A report from the Consumer Protection Division of the Department of Trade and Industry showed that there was a 20% increase in the number of complaints processed by the agency in the third quarter of 2019, as compared to the same period last year. Household appliances are now the main subjects of consumer complaints.
Relevant data from the report showed that there were 188 consumer complaints submitted to the seven provincial offices and the regional office of DTI in 2018 for mediation, arbitration or adjudication. This figure increased to 224 for the whole region in the third quarter of 2019, an increase of almost 20%.
DTI Pampanga Provincial Office received the most number with 50 consumer complaints received while DTI Bataan followed with 48 complaints received. DTI Bulacan had 44 complaints while Zambales had 32 and Tarlac had 24 complaints for the third quarter of 2019. DTI Nueva Ecija received 18 consumer complaints while the DTI Regional Office received only 8 consumer complaints for the said quarter. DTI Aurora did not receive any complaints in the said period.
It was also noted in the report that consumer issues on refrigerators have overtaken defective cellphones as the primary subject of complaints. For the third quarter of 2019, there were 22 complaints about defective refrigerators while there were 21 complaints about television and 16 complaints about cellphones. This is significantly lower than the same period in 2018 where cellphone related complaints reached 27 while TV-related complaints reached 24 while there were only three (3) complaints about defective refrigerators.
The DTI Regional Office III continues to remind consumers to verify the quality and safety of household appliances and electronic gadgets by looking if they have Philippine Standards marks with the appropriate alphanumeric codes. For imported products, they have to bear the Import Commodity Clearance (ICC) hologram stickers with an eight-character alphanumeric code at the bottom portion. Certified products are also listed at the website of the DTI Bureau of Philippine Standards at www.bps.dti.gov.ph.
Consumers are also asked to call the DTI Consumer Care Hotline 1-384 should they have consumer issues or concerns about products they buy.
