BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - Questions remain over how many consumers within St. Kitts and Nevis know of their rights to redress when they would have bought a faulty commodity or overcharged for an item.
These questions come in the wake of an article published by NBC4 Washington on March 15, headlined “Maryland Woman Overcharged $2,750 for Ring Purchased Overseas”.
In that article, the media house states that a Maryland woman had bought a diamond ring while on vacation in the Caribbean, but on her returned home she discovered that she was overcharged almost $3,000.
The woman, Lois Toliver, explained to the media house that while in St. Kitts she had purchased a gold ring from “Diamond International” to the tune of $4,375.
Toliver further reportedly said that while she was about to purchase a particular ring, she was approached by another salesperson who had shown her another ring which was described as white gold and was being sold at the same price as the first one.
It is was also reported that she provided a receipt of the purchase to the media house to support her claim of being overcharged, and noted that upon her return home after the cruise she recognised the additional charges on her credit card.
Contacted today (Mar. 20) for a comment, Director of Consumer Affairs Paul Queeley told SKNVibes that his Department has not received any correspondence on the alleged incident.
Queeley indicated that persons living in the Federation and those visiting could have redress in the areas of overcharges and faulty goods. He also stated that oftentimes persons are reimbursed whenever they were overcharged or had p0urchased faulty goods.
“If it is a tourist coming off of the cruise ship, they would have to contact us via email and let us know what issue they would have had with the store that they purchase the item from. We would then investigate the claim to see whether there is any merit to it. Then if the store owner is indeed in breach of the provision in the Consumer Affairs Act, we would follow up with the complainant and the store owners to try and get the situation resolved,” Queeley explained.
He disclosed that on an annual basis his Department would have received approximately 10 complaints against storeowners who were found to be unscrupulous in their dealings with consumers.
“We have had cases before where we would have contacted or interfaced with the complainant by email and we had the matter resolved, and then the money returned to their credit cards.”
Additionally, Queeley declared that they rarely get complaints from local consumers about overcharges, but they usually get reports from them on items acquired on a hire-purchase basis.
NBC4 Washington also reported that contact was made with the Vice President of Marketing at Diamond International, who in turn had contacted Toliver and agreed to refund her if she returns the ring.
“We hope our approach to handling her claim provided Mrs. Toliver with the confidence to know that we respect her as a valued customer," NBC quoted a spokesperson for the company as saying.
