Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) received a record 13,000 consumer complaints about unfair business practices last year – twice the number as in previous years.
The complaints mainly concerned accusations of misleading advertisement, false information, and contracts that violated the interests of customers.
According to UOKiK, as many as 1,450 of the complaints were directly linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. These concerned cancelled travel arrangements, suspended functioning of institutions – including nurseries, schools, gyms – as well as cancelled events.
As the number of people using remote services spiked during the lockdowns, more consumers have complained about trouble accessing the internet or VOD (video on demand) systems.
More complaints have also been filed in relation to e-commerce – which has grown as shops closed during the pandemic – as well as home refurbishments. Experts have noted that spending more time at home has “mobilised Poles to renovate them”.
The competition authority also levied a record amount in fines last year, reaching a total value of over 30 billion zloty (€6.6 billion). The previous year’s total stood at 425 million zloty (€94 million), according to data presented by Tomasz Chróstny, head of UOKiK.
This increase mainly came as a result of the office’s largest ever fine of 29 billion zloty (€6.4 billion) issued to Gazprom last October for work on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline without Warsaw’s approval. Even without this value, however, the levied fines were three times higher than in 2019.
Some of the largest categories of penalties included those for practices deemed to violate the collective interest of consumers, which came to a total of 315 million zloty (€70 million), marking a 66% increase compared with 2019.
Moreover, fines for the use of illegal contract templates reached 129 million zloty (€29 million), increasing by 162% from the previous year.
Main image credit: Anna Shvets/Pexels
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
