Cost of consumer detriment is £30 billion a year
Citizens Advice has recently published a consumer report entitled ‘Consumer Detriment – counting the cost of consumer problems’.
In summary, the researchers found that consumer problems cost UK consumers £22.9 billion in 2015 – on average £446 per UK adult. Consumers experienced 123 million problems and wasted 1.2 billion hours resolving these problems.
More than half of consumers did not seek a refund or compensation for their problem, often because they felt complaining would be too difficult or time consuming.
The goods and services costing consumers the most were television, phone and internet services, followed by professional services, construction, home maintenance, property services, and pension and investment services.