Manila, Philippines – With increased online spending during the pandemic also comes a surge of online purchase complaints, and this has been evident in Southeast Asia market The Philippines, with the country’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) revealing that a total of 14,869 complaints have been made against online shops this year, according to a report by Philippine News Agency.
The complaints were made from the period of January to October this year, where according to DTI Undersecretary for Consumer Protection Group Ruth Castelo, nature of the complaints spanned violations of the Price Act, the quality of products, and deceptive, unfair, or unconscionable sales acts or practices.
Being the top e-commerce sites in the country, Shopee and Lazada were reported to account for the majority of complaints with a combined 6,907 number of flags.
Compared to the full year of 2019, complaints against Lazada grew three-fold from 1,014 to 3,475 complaints for the first 10 months of 2020. Meanwhile, those against Shopee increased over five times, from 607 complaints from the end of 2019, to a total of 3,432 complaints this year.
“Ninety percent of the total online complaints from October 2020 are against two of the more familiar platforms,” said Castelo.
She added the remaining complaints last month involved transactions on Facebook and other online platforms.
In early October, news about a scammed student astounded Filipinos, where a 20-year-old received rocks instead of his ordered laptop.
