"In contrast to 2016, the situation in this control area has almost not changed. E-shop operators continue to fail to inform consumers about the possibility of out-of-court settlement of consumer disputes, the use of complaints and how to complain, or the use of deceptive business practices. What has changed, however, is a significant increase in the risky e-shops that often occur on abandoned cz domains with a good history and are newly used for a purpose other than the original intent. For example, nejfilm.cz, krajzlin.cz or eurorcrally.cz, a domain that was used by the model of radio-controlled models of cars, but it did not pay the domain in time and it came about, today is an offer of shoes from an anonymous seller, the purchase is here however, is very risky, " says CTI Director Mojmír Bezecný.
"At the moment, there is no legal instrument to block high-risk frauds immediately," says Minister of Industry and Trade Tomáš Hüner. "A similar problem with fraudulent sites is solved by practically the whole of Europe, but with the unique idea coming from companies operating in the Czech Republic, which are devoted to the protection of consumers on the Internet and decided to eliminate these risk sites on their own responsibility, inspection. This cooperation of the supervisory body with the leading search engine and antivirus firm is unique worldwide. The goal is common - to protect consumers from internet scams, "the minister added.
CTI carried out a total of 1,085 inspections in Czech e-shops during 2017, and 952 cases were detected in 872% . The aim of the controls was to monitor the development of e-commerce over the internet and eventual elimination of undesirable behavior that has a negative impact on consumers and their confidence in this form of trading.
While in 2015 and 2016 the Czech Trade Inspectorate published 4 risky e-shops annually, in 2017 there were already 131 e-shops , which CTI considers to be risky mainly due to non-compliance with legal obligations and difficult enforcement of consumer rights. These stores often have unknown operators. However, it is not a list of all existing risk sites. We encourage consumers to always make good shopping at an e-shop they do not know. The list of risky e-shops is published here www.coi.cz/rizikove , since February 2018 the most popular search engine in the Czech Republic is used by the List.cz to decrease the position of the affected e-shops in the results of the own search, and the visitors are also warning about web pages marked with Czech Business Inspection as a Risk and Antivirus from ESET.
Source: tz CTI, edited editorially
