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Consumer Rights

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.

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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

  1. Right to Satisfaction of Basic Needs: Fundamental right according to the Constitution of Bangladesh to have access to food, clothing, education, healthcare , shelter.
  2. Right to Safety: Protection of hazardous and unsafe products and services.
  3. Right to Information: information about the quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of products and services.
  4. Right to Choose: Availability of selection of goods and services from their varieties to justify the quality, cost, preference.
  5. Right to be Heard: raise unhappiness against consumer malpractices or right to be represented by consumer organization.
  6. 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.
  7. Right to Consumer Education: to have access to programs and information that helps the consumer to make a better and informed buying decision.
  8. 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:

  1. Obtaining commodities or services at a price fixed by the authority or a reasonable price.
  2. Right to have safe and pure products.
  3. Right to have necessary and correct information about products.
  4. Right to be informed of the qualities or defects (if any) of a particular product.
  5. Right to know the quantity of the product.
  6. Right to know the utility, purity and price of the product.
  7. Right to have products or services in right quantity and quality.
  8. Right to have choice among product offerings.
  9. Right to have defense against activities relating to purchase or sale of products by which life or property may be in danger.
  10. Right to education about consume rights and protection.
  11. Right to have access to remedy in relation to violations of consumer rights.

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