More than 100 angry consumers are taking Taobao, China’s biggest online shopping
More than 100 angry consumers are taking Taobao, China’s biggest online shopping site, to court over alleged fraud.
Online shopping has been listed as the top consumer complaint for 2012 in China.
35-year-old Mr Wang Dong has been shopping online since 2006. Last year, he bought a 3G wireless card from a shop he found on Taobao.
He said: “At that time, I saw that the shop was rated double crown in terms of reliability. It had a huge transaction volume. The price was relatively cheap, so I bought it.”
But the card only lasted three months instead of the one-year as promised by the shop.
When Mr Wang tried contacting the seller, he found the shop had been delisted by Taobao because it was getting too many shoppers’ complaints.
He said: “To report the case (to the police), I had to have the seller’s information but Taobao won’t give it to me. I asked for the seller’s name, ID, address and phone but they refused to give it to me because of privacy reasons.”
Together with 100 other shoppers who faced the same problem, Mr Wang is now taking Taobao to court for failing to protect their consumer rights.
The shopping website had faced a similar lawsuit from some 600 shoppers in 2009 but settled the case by paying out 100 million yuan (about US$16 million) in compensation.
Consumer rights lawyer Yang Zhuang, who is representing both cases, said it is a small amount for Taobao, which is said to make 40 billion yuan from advertising revenue alone.
Mr Yang also added some shops on Taobao with high ratings have been allegedly sub-let to other users who sell fraudulent products.
He also said the deposit amount of 1 to 2,000 yuan to set up shop on the website is too low to deter shady sellers.
Under China’s consumer rights law, if found guilty, Taobao can be ordered by the court to pay damages or even be shut down.
The company had announced this week that it would begin a program to refund customers who bought counterfeit products online, starting with mobile phones.
But the latest case will do little to damage Taobao’s current market leader status with over 500 million users and millions more retailers online offering products at prices hard to beat elsewhere, even though the website has been listed in China as the number one e-commerce firm, with the most complaints.
Source AFP