China News Service, August 18 (Xie Yiguan, a reporter from China-News Finance and Economics) On the 18th, the China Consumers Association (hereinafter referred to as the China Consumers Association) released the "Investigation Report on Consumer Cognition and Clue Collection of "Unfair Format Terms" (hereinafter referred to as "Unfair Standard Terms"). "Report").
In June 2022, the China Consumers Association launched a consumer awareness survey and clue collection activities on unfair standard terms in the consumption field.
The survey shows that the participants in the survey generally have a better understanding of the standard terms.
87.88% of consumers have encountered unfair standard terms. After encountering unfair standard terms, more than 70% of consumers still choose to continue trading. The main reason is that the operator is too strong and consumers are forced to agree to the standard terms. Transaction cannot be continued.
When most consumers encounter unfair consumption, they can choose the right channel for consumer rights protection.
At the same time, nearly one-fifth of the respondents chose to "endure in silence", indicating that the high cost of rights protection and the unsatisfactory effect of rights protection make consumers lack confidence in rights protection.
The "Report" pointed out that the phenomenon of unfair standard terms is still common in consumer life, involving a wide range of fields, concealing infringement methods, and having a great impact on consumers.
In market transactions, due to the constraints of information asymmetry, limited professional level and other factors, compared with standard clause providers, consumers are likely to be in a weak position and their rights are easily violated.
Therefore, standardizing standard terms is an important means to promote fairness in consumption, and it is also an important measure to make consumers willing and dare to consume.
The "Report" proposes from the perspective of safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of consumers in standard contracts that a whole-process consumer rights protection system should be established before and after the event.
The first is to control the source and strengthen the prevention in advance.
Operators should enhance their sense of fairness and responsibility, formulate standard contracts in a fair and reasonable manner, and fulfill their obligations of prompting and explaining.
Consumers should improve their awareness of contracts and rights protection, and fully understand the signed format contracts.
The second is process control, strengthening supervision during the event.
Continue to vigorously promote the standard contract model, and improve the implementation of the standard contract filing system.
The third is to seriously investigate and punish and improve post-mortem relief.
Make full use of channels such as acceptance of complaints and reports and public opinion monitoring, timely accept consumer-related complaints and reports, strengthen dynamic monitoring, analysis and judgment of public opinion, and establish and improve a clue discovery mechanism for unfair format clauses.
For problematic contract terms, consumer associations and relevant regulatory authorities should comprehensively use suggestions, interviews, and requests for rectification to urge enterprises to rectify in a timely manner.
According to the China Consumers Association, a total of 367 cases of unfair format clause clues were received from consumers in this clue collection activity, mainly focusing on online shopping, online games, education and training, communication services, house decoration, medical beauty and other industries.
The China Consumers Association will combine the clues provided by consumers to comment on unfair standard terms in the consumption areas that reflect relatively concentrated.
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