Consumers are becoming 'more abusive, violent'

There exists a "new class of consumer" who is abusive, arrogant and at times violent, according to the Malta Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises (GRTU).

"We receive daily reports of verbal abuse, where consumers think they can abuse of their rights and take the law into their own hands, verbally abusing the cashier, for example, who wouldn't even have a say in the running of the business," GRTU chairman Vince Farrugia said yesterday.

Mr Farrugia said that while in Malta this trend was not yet widespread, it was a growing concern across Europe, and Eurocommerce, an organisation of which the GRTU forms part, is organising itself against it.

"We've even had reports of shop staff being physically attacked and ending up in hospital," the GRTU president said, commenting just hours before he was coincidentally beaten up inside the chambers' offices in Valletta in an unrelated incident.

GRTU vice-president Marcel Mizzi said things had come to the point where people were increasingly reluctant to take on sales jobs because of these occurrences: "Whereas before the inconveniences associated with working in a shop were that people had to work till late and on weekends, now there is also this phenomenon," Mr Mizzi said.

The GRTU also criticised the bias in the media which was causing a certain fear in consumers that retailers were out to get them.

"This has come to the point that with the least of problems, customers will come shouting and causing a scene in a situation where a simple warranty claim would suffice," Mr Mizzi said, adding that nine times out of 10 this was the case.

"We fully agree with consumers being protected but retailers need protection as well," the GRTU vice-president said.

In a meeting held on Wednesday with Parliamentary Secretary for Public Consultation Chris Said at the GRTU headquarters in Valletta, GRTU president Paul Abela expressed concern with regard to the Consumer Protection Agency, which was proposed in the Nationalist Party's electoral manifesto and which surfaced in the 2010 Budget.

Mr Abela questioned the need for such an agency when consumers were already being abusive, and expressed consternation about the fact that the chamber was not consulted.

In his reply, Dr Said reassured the chamber that the agency would not be adding a burden on retailers, and that a public consultation document on the matter would be issued in the coming weeks.

dschembri@timesofmalta.com