Summary 1998

• 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 in 1998 was 3057. The total sum of the determined fines was 1,2 million EEK.

3027 complaints were received from consumers. Half of them touched upon the trade problems and the another one services (mostly communal services). The most frequent problems in trade were in connection with bad quality of footwear, their defects, and exchange.

In 28 cases the Board protected of the consumers’ rights in the court in, from which most of them were connected with the selling of alcohol.

International Co-operation

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. The specialists of Board taken part in lot of international seminars and workshops, which were organised by different international organisations and where almost all the consumer protection matters, were covered.

The Board is involved in Phare CICPP III programme. Under the programme were organised several activities - summer programme in Louvain-La -Neuve University; work shop on media relations and consumer policy lobbying, and seminar on consumer policy research techniques.

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.

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.

The acquis communitaire screening concerning the consumer protection chapter took place in Brussels in June, where the representative of European Commission said that the Estonia does not have any problems with the chapter of consumer protection and the field of consumer protection does not need essential negotiation.

The Consumer Protection Council was established in May 1995 as advisory body to the Board on consumer policy, which organises the regular meetings. 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.

The Advertising Council was established for discussing problems in case of misleading advertising.

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 labelling, and other safety and marking requirements.

In 1998 was registered approximately 6580 calls which has increased almost twice in comparing with last year.

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. 2 of such information booklets - "Pyramid schemes" and "Safety of toys" - were published last year.

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.

For young consumers (pupils of secondary schools) were prepared the CD-ROM "Know your rights" and the pocket leaflet.

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.

The budget of the Consumer Protection Board was 5,5 million EEK and the Board has staff of 53 by the end of 1998.