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Summary 2001The Consumer Protection Board (later Board) is a national authority which main task is to protect the legitimate rights of consumers and represent their interests, develop and implement provisions of the UN Guidelines, Consumer Protection Act and EU Consumer Policy. The main activities of the Board are as follows:
The Board constitutes an inexpensive alternative to the civil courts and the decisions of the Board serve as guidelines for trade enterprises. The Board is entitled to impose fines and prescriptive orders in case of the violation of legislation. Together with other state and local government institutions the Board also monitors the following fields: product safety, misleading advertising, consumer contracts, public services, product-labeling etc. The main objective of the Board is to help and protect the consumers to make a conscious choice and to render help in infringements of the basic rights. The budget of the Consumer Protection Board was 8,8 million EEK and by the end of 2001 the Board had staff of 61 together with officials in 14 county divisions. The total amount of controlled enterprises in 2001 was 3476. The total sum of the determined fines was 2 million EEK (approximately 124 000 euro). During the market surveillance was controlled accordance to different requirement of following goods:
Mainly infringements were in connection with infringements of labeling requirements. In 2001 the Board increased the importance of testing foodstuffs and non-foodstuffs. During the year were ordered 141 foodstuffs tests from which in 63 cases were found infringement. The number of tested non-foodstuffs was 38 and infringements were found in 37 cases. In the field of services surveillance the main activities were in following areas as:
The main problems were contracts and contract conditions. Because of increasing of using banking and tourism services is increased also number of problems in these fields. 1577 complaints were received from consumers. Half of them touched upon the trade problems and the another services (mostly water, heating, rent etc). The most frequent problems in trade were in connection with footwear and home appliances - lacking the usage guidelines or the guidelines were not correctly translated. In 2001 one of the topical problems was only bad quality diesel oil, the incongruous to the Economy Minister degree No 45 and No 46 from 24.05.2001 oil fuel quality requirements and sales management. The Board ordered 158 oil fuel tests from which 31 showed infringements. The Board forwarded to the administrative court 45 cases, which were in connection with infringements of selling procedures of alcohol and tobacco products. The obligatory prescriptions were forwarded to the administrative court in 7 cases.
International Co-operation The Board has good relations with international consumer protection organizations, such as the Consumers International, the Association of Consumer Unions of Germany, all Nordic Consumer agencies etc. The specialists of the Board taken part in lot of international seminars and workshops, which were organized by different international organizations and where almost all the consumer protection matters, were covered. The Board is according to the Product Safety Act the national contact point concerning rapid exchange information on dangerous goods between other EU candidate countries. The CPB has already participated actively in PHARE TRAPEX project. During the year 2001 the Board received 131 notifications on dangerous goods (119 concerned non-food products and 12 food products) from 8 countries and the Board found and forwarded to the TRAPEX coordination center in Budapest 6 notifications on dangerous products discovered also in Estonian Market. On the basis ordinary market surveillance was discovered 6 dangerous products about what The Board informed also the TRAPEX center in Budapest. In 2001 improved the co-operation between different supervisory authorities (National Inspection for Health Protection; State Veterinary and Food Inspection; Technical Inspectorate; National Police Board; National Standards Center; Estonian Insurance Supervisory Authority; Estonian Energy Market Inspectorate).
Twinning On June 22, 2000 was signed the two year lasting EU Twinning covenant between EU Commission, Consumer Protection Board, Swedish National Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket) and the Greece Ministry of Development. The broad objective of the project is the improvement of the organisational efficiency and effectiveness of the Consumer Protection Board. The general emphasis will be given to strengthen the market surveillance functions as required in EC internal market legislation and consumer protection programme as whole, using EU guidelines and practices. During the two year was planned approximately 20 different events from which in 2001 were organized most of them (seminars, working group meetings)
Consumer Protection Policy The Board enforces the consumer protection policy and co-operates actively with the Estonian Consumers' Union and the consumer protection units of local governments. The Consumer Protection Council continued its work as advisory body to the Board on consumer policy, which organizes the regular meetings. It is the main body through which the local governments and voluntary organizations can participate in the decision making process for developing the consumer protection policy on government level. The main discussed topics were energy price; financing of NGO-s; prices of the medicaments; water price etc. The Advertising Council discussed mainly following advertising law infringements as misleading advertising and alcohol as well as tobacco products. Besides were found and discussed using of vulnerable group in advertisements, infringements on disparaging advertising, gambling advertising and food products advertising ignoring of good business standards. The Board made 26 obligatory prescriptions according to the Advertising Act and in 18 cases the Board called the entrepreneurs attention to stop the infringements and two cases were sent to the court.
Information and education A shortcut to advice is the free telephone consulting service, operating working daily. Experts of the Board provide advice and information about consumer rights, warranties, required labeling, and other safety and marking requirements. In 2001 were registered 7873 consultations in the free information telephone. By the Board specialist in head office and in county divisions were consulted 6937 consumers. All together 14 810 consumers. The Board publishes already several years information leaflets such as: How to buy , How to act in order to teach consumers to be critical and active and to give them practical tips to make their choices in everyday life. In 2001 was published 4 information booklets How to buy toys; new version of the Consumer Protection Boards introducing leaflet and two leaflets in Russian (How to buy goods; How to buy services). In 1998 the Board started the publishing of self-information files, called TarKa. It consists from different collections, where are overviews about different groups of good(s) or service(s) from the consumers' point of views. One can find general descriptions, qualities, practical tips and legal advice's for buying a good or service. All together is 13 different files. In 2001 was updated 8 files. The Board made in the IT field big step ahead - all officials have the PC and all the county divisions have Internet connection. The web site http://www.tka.riik.ee gives a good overview about the Board as well as practical tips to consumers and legislation for entrepreneurs. In 2001 was enforced the Public Information Act and on that reason was included several new links to the homepage. The Intranet for the changing inside documents and information between Board officials was renewed. In the end 2001 was made two standards regulating the work of the information telephone and the Internet homepage. Since October 2001 the Board has document regulating the public relations of the Board. |