Ms. Kimone Phillips, all those sums which she had paid to the Respondent in respect of the hire-purchase of the computer from the date of the transaction.
J. Cumberbatch (Chairman (ag.), Fay Lucas, Antoine Williams.

http://www.commerce.gov.bb/cct/cases02.asp?c=111

Barbados Consumers Watch - update

Hi All,

Last evening Annette and I produced a programme to update everyone about the developments at Barbados Consumers Watch - your blog making a difference to the lives of Barbadian consumers. The programme ran for 45 minutes and is recorded at http://www.ustream.tv/caritel
Look for the first programme - CARITEL TV - Consumers and BCW and click to view.
You are invited to email us your comments via
bdosconsumers@gmail.com
Consumers are responding, consumer agencies are responding ... get involved. Let's hear from you.

Hallam Hope

Some Issues with the Bank

Ever notice how when you owe the bank they just take it out of your account before they even give you notice? It could cause you some embarassment, but let's deal with the issue.

The issue is that nobody has a right to just take your money from your account. From my humble viewpoint, that is breaking and entering. It is like somebody breaking in your bedroom and finding your money and taking it because you owe them money. It does not work that way.

This is causing a lot of problems for people trying to use the banking system to conduct business. First, I find it difficult to understand why it should take three clear days to clear a cheque when the banks exchange cheques every morning at 8 a.m. at the Central Bank?

What makes it worse is that the bank will tell you three days but they will not tell you that they are not counting the day of the deposit, so when you check carefully it really takes five days. Yet by the morning after your deposit and at the latest the morning following that, the bank has your money, but would make you wait three extra days to collect it.

It gets even worser, if by chance one of your cheques reaches your bank on the fourth day, when for sure they have your money, they would charge you a Not Sufficient Funds (NSF) Fee or overdraft fee ($25 - $30) if you are depending on your deposit to clear that cheque you wrote two days after making the deposit, which somehow managed to get from another bank to your bank in a day.

So how it could take five days to clear for me but when I write a cheque to a supermarket that is going to deposit it in a bank that night, it only takes them a day to clear on your account? Actually, by the time you write the cheque on the third day, the bank already has your money but because the cheque came in before the dawn of the fifth day, you are penalised.

Worst of all, for that one thing you are penalised twice. First by the bank. Then the business to whom you wrote the cheque puts on up to fifty dollars; even more. But look how the bank gains; the bank put charges on you that wrote the cheque (after bouncing it for you) and then turns around and charges the business that deposit the cheque you wrote. So they induce a bounce and then dip their hands in their customers accounts.

I declare that the money in the bank in your account is "sacro sanctum" and should not be touched by anybody except the account holder and that every transaction which incurs a cost or "penalty" should come to the attention of the customer and he/she should sanction its withdrawal by signature before the financial institution can remove any funds from the customer's account.

Any business sends a bill and gives you time to pay. Why should it be any different with the banks? In the case of penalties, I have always argued that penalties should be paid into the consolidated fund. This is illegal from many perspectives, even if the banks want to declare that it is standard practice. In modern times when the probability of theft is always around the corner, it has to be illegal for anybody to just dip their hands into your money. It is not transparent and it offends the integrity of the security of your money.

Finally, anybody caught dipping their hands in your money should be reported to the police, charged and if convicted made to serve the same time and pay the same penalties as a person convicted of breaking and entering with the intention of theft. It is no different.