Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 29: Acting on the complaints of consumers lured by misleading advertisements offering sale discounts on the festival seasons, a team of officers of Legal Metrology Department led by Joint Controller Amar Singh & Deputy Controller (Consumer Protection) Manoj Prabhakar conducted inspection of grand showroom of Life Style, Woodland & Family Corner at Wave Mall, Narwal.
According to complaint Vikas Gupta from Rehari, he purchased a shirt with tagged MRP of Rs 1499 with a offer of 30% discount on MRP thereby getting a reduction of Rs 449.70 but he was charged additional Rs 51 on the pretext of VAT.
He asserted that as a aware consumer he knows that MRP is inclusive of all taxes & the offered reduced MRP displayed to him is also having the inbuilt component of VAT so why again additional VAT be charged from him.
On inspection by the team it was found that complaint was genuine as the consumer was deceived by offering 30% reduction in MRP but in fact was given only 26% discount.
The case of overcharging was registered against the management of the company & on the spot directions were issued to give actual discount to the consumers as offered in the advertisements & agreed upon.
The company immediately responded to the directions & in the interest of consumers rectified the online billing thereby paying VAT component themselves instead of taking from consumers’ pocket.
In a similar complaint filed by Sunny Gupta from Gandhi Nagar, the team booked M/s Aero Club, a chain showroom of Woodland under the relevant provisions of law for deceiving consumers by way of overcharging & directions were passed to bill the customer with net discount as offered to him.
According to Manoj Prabhakar, Deputy Controller Consumer Protection, the Department of Legal Metrology is continuously keeping a hawk’s eye to protect the hapless consumers & few months back similar drives were conducted at a large scale to ensure that consumers are not exploited by such misleading advertisements.
At M/s Family Corner the team found that kids wear items & ladies suits were marked with self made stickers of Inflated MRP which is prohibited under the provisions of law as it is the responsibility of manufacturer to adhere to the mandatory declarations like MRP,PKD, Net Weight, address of the manufacturer & consumer help line number for the information of the consumers.
All the deceptive packages of ready made garments were seized & notice issued to the owner to produce the bills so as to ascertain the actual price of the kids wear.
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