The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection announced on Monday that it had initiated proceedings against the OLX Group. The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection emphasizes that eliminating irregularities is extremely important because the website is visited by up to several million users a month. Meanwhile, according to research, as many as 86 percent consumers take into account opinions about the seller when shopping.
The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection will investigate the OLX case. Non-transparent feedback system
The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection emphasizes that the initiation of proceedings is the result of reports from consumers regarding irregularities. According to the office, the method of authorizing users to post their opinions raises doubts. The website claims that these are reviews from “buyers”, while in fact, opinions can be published both by people who actually purchased the goods from a given seller, and by users who only contacted the seller. The latter’s reviews are then displayed as “buyer” ratings.
It should not happen that the evaluation description mentions “buyers”, and in fact none of the opinions issued to the seller need to come from the person making the purchase
– commented the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, Tomasz Chróstny, in the office’s announcement.
Moreover, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection has doubts about the grading scale used. The buyer can rate the transaction by marking their experience as “Bad”, “Good” or “Excellent”. The website then performs “a series of calculations”, subordinating the ratings to specific categories, and the final ratings displayed to Internet users are divided into not three, but four options – “I do not recommend”, “Not bad”, “Good”, “Excellent”. According to the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, the opinions presented on the website are not identical to those provided by buyers.
To assign the ratings received by the seller to a specific category, olx.pl makes a number of calculations that are not communicated to users. As a result, the ratings displayed under sellers’ advertisements may suggest a higher value than actually assigned by “buyers” in their opinions.
– explains the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection.
The Office also notes that users do not have access to the partial scores that make up the final opinion. The seller has this option. As the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection writes, such practices “could mislead consumers and disturb the transparency of the purchasing process.” If the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection’s allegations are confirmed, the OLX Group will face a fine of up to 10%. annual turnover.
Source: Gazeta
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