Senator the Hon. Jerome Gomez is confident that the Consumer Protection Commission has the staff to handle its huge mandate as the agency tasked by the Government to protect Bahamian consumers from abuse in the marketplace.
During an interview at his office next to the Teachers & Salaried Workers Cooperative Credit Union, East Street South on Tuesday, September 27, Senator Gomez explained that a lot of the Commission’s work consists of meetings and correspondence.
“We write to persons or businesses and state what our investigations might uncover and in a lot of cases we do not have to go out and do our investigations; we would usually call you in.
He added, “The Commission has the ability to have hearings. So if you made a complaint, let us say against a contractor, you hired him to renovate your house and he took your money, and did not finish the work and you lodge a complaint with us, if we can find the contractor, we would invite them to a hearing.”
Senator Gomez said both would be given the chance to present their side of the story and the Commission would then make a decision on the matter.
“Now it could always be appealed. I always tell people that as long as you have the court system, we cannot stop persons from taking the matter to court to appeal it.”
He said so far the kinds of complaints are not very large amounts.
“The largest amount we have had so far is around $2,000 – so they are generally small amounts that are easily solved. We have been able to close a lot of the cases we have gotten simply by calling and persuading the merchants to reconsider their position.”
Chairman of the Consumer Protection Commission, Senator the Hon. Jerome Gomez talks about the role of the Commission. (BIS Photo/Derek Smith)
Senator Gomez said they are trying to deal with stores that are informing consumers that if they return an item, they will not give cash back. Instead they want to give an in-store credit. “We are saying to the store, no, you have to give the consumer the choice.”
He said, “The consumer experience might have been so bad that they wanted to severe their relationship with you. They do not want to come back and look at some other item.”
“They are so angry that they really do not want anything to do with you. So we are saying to the merchant that they have to give persons their cash if they want their cash.”
The Senator said vendors should also not tell the consumer that they have only five days to redeem an item – they should be given a reasonable amount of time, which might be 30 days, 60 days or even a year.
“You already have their cash, why would you lock them into a short space of time to use their in-store credit if they choose that route?”
For information on the services offered by the Consumer Protection Commission the public is invited to check the Commission’s Facebook page; it also publishes a supplement every three months. The current one is for the months of September, October and November 2016.
By Llonella Gilbert
Bahamas Information Services
