Kazi Zahidul Hasan :Some online sellers are allegedly cheating buyers by supplying substandard products as there is no regulation for internet shopping, sources said.They said, in fact, online sellers are conducting this trade via Facebook just using a major platform where all the offers to sale products and goods remained missing. This is paving the way to cheat the buyers.”Being watched a picture uploaded at a Facebook page by online shop ‘Sigma’, I ordered for a branded watch. When the online seller came to deliver it to me I saw the watch was a counterfeit one and did not match with the picture,” Al Mahmud, a resident of city’s Uttara, told The New Nation (NN) on Monday.He added: Seeing this I disagreed to take delivery of the product. Later, the seller asked compensation from me raising various issues. When I threatened him to file a cheating case, he finally became cool and left from my residence seeking apology. Sharing a similar experience to this correspondent, Tazrin Mosarraf Orin, a student of ULAB, a private university, said that she ordered for an imitation ornament from ‘Rhyss’ online shop making Tk 1000 advance payment.Prior to delivery of the ornament, the seller provided the guarantee that the colour of it would remain as it is at least for six months. But surprisingly, it’s colour went out on the very first day when I caught in the rain while returning to my residence from the campus.”Later, I asked the online shop to take return the ornament but it denied doing so,” she added. “Selling products and goods through online is mushrooming in the capital as a consequence of booming e-commerce. But most of the online shops are not trustworthy,” Ghulam Rahman, Chairman, Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh (CAB) told The NN on Monday.He added: Buyers are reportedly being cheated from the online shops as they are supplying inferior quality of products. Even the buyers are receiving something worth less than they expect from such shops as offered by them.Ghulam Rahman, a former Chairman of Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), called upon the government to bring the online shopping under a regulatory framework to protect interest of the consumers.”The government must frame laws for the online shopping to monitor and control the activities of the online sellers,” he added. The CAB Chairman also said that the online shops must have registration from the concerned government agencies prior to run their business.”The people, who are being cheated by such online shops, they can lodge complaint to the National Consumer Rights Protection Department (DNCRP) for remediation,” he suggested. When contacted, Hedayetullah Al Mamoon, Senior Secretary for the Ministry of Commerce told this correspondent that the issue has already come to our notice and the ministry is working on it. He, however, said that if one is being cheated from an online shop, he or she can lodge a police case.Replying to a question, Hedayetullah Al Mamoon said that the online shops have recently developed in the country as part the concept of e-commerce. As it is still remaining at the initial stage, we are yet to develop rules and regulation for it. “If the incidence of cheating takes place rapidly, we will set regulation for it”, he added.The Senior Secretary stressed the need for consumers’ awareness for preventing them from any kinds of malpractice by the online shops.
