Rules to Protect Phone UsersChina's embarrassment that the legal rights of its millions of mobile phone users - the biggest such consumer group in the world - are poorly protected will soon cease, as the government launches a series of protection rules.The new rules, safeguarding customers' rights in repairing and returning mobile phones of poor quality, will be valid from November 15. Jointly issued by the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), the State General Administration for Quality Supervision and Inspection, and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the rules will become a legal umbrella for the country's mobile phone users, whose numbers are expected to reach 300 million by 2005, said Ma Min, an official with the MII, who is in charge of quality supervision. Customers have rights to return their mobile phones that have quality problems within seven days after purchase, can exchange them for new ones within two weeks and have them repaired within one year, according to the rules. Retailers must carry out the duties to repair, exchange or refund low-quality mobile phones they sold. They must also obey the quality descriptions that appear in their advertisements. If they violate the rules or do not carry out the obligations they guarantee, customers can complain to any of the three mentioned government establishments and the China Consumers' Association, or even bring the related companies to court, said the MII official. China's mobile phone users are growing at a rate of 5 million per month in recent years. The numbers surpassed that of the United States in July to be the world's top mobile telecom market with 120.6 million users. Yet the high-speed development also nurtured a low level of service and dishonest behaviour, Ma said. Many vendors are earning high profits by cheating customers. Vendors always refuse to exchange, refund or repair mobile phones within the quality guarantee period. Some batteries, which are labelled as "imported," are actually manufactured by small factories that have no qualification to produce such things. Some mobile phone retailing stores sell pirated products, which have no quality guarantee and damage the tariff income of the government. The majority of customers think mobile phones are a very high-tech product, and "professional stores" are very reliable. This has given stores power to abuse customers' trust, charging hundreds of yuan for what is, in fact, a very cheap set. One good example is the anti-radiation pads that stick on to mobile phones. They cost 0.5 yuan (6 US cents) but are sometimes sold at 100 yuan (US$12). Complaints about mobile phones and related products account for 8 per cent of all the complaints received by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said Huang Jianhua, an official with the administration, who said the rate is a high percentage among all consumer products. After the launch of the new rules, the vendors or retailers that violate them will be warned, fined or their licence cancelled, said the official. The rules aim to help guarantee a healthy marketplace and upgrade the quality of products, he said. |
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