Seniors report a wide range of issues to Poland’s consumer protection Authority, including difficult to understand agreements, small font size, pressure from sales representatives, and being offering services they will never use. Today, on European Seniors Day, UOKiK presents some common issues senior consumers face

“The complaints we receive show that seniors are often sold products and services that do not match their needs. An example is the collection of data in the cloud. There are also problems with sales demonstrations. We are conducting a number of investigations into the not always fair sales made to senior citizens”, says UOKiK President Marek Niechciał. Practices connected with the changing of electricity providers and telecom operators are one example of such unfair sales. Specifically, sales representatives sometimes conceal the identity of the enterprise for which they work. Meanwhile, seniors are also not informed that they have the right to opt out of such services.

Older consumers are offered modern equipment including tablets and smartphones or services such as cloud-based data collection that require advanced technical knowledge. Seniors have significant difficulty in handling such products or – as many say – they may not need them at all.

Premium services activated by SMS are another problem. Often consumers are misled into ordering a service they did not intend to order. An example would be seniors receiving information about the need to remove a virus from their phone or send text messages to download a package.

Additional information for the media:

Press Office, UOKiK
Pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warsaw
Phone.: +48 22 827 28 92, +48 22 55 60 314, +48 22 55 60 430
E-mail: biuroprasowe@uokik.gov.pl

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