No compensation if you were unfairly charged exorbitant prices – Abraham

If you have been unfairly charged exorbitant prices from August 1st because of unscrupulous traders then unfortunately you cannot be compensated.

This has been confirmed by Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission CEO Joel Abraham while speaking on fijivillage Straight Talk With Vijay Narayan where he says people cannot be compensated because the FCCC Act for non-price control items is purely dependent on the business.

He says whether to put something on price control is a government policy decision based on the FCCC’s recommendation.

Abraham says there is no law restricting anybody from increasing the prices.

He says if the prices are exorbitant, that would amount to unconscionable conduct which is an indirect breach of the FCCC Act which is a very general provision that says that a person in trade or commerce engaging in a conduct that is unconscionable but the conduct itself is not defined.

He says they have taken it to mean if there is an exorbitant increase, if there is misrepresentation around the price increase, if it is not tax related and the traders have increased it and are telling customers that this is because of change in VAT then they can prosecute.

He says unfortunately they are still bound by the requirements of the law and fortunately for the traders and sometimes unfortunately for the consumers, they still have to follow the process of natural justice.

Abraham says they will have to collect sufficient information to be able prove beyond reasonable doubt in court via criminal proceedings.

The CEO says they will have to collate data and disclose to the business whatever they have found, allow them chance to explain and the law also gives them certain lee-ways to say the increase is reasonable.

He says the law does not say what constitutes a reasonable increase and they have to collect enough information to go to court to prove the increase was unreasonable and that the process takes a lot of time.

When questioned on whether there are loopholes in the law, Abraham agrees that there are a lot of loopholes but the process to review that law has started.

Abraham adds while the law has consumer rights it has consumer responsibilities as well.

You can watch the full Straight Talk interview below: