CCAC resolves over $101M in complaints in 2022

Director of Consumer Affairs Muriel Tinnis-Duke says the Competition and Consumer Affairs Commission (CCAC) received 409 complaints from consumers in 2022.

The total value of these complaints were $262,863,598.

The CCAC was able to resolve 85% of these complaints to the sum of $101,575,399.

The Consumer Affairs Director noted that the majority of these cases continue to arise from the electronic industry, closely followed by the auto industry.

“Among the top five you have the construction industry. I guess we can understand why… because there’s a building boom now. More people are building so of course there are more issues within the industry. But the good thing is people know they can file a complaint and we can address the issue for them.”

The most prominent issue in electronic industries are due to Part IV Section 22 (Return of defective goods) of the Consumer Affairs act being contravened.

This can be linked to the growing ease of accessibility to these products, which consequently leads to them being more susceptible to fraudulent and misleading practices.

A major concern in the Auto Industry is Part V–Section 31 of the act, (Misleading or deceptive conduct).

This year, the Commission began issuing Compliance Certifications to businesses who's operating procedures are well in accordance with the Consumer Affairs Act.

Just over 1000 businesses were inspected this year and certificates were issued to 35% of the businesses.

Duke notes that this certification is renewed on an annual basis and businesses are subjected to random inspections.

“Because of course you know somebody will put on a performance for you to get that certificate, then they do their own things once they get it.

“We don’t even wait till the end of that one-year period (to perform inspections). We do our own little mystery shopping and the inspectors would check in every so often to ensure that they’re doing right by the certificate we issued to them.”