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On 2nd February, Meglena Kuneva the Bulgarian EU Commissioner for Consumer Protection presented the results of the 2nd Consumer Scoreboard in Brussels. There was little surprise that the buck of the worst performers was passed to electricity and gas suppliers and to the banks.
In general, the Commission concludes from its survey, which it carries out every two years that the dissatisfaction of consumers is particularly high with respect to the service industry. Particularly great contributions to the alienation of customers were made by the energy sector, the bank sector and the transport sector. The survey of the Commission took the five indicators consumer complaints, price level, consumer satisfaction, option of changing suppliers and product safety into account.

Energy: increasing prices, less change in spite of liberalisation
More than two thirds of consumers across Europe are not happy with their energy supplier. In spite of that, switching between various energy providers is still in its infancy. Only 7% of consumers have changed their supplier over the past two years. And this despite repeated attempts - always justified with lower prices, more competition and more choice for the consumers - made by the European Commission to liberalise the energy sector. In reality, about 60 % of end consumers have complained about rising energy prices during the observation period of the Commission study.

Banks towards consumers: Do not disturb!
Another special problem child is the banking sector. Here too, the competition forced by the Commission has not resulted in more bank customer satisfaction. Not really a surprise, if one considers that many banks during the decades of global finance capitalism regarded the simple end customer as a nuisance. Here, the Commission comes to the conclusion, which is no surprise for the learned bank customer that the offers by banks for their customers are very difficult to compare; probably another reason why not even every tenth account holder has changed his bank during the last two years. Not to mention less than clear and often hidden banking charges and strongly fluctuating interest rates. Swedish bank customers, for example, pay about 0.2 % interest for a loan with a term of between 1 and 5 years whilst the Estonian customer has to shell out cool 12.12 %.

Austria: two thirds of customers satisfied with consumer protection
When it comes to determining customer satisfaction in accordance with member states, Austria has every reason to be pleased with the outcome. Here, Austria, together with Germany and Belgium, ranks in 6th position Europe-wide. 61 % of all consumers questioned, regard themselves as adequately protected by the existing consumer protection measures.

More detailed surveys for electricity and retail sector 2009
The Commission announced that in 2009 it would conduct more detailed surveys about the electricity end consumer market and the retail sector.


For further information:

Communication from the European Commission Second edition of the Consumer Markets Scoreboard

Commission Staff Working Document

Press release of the European Commission