Taipei City Councilor Wang Hao (
To draw public attention to the problem Wang held a press conference yesterday, at which a case -- involving a Taipei man surnamed Lee and his girlfriend, surnamed Liang -- was discussed.
The couple said they received a phone call on Oct. 6 from Holiday Marketing International (
"They told us that we'd won two free tickets to Singapore but had to pick up the prize in person the next day," Lee said.
He said the company had told them it had acquired their contact numbers via a street poll they had participated in months earlier.
When they went to the com-pany to pick up their prize, Lee said, they were persuaded to enroll in a 47-year overseas holiday membership program costing a total of NT$168,000.
"We hesitated and told them that we needed more time to think about it, but they kept on pushing us in a harangue that lasted six or seven hours," Lee said.
Eventually the couple was so physically and mentally exhausted that they gave in and signed the contract, Lee said.
The couple were charged a credit-card down payment of NT$49,200, he said.
"But we changed our mind as soon as we left," he said, adding, "We tried to contact the person dealing with us the next day but to no avail," Lee said.
The salesperson did not return their call until two days later, he said.
"She told me that I needed to pay a cancelation fee of NT$25,000 and that the entire process might take at least three months to deal with," Lee said.
After consulting with a friend, who is a legal adviser, they filed a legal notice requesting the company return the NT$49,200 down payment and cancel the contract without charging any extra money, Lee said, but they did not receive a reply.
A Taipei woman surnamed Hsu detailed a similar experience she had with another company in a videotape shown at yesterday's press conference.
Hsu was asked to sign up for a 35-year, NT$250,000 membership package and put down a NT$90,000 payment on the spot.
Councilor Wang said these cases represented just the tip of the iceberg.
"I've received similar complaints filed by at least five city residents over the past three months," he said.
To tackle the issue, Wang requested that the city government recruited more consumer ombudsmen to investigate such cases, noting that Taipei has only one consumer ombudsman, while Taipei County has three.
Joann Su (蘇錦霞), secretary-general of the Consumers' Foundation (消費者文教基金會), said that consumers did not need to pay any cancelation fee if they found products or services unsatisfactory.
"The Consumer Protection Law
"The process should not take as long as three months, either," she said.
Since 1996, the foundation has received "an average of a dozen such complaints a month," Su said.
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