Significant Increase in the Number of Unhappy Laptop Users
The Office of Fair Trading has a customer support service called Consumer Direct. Its primary function is to assist people in resolving disputes that arise from purchasing goods and services from vendors. It helps customers by providing them with information and educating them about their rights.
Consumer Direct conducts annual surveys to determine the quality of services and products that are available in the market. It also responds to complaints that it receives to consumers via email or over the phone and provides customers with advice.
Last year Consumer Direct responded to over one and a half million calls that it had received. This figure might seem large, but it was 4% lower when compared to the number of complaints it had received in 2008. At the end of the year, Consumer Direct collates all the data that it has acquired and releases a list of the top ten products and services that have been most complained about. This list helps customers make a more educated decision before making a new purchase and also gives customers an unbiased report of products and services that have generated the highest number of complaints.
Number one in the 2009 list was used cars purchased from dealers. A close second was consumer electronics with televisions highlighted as the most troublesome commodity in this sector. Mobile phone services took third place; however, the number of complaints regarding mobile phone services had significantly dropped by 29%. This change could be attributed to Ofcom which has asked for transparency in advertising, pricing and tariffs from mobile service operators, which is forcing them to clean up their act.
The biggest surprise and cause of concern was when laptops took the fourth position in this list. There was a huge increase in the number of complaints for this category. In 2008, Consumer Direct had received 12,395complaints and in 2009 they addressed 17,611 complaints, a 42%rise in the amount of complaints.
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