Around 60 Montenegrin citizens asked for free legal aid in the field of protection of consumers’ rights, and complaints mostly referred to the price of the electricity bill, said executive director of Centre for Monitoring and Research, Nikoleta Tomovic.
She presented a web and mobile application for protection of consumers’ rights, that was created within the project “Improving capacities of CSOs and the system of consumer protection in Montenegro PROTECT.ME”, funded by the European Union represented by Delegation of the European Union to Montenegro.
Tomovic explained that CEMI developed the first mobile application for the protection of consumers’ rights within the project, which will allow citizens to report specific cases of violation of their rights as consumers.
“To this date, we have had a web version of this application, it is citizens were able to report the violation of their rights as consumers on the internet. From today, they will be able to install an application for registration of such cases on their smart phones”, said Tomovic.
She explained that CEMI, within the same project, provides free legal aid for the protection of consumers’ rights.
When asked how many reports CEMI received and what did citizens complain to, Tomovic said that the most common complaints refer to the use of public services, such as electricity. “The complaints are related to the amount of the electricity bill or the quality of services.”
“We have over 60 examples of the use of free legal aid, which is very good. On the other hand, we have dozens of cases of usage of the application. I believe that just the Android version, which will start working today, will somehow multiply these cases and that the real need for this kind of application and general project will actually be seen”, said Tomovic.
Asked to give an example of mislead advertising, Tomovic said that advertisement for products for weight loss or for healing such as teas is often.
Speaking about the process of how CEMI processes complaints of citizens, Tomovic said that citizens, if they have a specific case which they submit to the mobile application for the protection of consumers’ rights, the administrator approves the complaint and, accordingly, sends it to the competent institution.
“Most often, for example it is, Administration for Inspection Affairs. They tell us the answers to the specific case of violation of the Law. The response is later published within the application. Therefore, a citizen who reported a case, and all other citizens, will be able to see what happened in this particular case”, said Tomovic.
Tomovic said that the application for protection of consumers’ rights is available on the website www.potrosaci.me and on the Google Play store.