​The Black Friday sale campaign has been in full swing for some time now, as although the official date for the heavily discounted sales has been announced as November 11, 2022, some retailers have already started their promotions as early as the last Friday of October. But, as always at the shopping event of the year, whimsical surprises did not make themselves wait.

What to do, old friends, in new times, because there will be inflation, but the “reduction” has gone far beyond common sense.

For example, a consumer told me today that he bought an OLED TV for 2,500 lei from a large online store less than a month ago, and today, Black Friday, he received a notification in the seller’s online application accordingly, informing him that the he could buy the TV itself “with a discount”, at an unmissable price of 4,900 lei. He also noticed that the price of the laptop is about 1,000 lei higher now “on sale” than it was listed a week ago at the same store.

However, starting this year, there is something new and useful for consumers: the shopping marathon of 2022 has not only come with new offers for low-cost or “bargain” shoppers, but also with rules that provide greater protection for their rights.

One of the new provisions on the protection of consumer rights was introduced by transposition of Government Resolution No. 686 of May 25, 2022 of Directive (EU) 2.161/2019 in our legislation, which imposes new obligations on traders. According to Article 1 of the Decision, Sellers are required to display in the discount announcement the previous price that was applied before the price reductionnamely the lowest one practiced in the last 30 days before the date of application of the announced price reduction: “The previous price is the lowest price practiced by the seller in the same sales area during the period of the last 30 days before the date of application of the price discount.”

Therefore, consumers should make sure that these are real discounts, but they apply to one outlet and not to different stores of the same seller. The absence of this information about the lowest price in the last few days may raise the suspicion that this promotion is not really the best offer for the consumer, so it should be presented unambiguously.

Traders can be fined from 5,000 to 30,000 lei. Previous amounts of fines were much lower

The necessary clarification is contained in paragraph 2 of article 1 of HG 686 of May 25, 2022: for goods that can be quickly damaged or destroyed, the previous price is the lowest price charged by the seller in the same trading area during the last 10 days. until the date of application of the price reduction.

In case of non-compliance with the provisions of HG 686/2019, traders may be fined from 5,000 to 30,000 lei. Previous amounts of fines were much lower. Violations are determined and sanctions are applied by authorized representatives of the National Consumer Protection Authority, and consumers can also report these violations online, on the authority’s website at https://sesizari1.anpc.ro/, by providing evidence such as: photos store prices for different dates, offers in physical and/or online flyers or catalogs, e-mails with offers or website screenshots for different dates.

Other provisions in support of consumer protection from Directive (EU) 2.161/2019 on the better application and modernization of Union rules on consumer protection have been introduced into Romanian law and through GEO 58/2022 published in the Official Gazette no. 456 dated 05/06/2022 and entered into force on 05/28/2022.

Sometimes we don’t think that the order in which the offers are displayed can be affected by … some payments made by merchants who want to be at the top of the list.

When shopping online, most of us only look at the first search results and don’t think that the order in which the offers are displayed can be affected by … some payments made by sellers who want to be at the top of the list.

Although it is permissible to include advertising or certain ranking of offers displayed by online shopping or price comparison sites as a result of payments received from sellers, search engine providers are required to clearly inform consumers when search results contain products or sellers that who have paid to be included in the search results (advertising) or when the ranking is affected by direct or indirect payments.

The measure in question was taken, among other things, because the way the results are arranged on the page can affect the consumer’s ability to choose, believing that the search results may match the best offer for him.

In addition, an important provision of the Omnibus Directive (EU) 2.161/2019 concerns informing consumers about the tools used by e-commerce sellers to analyze the profile of consumers active in online markets. In particular, it refers to those algorithms used by technologies that collect and analyze data on the characteristics of a certain consumer, on the criteria he uses in his search, such as, for example, the limits of the price he is willing to pay for a product or service. Using this information forces merchants to offer different prices to each individual consumer for the same product or service, based on what algorithms predict the consumer will be willing to pay.

If price personalization methods are used, the professionals concerned must clearly and comprehensibly inform consumers

According to the guidelines for the interpretation and application of the Consumer Rights Directive, if such methods are used to personalize prices, the professionals concerned must clearly and comprehensibly inform consumers so that they can take into account the potential risks when making a purchase decision. Furthermore, “providing information about the automated decision-making process in the trader’s privacy policy will not be sufficient to comply with the pre-contractual information requirements for price personalization under the Consumer Rights Directive. Information about price personalization should be provided before each transaction, and not just as part of general information about the merchant’s processing of personal data.”

Another news introduced by Directive (EU) 2.161/2019 and transposed in Romania by GEO 58/2022 concerns the reviews present on trade websites and in traders’ communications with consumers. This is important because they influence the decision of other buyers to choose the product or not. Sellers must treat positive and negative feedback equally and be transparent about how that feedback is handled, where it comes from, and how it is collected and posted on the website or online platform. These reviews must be from real customers who have purchased or tested the product in question. If the authenticity of the reviews has not been verified, this should be clearly stated, and it should also be stated that these posts are not necessarily reviews of consumers who have used or purchased the relevant products.

It should be noted that many of the new regulations have been driven by the development of online commerce and bring much-needed updates to how merchants and consumers operate in this environment, but there are many aspects that cover both online and in-store commerce. .

Thus, GEO 58/2022 includes in the list of misleading commercial practices the representation or the assignment of another legal or natural person to submit false reviews or recommendations as coming from some consumers, or misleadingly presenting the reviews or recommendations of some consumers in social networks. communication platforms to promote certain products.

Very important for consumers are the following rules introduced by the same GEO 58/2022 and concerning compensation measures for victims of unfair practices:

(1) Consumers who have suffered from an unfair commercial practice have the right to free measures to eliminate all the consequences of the said unfair practice, namely:

a) replacement, price reduction or termination of the contract and reimbursement of the cost of the product or service, as the case may be;

b) compensation for damage caused to the consumer;

c) if defects are discovered within the first 30 days after the purchase of the product or service, their replacement is ordered directly.

In case of detection of violations, the consumer must first contact the seller to solve problems arising in connection with the purchased goods or services. Therefore, to allow the consumer to contact the professional quickly and to communicate effectively with him, GEO 58/2022 introduces transparency requirements.

Therefore, the consumer must display information about the professional’s principal office, as well as his telephone number and email address and, if applicable, the mailing address and identity of the professional on whose behalf he is acting. In addition, if the professional offers other means of online communication, he must ensure that the consumer retains on a durable medium any written correspondence with the professional, including the date and time of such correspondence. Of course, other means of legal protection are available to the consumer, which include complaints to consumer protection bodies, reports to the police in case of more serious actions by traders, and even lawsuits.

However, I hope that as consumer protection legislation improves and consumers and traders become better informed about their rights and responsibilities, Black Friday surprises will be pleasant surprises and nothing more.

Photo: Dreamstime

N. Ed: Kalu Monika is a lawyer specializing in consumer law with more than ten years of experience in this field. She specializes in protecting the rights of consumers of financial services, and her field of competence includes banking contracts, insurance contracts, regulation of the rights of consumers of financial services in national legislation and legislation of the European Union. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in economics. She is the founder and president of the United Consumers Association and a member of the Banking Stakeholder Group (BSG) of the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the Insurance and Reinsurance Stakeholder Group (IRSG) of the European Occupational Insurance and Pensions Authority (EIOPA). ), representing consumers. He is an independent member of the international public organization Finance Watch.