Summary 1997

The three most important functions of the Consumer Protection Board (later the Board) are:

• To supervise the consumer market;
• To settle consumer complaints;
• To inform and advice consumers.

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 the Board and other regulations. Together with other state and local government institutions the Board also monitors the following fields: product safety, misleading advertising, consumer contracts, public services, product-labelling 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 total amount of controlled enterprises was 3504. The total sum of the amerced fines was 1,1 million EEK.
3841 complaints were received from consumers, from whom 60% dealt with trade problems and 40% with services (mostly communal services). The most frequent problems in trade were in connection with bad quality of footwear, their defects, and exchange.
A lot of pretensions caused the sale of petrol. Ca ¾ of controlled sellers and mediators infringed the regulations by measuring, lacking of selling documents, incongruous of the try-out test etc.
In the case of 33, the Board protected of the consumers’ rights in the court in 1997, 50% of them was connected with the selling of alcohol.

International Co-operation

Together with ministries and other institutions the Board participates actively in different working groups that are responsible for drafting legislation. The main priority of legislation drafting activities is harmonisation of legislation with the European Union consumer law.
There are eleven directives, from which five were harmonised in 1997 in Estonian legal acts correspondingly to recommendations of the consumer protection policy of the White Paper.
The Baltic Co-operation Protocol with Latvia and Lithuania was signed in April 1997. It was the beginning of creating an efficient system of information exchange as well as the exchange of experience in the consumer protection field between Baltic countries.
The Board has good relations with international consumer protection organisations, such as the Consumers International, the Consumer Research Centre at Louvain-la-Neuve University, the Association of Consumer Unions of Germany, and all Nordic Consumer agencies.

Consumer Protection Policy

The Board works out 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 was established in May 1995 as advisory body to the Board on consumer policy. It is the main body through which the local governments and voluntary organisations can participate in the decision making process for developing the consumer protection policy on government level.

Information and advice

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 labelling, and other safety and marking requirements.
In 1997 was registered approximately 4000 addresses, from which,

• 38% were in connection with bad quality of manufactured goods. Last year was the most actual problem footwear, their defects and exchange;
• 16% were in connection with housing;
• 12% were in connection with unsatisfied work of service enterprises (setting of metal doors, building of balconies and windows, dry cleaning, ordering of furniture)
• 9% referred to unsatisfied selling process of the foodstuffs and working of catering establishments.

The Board publishes 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. 5 of such information booklets were published last year.

By the end of 1997 the Board joined with Internet and the home page was prepared. The address of the web site is http://ww.tka.riik.ee.