News

Singapore's new Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act 
Posted on Thursday, November 13, 2003 - 11:22 PM

Parliament has passed the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act to protect consumers from errant retailers.
The Act seeks to protect victims of unfair selling practices by letting them take action against errant businesses. 20 unfair practices by traders are listed, including claiming that goods and services have certain benefits when they in fact don't, saying that products have a certain quality when they don't, exerting undue pressure on a person to buy, making a buyer sign an unfair contract, not keeping promises of free gifts, and using small print to mislead or hide important facts. However, unfair practices have not been made criminal offences, leaving consumers to take civil action on their own.

The Act gives a buyer a cooling-off period of three days to cancel contracts for time-share and direct selling purchases (which are sales made away from a fixed retail location).