Car sales top list of complaints
Complaints about new and used car sales, home-improvement companies and auto repairs topped the list of grievances filed with consumer-protection agencies last year, an annual survey showed.
New and used car sales were among the top 10 complaints at 70 percent of consumer-protection agencies surveyed, followed by home- improvement work, cited by 67 percent, and car repairs at 63 percent, according to the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators and the Consumer Federation of America. Online shopping entered the top 10 for the first time.
Car sales have ranked among the survey’s top five complaints for five years as consumers object to things such as misleading advertising, extended service contracts and warranty issues, the administrators group said in the report, which was released at a Washington, D.C., press conference. New-car sales rose to a record 18.3 million in 2002 as carmakers cut prices to spur demand.
“Obviously a lot of cars are being sold,” said Elizabeth Owen, executive director of the administrators association. “The quality and dependability has improved over the years, but sales tactics, particularly with used cars, are a source of complaints.”
Complaints about auto sales also topped the annual list in 2000 and 1998. Home-improvement complaints were second last year and first in 2001 and 1999.
Complaints about cell phones were among the fastest-growing areas of consumer angst.
Internet and e-commerce complaints jumped in 2002 as consumers bemoaned products they bought that didn’t match descriptions or never arrived, the survey showed. Internet service not including online shopping was among the top 10 areas of complaints in 2000.
The association and the federation surveyed 43 local, state and federal consumer-protection agencies, which reported 309,227 consumer complaints in 2002, an increase of 23 percent from the year before. The number of complaints had risen the same percentage the previous year.
Online auctions have proven particularly troublesome for some consumer-protection groups, the surveying groups said. The Office of Consumer Affairs of Howard County, Maryland, is proposing to require some online auctioneers to register as businesses.