CONSUMING INTERES
Warts and all
LESLIE ADRIAN
When a firm advertises a two-hour d cleaning service, is it reasonable to expe your skirt or trousers back within that exa time? According to one bench of magistrat in the west country, the answer is yes. 0 three different days this summer three diffe ent agent provocateurs from the 1s weights and measures department presente themselves at an optimistic shop with a soil garment. One of them got his back in t% and a quarter hours, a second in two hou and twenty-five minutes, while a third corded three and a half hours on his st, watch. In September a prosecution brought under the Trade Descriptions A and on each of the three charges of reckles- making false statements a £5 fine was posed; thus invalidating E. V. Lucas's tic; that people who are late are much jol than people who have to wait for then) The Act, whose purpose was to reduce volume and variety of traders' lies, will ha been in operation for twelve months th weekend. An assessment by the Retail Tra ing-Standards Association, which has a to and honourable record in the business of I detection and deterrence, suggests that it rna in its initial stages have provoked an .ov g of muscles'. But I doubt whether this really be borne out by the figures, in- plete as they still are. The number of plaints under the Act will probably prove have been in the region of 30,000 in this year; and at the end of nine months 295 had been brought to court and intention prosecute had been notified in another Fines have averaged about £60, and no has yet done a stretch. All this scarcely itutes a reign of terror.
But the RTSA is surely right to urge the for a consultative committee ..nder the s of the Board of Trade, which would dvise the far-flung and semi-autonomous ;this and measures authorities about the rade Descriptions Act and coordinate their k much more closely'. The annual reports these multifarious local officials provide is year an unusual quantity of light enter- ment—ranging from eggs imported from ralia, which were marked 'fresh arrival', ladies' tights described as 'slightly imper- ', which were found to have the two feet an angle of 180 degrees to each other. at they also provide is evidence of a dis- ting discrepancy in practice between orities—ranging from those who never r to have considered anything sterner n a verbal warning to those who have sted the ratepayers' money on prosecu- ns which were predictably ill-starred.
Unhappily, the Board of Trade has shown acteristic reluctance to use either its pervisory or its order-making powers under e Act. One outspoken chief inspector of ichts and measures complains that. on the hand, the Board 'appears to be resisting sure' to make definition and marking ders in expectation that the courts will in course define doubtful expressions used describe goods, while on the other hand ny local authorities shrink from shoulder- the financial burden involved in making se history. Meanwhile, a colourful fringe (mail order boys are able with impunity to II their watches 'electronically timed' and it materials 'stain resistant'. 'It would per- ps be taking too optimistic a view', says other chief inspector, with his Welsh gue in his cheek, `to expect trading ganisations and those representing con- mers' interests to be always in agreement.' in what, he asks innocently, constitutes a epair' or an 'overhaul'?
Moreover, enforcement of the Act's pro- tons in relation to prices is even more ult than it is over descriptions of goods services. It is true that one area gas rd has already got copped for faultily ording its discount offers. But, as the Con- mer Council pointed out in a recent survey,
i ere is nothing to stop a trader driving a ch and horses through the stipulation that nods offered at a reduced price must have n available for twenty-eight consecutive In the preceding six months at the Igher price shown on the ticket. For this pulation does not prevent a trader from ving the goods available for twenty-eight s without actually displaying them. Nor it prevent a multiple store from selling ds at a high price in one of its branches nd then offering them on a dual-pricing sis at all of its branches.
The Consumer Council may be justified claiming that the Act, 'warts and all'. is in eral working well and that continuing blicity will help conumers to make in- reasingly good use of it. But for .anyone to 11,n, at this stage of the game, 'the shop- charter' must be regarded as a mislead- g trade description in itself.
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