On 15th March 1962 the president of America, J.F. Kennedy ( U.S.A ) announced the rights of consumers, therefore it is celebrated as ‘World Consumer Right Day’. The right of consumers is an essential part of our day-to-day life. Consumer rights defend consumers from being cheated by salesman, companies, and storekeepers. In this article, we will see the consumer rights and responsibilities of consumers.
Right of consumers
The success of any campaign depends on the consciousness and awareness of the people for whose cause the movement is organized. The rights of consumers play an important role in their protection and safety. Every consumer should be conscious of his rights and use them in his daily life for protection. Consumers have to fight for their rights.
Consumers have the following rights:
1. Right to safety:
The first right of the consumer is safety. This protects consumers against the production, product, and services that are harmful to health or life. The Government of India has given safety rules in the form of AGMARK, ISI, BIS, Hallmark, etc.
2. Right to Information:
According to this right, consumers should provide information about all aspects of goods and services like price, name of the manufacturer, batch number, contents used, expiry date date of manufacture, user manual, etc. This right of the consumer is applicable to food products, medicines, spare parts, or any services or consumer products.
3. Right to choose:
According to this right, consumers should be given full freedom to select an article as per their demand, liking, and purchasing capacity. As per this right, the seller cannot force consumers to buy a particular product and hence monopoly is stopped.
4. Right to be heard:
According to this right of consumers, customers have the opportunity to voice their complaints to the consumer forum. In modern days, consumers can file online complaints through portals or mobile applications.
5. Right to Consumer Education:
Every consumer has the right to know about consumer rights and solutions to their problems. This right creates consumer awareness. It is important to give education and training regarding prevailing acts and legal processes.
6. Right to Represent:
The act gives individuals and consumer groups an opportunity to serve consumer interests before the consumer forum. The right allows the consumer to be represented by a person who is not a professional advocate. This provision is in recognition of the consumer’s right to represent.
7. Right to Redress:
This right enables the consumer to demand repair or replacement for defective products and for poor services.
8. Right to Healthy Environment:
According to this right of consumers, They can demand actions against the pollution causing business organizations. All have the right to a healthy and clean environment in the present and future.
9. Right to protect from unfair business practices:
According to this right, consumers are protected against unfair business practices such as black marketing, expensive prices, corruption, etc.
10. Right against spurious goods:
This right is against the marketing of goods that are dangerous to health, deceptive, and pose a danger to life itself.
Responsibilities of consumers:
The act has given some rights to the consumers. At the same time, consumers have some responsibilities too. So we will see the responsibilities of consumers.
1. The consumer should use his right
The first responsibility of the consumer is that the consumer should use his rights. they must be aware of their rights while buying.
2. Cautious consumer:
Customers should know their responsibilities while buying goods and services. While purchasing, the buyer should enquire about the quality, quantity, price, utility of goods and services, etc.
3. Filling of complaint:
It is the responsibility of a consumer to request the officer worried if consumers have some problem with goods and services. A delay in the complaint may result in the expiry of the guarantee or warranty. Sometimes, consumers ignore the dishonest acts of businessmen which support unethical business practices.
4. Quality Conscious
The consumer should never compromise on the quality of goods. The consumer should never buy poor-quality stuff out of selfishness for less prices. If the consumer behaves like this, there cannot be any protection for them from any sector.
It is also the responsibility of the consumers to buy quality goods. The symbols such as AGMARK, ISI, FASSAI, Hallmark, FPO, etc
5. Beware from exaggerate advertisement
The seller notifies the consumer about their goods and services through advertisement. Usually, the sellers expand the quality of their goods in advertisements. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the consumers to know the fact of the advertisement.
6. Demand of invoice and guarantee, warranty card:
The consumer should always ask for invoices for the goods purchased. It is the responsibility of the consumer to check the details mentioned on the warranty card. If the goods purchased are of poor quality, these documents are useful to settle all kinds of arguments with sellers.
7. Pre-planned buying:
Pre-planned is the responsibility of consumer. the important responsibility of consumers is that they should not buy in rush. It means that the consumers should make an estimate of goods they want to purchase along with the quality needed. They should also take into consideration the place from where to get the things.
8. Organized Efforts:
This responsibility of consumers is essential Consumers should take responsibility for the protection of their safeguarding and rights their interests. Consumers can work for and support the consumer protection associations for consumer health.