Faulty goods, misleading claims and substandard services mean Christmas presents fly back on to the shelves in January, according to new figures from Citizens Advice.
Analysis by the charity shows that people are more likely to call its Consumer Service helpline with complaints about items such as toys, computer games and jewellery in January than any other time of year.
Citizens Advice, Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are urging people to get to know their new consumer rights as Christmas shopping gets underway. The organisations are highlighting how the new Consumer Rights Act, brought into effect on 1 October, can help people to shop with confidence and get their money back when things go wrong.
The findings reveal that complaints to the Citizens Advice Consumer Service about toys doubled in January 2015 in comparison to the rest of the year, while problems with DVDs, video games, games consoles, and sound systems rose by two thirds.
The top five most complained about personal goods in January 2015 were:
- Tablets, notebooks and laptops hit the number one spot. Last January saw 850 complaints, one third higher than the rest of the year.
- Women’s clothing - complaints rose by a fifth.
- Televisions - the helpline saw 29 per cent more enquiries.
- Toys - toys had the biggest increase in complaints, which were more than double than any other time of the year
- Jewellery - complaints increased by 40%
Complaints were most likely to be about defective goods, while one in seven people contacted the service because of misleading claims and descriptions about their purchase. One in twenty complained that businesses didn’t honour their cancellation rights.
