A survey of 30 Internet shopping Web sites and sellers found that none of the platforms or sellers conformed to e-commerce regulations, the Taipei Department of Legal Affairs said yesterday.
A total of 26 sites broke the rules governing the return of defective merchandise, while 18 were found to have information missing from the standard contract for online shopping Web sites provided by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, such as the name of the company, its address and telephone number.
Among the violators were some big names in the local e-commerce industry, including ET Mall (東森購物), which contravened both aforementioned regulations, and PChome Online Inc (網路家庭), whose policies on transactions that involve erroneously priced products violated the standard contract, while seller “althiser8939” on the Web site Ruten.com (露天拍賣) erroneously told a buyer that there was no seven-day refund period for the products they had purchased.
Taipei Department of Legal Affairs Commissioner Yang Fang-ling (楊芳玲), who is also the city’s chief consumer protection officer, said e-commerce has become the second-largest source of disputes handled by Taipei’s consumer protection officers.
Yang said that with the exception of seven categories of products, all items must be refundable within seven days of their purchase with no questions asked.
The seven categories are raw food and vegetables, customized products, newspapers and magazines, computer and video games, international flight tickets, personal sanitation products and online services offered for a limited time — for example online music and movie streaming.
Yang said that many sites tell buyers they have seven days to return defective products, but the Civil Code (民法) dictates a six-month period during which the items can be returned.
She said that sites that fail to update the information in line with the regulations within a set time frame would face a fine of between NT$30,000 and NT$300,000.
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