Raising grievances about defective products and services

You should raise your grievance with the seller who, depending on your request, can either replace the product, remove the defect on the product or reduce the product price; that is; if all legal requirements have been met, give you a refund

In case of a defect of any kind on the product, there is liability for material defects

Filing a written complaint

Traders are obliged to enable you to file written complaints about defective products on their premises or via post, fax machine or email.
You can download the written complaint form on the consumer protection website of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development

Consumer protection

Traders have to respond to consumers’ complaints no later than 15 days from the receipt of their complaints. Should the trader fail to respond to you or you believe that your rights were infringed after you receive a response, you can seek protection of your rights from the State Inspectorate. When filing a report to it, you need to enclose proof of the trader receiving your complaint with the report.

Time limit to notify the trader

If you notice a failure of or defect on the product, you need to notify the trader of this within two months from the date of noticing this defect to exercise your right to hold the trader liable for material defects. 

The trader will assume liability for material defects which occur within two years from the product handover.

In case of sales of used products, it can be agreed that the trader will only be liable for material defects on such products for a period of one year instead of two.

Product repair, replacement or price reduction

When a product you have purchased has a defect and you have notified the trader of this on time, you can, depending on your preference, ask that the product is repaired, replaced or that the price is reduced. If you have requested product repair or replacement, but this is not possible or not made possible within a reasonable time limit, you can request a price reduction or a refund (contract termination).

Refund (contract termination)

In order to have a right to contract termination and to receive a refund of the amount paid, you first need to give the trader an appropriate time limit to perform the contract—a time limit for delivery of a product without defects or for product repair. You can terminate the contract without giving the trader an appropriate extended time limit to perform the contract only in exceptional cases, if:

• The trader has notified you that they will not perform the contract after your notification on the defects, or
• It clearly arises from the circumstances of the case at hand that the trader will not be able to perform the contract even within the extended time limit, or
• You are not able to achieve the purpose for which you concluded the contract due to the trader’s delay.

Only after the expiry of an appropriate time limit for contract performance, if the trader does not deliver a defect-free or repaired product, can you terminate the contract and request a refund of the amount paid, giving an appropriate time limit to the trader to comply with your request. 

You should submit the request for a refund together with a refund time limit to the trader in writing, so that you can invoke your letter in any potential subsequent proceedings should the trader reject your reasonable request. 

Although the law does not stipulate that the invoice has to be enclosed together with the grievance, to make sure that you can exercise your consumer rights, it is recommended that you present the invoice when raising your grievance because this will prove that you purchased the service or product from that particular trader and will also prove that you raised the grievance within the prescribed time limit.

Proving defects

If a product is established to be defective within six months from the acquisition of the purchased product, it is considered that the product was defective when it was purchased. In other words, traders claiming otherwise will have to prove this and also bear the costs of experts. 

If more than six months pass since the acquisition of the product and the trader refuses to admit that the product is defective, this will be proven by means of expert evaluation to be paid by the trader or the consumer, depending on the results of the evaluation.

Information and requests 

You can obtain general information on consumer rights by calling the toll-free telephone number 0800/414-414. Enquiries can be made on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 10 AM and 2 PM.

You can also obtain information about consumer rights or submit requests for inspection online, via the

 Central Information System for Consumer Protection application.

Once you have filled in and submitted a simple form, the system will automatically forward your case to the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development or the State Inspectorate, and will send you a PIN with which you will be able to monitor the status of the case.