Consumer Rights
Who is a consumer?
A consumer is anyone ranging form the cradle to the tomb, from the Prime Minister of a country to the labourer on the street. In simple words, the persons who use or consumes products or services are consumers. In the eyes of Act, a person is required to fulfill certain conditions to be regarded as a consumer. Consumers are those persons who, for oneself or for the dependants, buy or use or obtain a permission to use any products or service by offering a price, prompt or due or in installments.
In addition, any person using such products with the consent of the buyer will also be treated as a consumer. But if someone buys something for the purpose of resale or for any other commercial purposes, he or she shall not be a consumer as such. Personal consumption is the main test for defining oneself as a consumer. Under CRPA 2009, a person who buys goods to earn a livelihood by ‘self-employment’ (though in a commercial scale) also falls within the definition of a consumer.
Consumer Rights
- Right to Satisfaction of Basic Needs: Fundamental right according to the Constitution of Bangladesh to have access to food, clothing, education, healthcare , shelter.
- Right to Safety: Protection of hazardous and unsafe products and services.
- Right to Information: information about the quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of products and services.
- Right to Choose: Availability of selection of goods and services from their varieties to justify the quality, cost, preference.
- Right to be Heard: raise unhappiness against consumer malpractices or right to be represented by consumer organization.
- Right to Redress: This is the crux of consumer rights. The consumer is entitled to have legal remedy, either monetary or exchange, in case of violation of consume rights.
- Right to Consumer Education: to have access to programs and information that helps the consumer to make a better and informed buying decision.
- Right to Healthy Environment: to live and work in an environment that does not affect consumers’ welfare and health.
Consumer Responsibilities
- Use of product safely, following all safety instructions and remaining alert for future precautions.
- Choose vigilantly at a fair price.
- Make the effort to seek compensation for a wrong.
- Make choices that minimize the environmental impact of your purchase on others.
- Consume in a sustainable manner, so as not to prevent others from meeting their own needs.
Consumer Rights are recognized in the Consumer Rights Protection Act 2009
The rights include:
- Obtaining commodities or services at a price fixed by the authority or a reasonable price.
- Right to have safe and pure products.
- Right to have necessary and correct information about products.
- Right to be informed of the qualities or defects (if any) of a particular product.
- Right to know the quantity of the product.
- Right to know the utility, purity and price of the product.
- Right to have products or services in right quantity and quality.
- Right to have choice among product offerings.
- Right to have defense against activities relating to purchase or sale of products by which life or property may be in danger.
- Right to education about consume rights and protection.
- Right to have access to remedy in relation to violations of consumer rights.