NCJ Number
95161
Date Published
1979
Length
15 pages
Annotation
The legal system and existing alternative consumer complaint handling mechanisms, which operate case-by-case, cannot possibly handle the consumer complaints occasioned by the vast network and complexity of goods and services.
Abstract
Citizens may hope for relief from the legal system, but the legal system is seldom responsive to issues that affect the quality of everyday life. In recent years, a range of mechanisms has developed -- consumer departments, advertising review boards, media action lines, and neighborhood legal services -- to handle complaints about products and services. In a 1975 survey of 2,419 respondents in 34 cities, buyers complained to the seller in only 30.7 percent of the cases in which they perceived problems. In only 1.2 percent of the cases did the buyers take their grievances to a third party. Of these complaints, only 56.5 percent were settled to the purchaser's satisfaction. To some extent, the consumer's plight was due to the disintegration of a market system of exchanges between parties having equal power and information. Complaint handlers do not compensate for the inequity of the system; instead, they reinforce those inequities and respond to interests other than those of individual complainants. No matter how alternative complaint mechanisms are strengthened, their case-by-case approach cannot remedy all the harms alleged by consumer and citizen complaints. A total of 111 references are included.