More public input sought on consumer protection bill
(CNS): More than two years after work began on drawing up a Consumer Protection and Guarantees Bill, the Law Reform Commission has extended the public consultation period until the end of March. The idea of having a piece of legislation to protect consumers has considerable public support but the process of getting to a workable law appears to be taking time and officials want more input from people before they mover forward.
“These legislative proposals aim to safeguard the interests of the consumer in matters relating to the supply of goods and services while providing mechanisms to seek appropriate redress when certain consumer standards are breached,” officials said in a release urging residents to comment on the proposed law which is available here.
The Bill covers procedures on how to make a consumer complaint, the rights of consumers, guarantees in relation to the supply of goods, or services, remedies when those guarantees are breached, the duty of suppliers, unfair trade practices or contracts terms, goods recalls and distance selling.
The bill may be viewed on the LRC website and hard copies are also available from the Law Reform Commission at the Government Administration Building on Elgin Avenue.
Submissions should be forwarded no later than 1 March in writing by post or by hand to:
Jose Griffith, Acting Director of the Law Reform Commission
Portfolio of Legal Affairs, 4th Floor Government Administration Building
133 Elgin Avenue, George Town, Grand Cayman,P.O. Box 136
Grand Cayman KY1-9000or emailed to jose.griffith@gov.ky
Category: Laws, Local News, Politics
The private sector has been been ripping us off for years. The Chamber is really useless and incapable of dealing with its members.
I got a quote for a part for my fridge for CI700 and bought it on Amazon for US49.00.
Don’t mention TV and other electronics. All rip off prices.
Can’t wait to see what happens to the rip off garages that charge you $600 for a tune up that should cost $60,00
Must say that the Polo store in Camana bay is reasonable.
Just another example of the private sector poor performance which forces government to react and spend money. Then the private sector complains about Government. Priceless really!!
What we really need is a monopolies and mergers commission, with teeth..to weed out monopolistic and cartel practices. That would open up competition, drive down prices and give more choice as it did in the UK in the 80’s. Of course the business owning MLA’s will never pass that…
The companies that resemble anything close to monopolies on the island are already regulated by the gov. CUC (true monopoly), water, insurance, pensions and to some degree banks.
Real estate brokers….?
This law is not going to stop the mark up on US goods nor high quoted rates for services. To do that you would have to allow foreign owned businesses to compete with your local cartels. Obviously that is not going to happen. ALT can charge any price and still make a sale so long as its less than a roundtrip ticket to Miami.
Yep, and they refuse to refund on faulty goods because the packaging is “ruined” .How do you know if something is not as it should be if you don’t unpack it, and how can items in vacuum packed wrapping be inspected if you have to cut open that package to inspect it?
Consumer protections aren’t really about high prices, it’s more like false advertising, not honoring warranties, shoddy workmanship, deceptive practices etc.. If you want a mechanic to fix your car and he tells you it’s $400 upfront and you agree and then find the part on Amazon for $30 you are first leaving out probably 90% of any reputable mechanics shop cost of doing business and second ignoring the fact that there’s no gun to your head to agree to it.
Why is it that the draft legislation doesn’t address price-fixing at all, I wonder?
As in most European countries governments set maximum prices on crucial goods, like bread, fuel, eggs and milk.
That protects the consumer from being over charged.
On top of that are many consumer protection laws.
We don’t even have the first option.
This new law will only protect the businesses, since it is designed and passed by businessmen.
It is to late.
Just order anything above 75$ from oversees.
A couple of the well-known vehicle dealers on island refused to register the VINs of our imported vehicles in their systems and billed us for parts and labour for factory-reimbursed Technical Safety Bulletins (TSBs) and known fully-warrantied Safety Recalls. They both did this for years, billing thousands, while probably invoicing these same items back to the manufacturers again for a double pay-day. Nice work if you can get it.
I was looking for a futon last year and asked a shop manager what the price was as the item wasn’t tagged. She went to the computer and looked up the piece in the catalogue and proceeded to multiply the US price by 4 and then told me the cost in CI (what was just under $100US was priced at just under $400CI). Needless to say I walked out and ordered from the US and paid less than half of that even after paying shipping and duty as that wasn’t the only store with shockingly high prices for what should be affordable goods.
I also wondered how a scratch on the back bumper of my car would cost me over CIdlrs 1,000 to fix by the dealer and I got it fixed by a guy under a tree for CIdlrs. 100. He actually charged me 75 dollars but considering I was getting such a deal I gave him 100 Dlrs. The quote from the dealership showed that I was being charged for eight hours of work. When I enquired why it would take so long I was told that was the time it would take for the paint to dry.
I hope it will cover us tourists!
greedy merchants driving up cost of living in cayman islands…??
there are none….how can a part for my boat engine cost $161 usd in miami…..and i was quoted ci $ 791 for same part in cayman? yes, it actually happened to me…good thing my brother was in miami and picked it up…..sad!?
Boat jockeys are among the worst offenders: They’ll charge you $60/hr x2 guys in the truck, to drive to the Chandlery, only to tell you the part is not in stock. Your boat is unchanged in condition, you’ve wasted your energy, and you now have an invoice for $120.
On Saturday, a local vendor charged us KYD$132.00 for a plastic USD$17.32 (AMAZON PRIME) water inlet valve for our refrigerator. The sooner this widespread price gouging can be exposed and shared the better. We desperately need a platform to give those giving a competitive and honest service the upper commercial hand they deserve – and the many crooks and liars need to be run out of business. A “Better Business Bureau” type consumer reporting/rating mechanism would be helpful in 2018.
You should have ordered the part off Amazon, that is if you knew how to diagnose and fix the problem yourself. There are plenty of online appliance forums online where even the most clueless can get answers and do the fix themselves. The price would have been even steeper if the repair guy had to do the work on a Sunday. Don’t hold your breath for stuff like this to change it’s the same in North America and in Europe. Time to get some savvy yourself brother.
The part was invoiced to us after installation by a second vendor – it was a bit of an emergency and couldn’t wait 2-3 weeks to bring something in. Double is pretty normal, maybe triple if it’s rare and been sitting in inventory for years, but 10 times the real world cost, even factoring duty and inventorying, is simply not normal practice anywhere else but in the Cayman Islands. This was just an illustration (from these past few days) of how normalized over-billing and vendor price-gouging has become. Preying on good folks suffering an emergency too.
what about the guys that claim they are good at fixing refrigerators ( from a company) and orders parts for a arm and leg and charges huge amount labour and the refrigerator still don’t work.
If the price included coming to your home and installing the part, I’d say you got a bargain.
please for the name of local vendor so that we can all watch ?
Consumer Protection Laws have their place, but at the moment discussing such laws is a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as it is sinking. The rapidly increasing violent crime and general lawlessness in our society is a much bigger threat. What we need is fundamental reform of our Penal Code in order to make the prosecution of violent criminals more effective and in order to keep such criminals off our streets.
Although it’s valid that our police lack a compelling strategy to deal with escalating violent crime, the door to blue and white collar crime has also been left wide-open and duped consumers merit some recourse…
CNS: The rest of this comment is posted here: Door wide open for white collar crime