Know your consumer rights

COMPANIES that routinely put profit over the desire to honour their customers’ consumer rights – much less delight them with extra-mile service – can be extremely creative in justifying their decisions.

Many insist on repairing faulty items, when, for six months from date of purchase, the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) gives consumers the right to choose a refund or replacement over a repair.

Or they blame the consumer for the problem, says the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud’s office complaints manager Bonita Hughes.

“They allege cellphones have water damage, fridges and microwaves malfunctioned due to cockroach infestation or that the leather couches started to peel because the wrong cleaning products were used.

“But we appoint independent inspectors to get a second opinion on whether the fault was a manufacturer’s defect or customer abuse,” Hughes said. Good to know.

The CPA is routinely flouted in many other ways, prejudicing thousands of South Africans every day.

In the space of a week, I’ve taken up the case of a woman who was denied her right to cancel her lay-by agreement with a clothing store; a pathology lab which refused to provide a detailed receipt to a cash-paying client; and a pharmacy which routinely “rounds up” customers’ purchases, adding a few cents to almost every transaction.

Lay-By – taking the law into their own hands

Nosiphiwe Ngcungama of Margate on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast made a R1 538 lay-by purchase at Clothing Junction’s Port Shepstone branch at the end of November, making an initial R538 payment and agreeing to pay off the remaining R1 000 by the end of January.

With lay-by purchases, the goods remain in the store until payment is made in full.

However, the CPA allows a consumer to cancel at any time for a refund of what they’ve paid, minus a cancellation fee of just 1% of the purchase price - in this case, R15.38.

But when Ngcungama returned to the store to cancel the deal last week, intending to spend her refund in the store, her request was refused, which is when she approached me for help.

I advised her of her CPA rights and she then returned to the store.

“A woman told me only the area manager can cancel a lay-by, and he’s not always in the store.”

So her R23 in taxi fare was wasted. At that point I contacted Clothing Junction’s head office.

The response was heartening – Ngcungama was phoned and assured of a refund, the staff member concerned will be disciplined and all branches will be e-mailed regarding lay-by procedures.

“I put your advice about the CPA on Facebook so others can know their rights,” Ngcungama said.

That’s key – it’s hard to bully a clued-up consumer.

Your right to a detailed invoice

Laura Coetzer, of Durban, had blood tests done at a FlowPath branch, paid cash and then asked for an invoice so she could submit it to her medical aid, Discovery Health.

However, she was told she could only have a receipt, revealing the amount paid, but no details of the service provided, which is a contravention of the CPA.

“I was told I can’t claim from medical aid because I paid a discounted cash rate,” Coetzer said.

On alerting Discovery Health to the case, CEO Dr Jonathan Broomberg advised Coetzer to insist on a full invoice from the lab, adding that the medical aid would be happy to assist.

FlowPath’s Trevor Doorasamy said it was a misunderstanding – the branches do not have a “comprehensive pathology billing system” and thus all medical aid claims and cash invoices were generated by the company’s head office.

They are provided to patients via e-mail or snail mail on request, he said, but the nursing sister in question had, unfortunately, failed to tell Coetzer this.

Traders – other than informal ones – must provide you with proof of purchase, containing their full registered business name and VAT registration, address, date of purchase, price per item, quantity of goods, total without VAT and total with VAT.

Make sure you aren’t on the losing end of cents “rounding”

Barbara Worthington bought R127.96 worth of medication at Ackermans Pharmacy in Primrose and noticed she was charged R128 on her debit card.

I put it to pharmacy owner Johan van Wyk that retailers who choose to persist with prices which end in 90-something cents must always round to the cash-paying customer’s benefit, if they do not have the coins to provide the exact change.

So R127.96 should become R127.90 – not R128.

The customer should never be made to pay more than the advertised price.

And if a customer pays by card, there is no reason to round off at all because the coin issue does not apply.

Van Wyk said he was unaware that the company which programmed his computerised till system was rounding up to the pharmacy’s benefit and immediately instructed them to fix the problem.

ý To lodge a complaint against a company for failing to honour the provisions of the CPA, contact the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud: go to http://www.cgso.org.za