RAMADAN is not only a time of fasting. It is also, albeit unintentionally, a time of shopping — the last two weeks in particular. Many stores notch up half their annual turnover in Ramadan. So it is an appropriate time to focus on stores’ ethics and integrity and how they treat their customers.
As we reported yesterday, there is a row brewing over the policy, followed by many stores, of refusing to allow customers to return goods. The law is quite clear. Customers have the right to return any item just purchased and be given their money back in full without having to justify why they changed their mind. The problem is that the law is not being upheld. Most people who have tried to take back faulty or wrong goods know only too well what happens. They are told they cannot; or, in the few places they can, there is a financial penalty or the goods have to be returned within a ridiculously short period of time. Some stores even flaunt their contempt of the law by putting up signs saying that goods cannot be returned.
It is no small issue. Shopkeepers are understandably keen to sell their stock, but it is quite common for some to sell the wrong product to customers because they do not fully know what they are selling or understand what the customer wants. Also, goods often arrive in the Kingdom broken or not working. All that the shopkeeper wants to do is sell it and make his profit.
It is time to straighten matters out. As this paper found when it checked shops in Jeddah’s Tahliah Street, not one of those visited allowed for returns without imposing illegal restrictions — such as replacing the item with another, cheaper one. Only one store would give customers their money back — and then only within a very restricted time limit.
The Ministry of Commerce would have us believe that there is not a problem. It is wrong. There is. It has to stop turning a blind eye to this flouting of the law. It is no good expecting customers to report incidents of storekeepers refusing them their rights. That is sheer laziness. The law is being broken. It is being brought into disrepute. The ministry has a responsibility to act. It would be easy for officials to investigate this and punish wrongdoers. A few well-chosen and well-publicized prosecutions with stiff fines would do wonders. The problem would vanish overnight.
That is not to say that shop owners do not have rights as well. They do. It would be wrong for them to be forced to accept returns weeks or months after purchase unless there were very good reasons. There are no doubt some unscrupulous customers out there too who would think nothing about trying to return goods they had damaged themselves in the hope of getting money to which they are not entitled.
But the big issue is not the tricks that some customers might get up to; it is the blatant breaking of the law by shop owners. The customers’ right to return goods and be refunded in full must be enforced.
