----------------------------------------------------- Do GOACAN a favour, circulate this email to your family members, relatives, neighbours and friends. Help other CONSUMERS to be better informed. ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- GOACAN observes World Consumer Rights Day --------------------------------------------------- On the occasion of World Consumer Rights Day 15th March, GOACAN organised an Awareness Action on the theme “Our Money, Our Rights” to highlight the global consumer movements fight for fair financial services.
Armed with colourful flags and placards, volunteers from the village based Consumer Forums gathered at the Communidade building Margao and expressed concern about the increasing cases of frauds and scams in Banking, Investments and Financial services in the State of Goa. The consumer forum volunteers highlighted some of the issues faced by the consumers in Goa such as the large amounts of fake currency in circulation, the loss of money on a daily basis in transactions in the market due to the shortage of coins, the increasing number of non-banking finance companies entering Goa without any registration or scrutiny by the concerned authorities and disappearing with hard earned money of the consumers, the increase in cases of economic offences registered before various police stations in Goa and where investigation is pending & charge sheets are yet to be filed. Other issues highlighted were the unfair terms in loan agreements and unethical practices followed wherein consumers have to pay unreasonably high penalty fees for paying-up of loans, non-provision of proper information when soliciting insurance policies especially in the case of equity linked schemes where consumers stand to loose heavily for not understanding the link to the stock market, consumers are unable to fully understand all the terminology, terms and conditions wherein money is tied up for excessively long periods of time into Insurance Policies, growing number of cases of agents promoting schemes that are tailor made to give themselves huge commissions and putting the consumer to a disadvantage. Consumers facing difficulties in obtaining loans and opening zero balance bank accounts even if they are fully eligible for the same, the increased cases of over-charging for services by banks in violation of the relevant code of practice agreed upon with the Reserve Bank of India, cases of collusion of bank officials in opening fake accounts by forging signatures and attaching non-attested photocopied documents, increased cases of fraud committed on consumers at ATMs and through Internet banking due to lack of proper security procedures, harassment of sureties to pay back loans due to collusion by officials and the defaulting customer, were some of the other issues highlighted. GOACAN therefore demands that the: Government should take immediate steps to curb the circulation of fake currency by putting in place necessary infrastructure and implementing a code of conduct for dispensing money out of Banks, Credit Co-operative Societies and ATMs. Government should ensure that availability of adequate quantity of coins and make arrangements for its equitable distribution through designated Bank branches (both nationalised and co-operative) and through Post Offices. Govt. should specify the terms and conditions for Non-Banking Finance Companies to operate in the State of Goa and identify a nodal agency to take action against those dubious companies that may exist or are identified later. Government strengthens the Economic Offences Cell of the Goa Police by setting up an Special Investigating Team (SIT) to fast track the investigation and charge sheeting of the cases The Government notifies a Nodal Agency to handle all consumer grievances related to financial services in the State of Goa. The Govt should ensure that all Registered Banking, Non-banking and Insurance Co.’s undertake an Investor and Consumer Education Drive in all the talukas of Goa so as to provide information about all the regulatory bodies set up by the Govt. of India such as the RBIs Banking Ombudsman Scheme, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Insurance Regulatory Authority etc. The Consumer Forum volunteers resolved to take up these demands in the forthcoming Gram Sabha meeting of the various Village Panchayats in the State. It was also resolved that GOACAN submits a memorandum to the Governor of Goa, the Chief Minister, the Chief Secretary and Leader of the Opposition on these demands in view of the forthcoming budget session of the Goa Legislative Assembly and to the 3 MP’s in view of the ongoing Budget session of Parliament. ---------------------------------------------------------- GOA CIVIC AND CONSUMER ACTION NETWORK ---------------------------------------------------------- promoting civic and consumer rights in Goa ---------------------------------------------------------- GOACAN Post Box 187 Margao, Goa 403 601 GOACAN Post Box 78 Mapusa, Goa 403 507 mail: [email protected] Visit: http://goacan.blogspot.com ----------------------------------------------------------
