Live in the UK and have bought goods in the EU

If you live in the UK and have brought goods from a trader based in a different Country within Europe, including Iceland and Norway, and have a problem please follow the following advice in order to try and resolve your complaint.

Contact

The first step we would advise is to make contact with the trader and talk to them. There are times where a trader may not be aware of the problem and an initial contact is all that is needed in order to sort everything out. You may find the Consumer Complaint Form provided by the European Commission useful in laying out your complaint and providing the trader with all the relevant information.

Letter of complaint

If, however, the trader does not respond to you or their response is not what you where looking for we would advise sending a letter, preferably with proof of delivery. It would be advisable to keep a copy of this letter for your records. The letter should be done in a clear, polite and positive manner. Please view our letter of complaint page to be provided with further assistance in writing a letter.

Contacting us

If the trader still refuses to respond to your letters or still not providing you with what you are entitled too please contact us at the UK European Consumer Centre. We may be able to help, although we have no powers to compel the trader to accept our views.

Alternative dispute resolution

Once we receive your case, we will share it with our colleges where the trader is based. Every attempt will be made to contact the trader in order to highlight the problem and ask for a satisfactory conclusion. However, if the trader does not respond to us we will consider passing your case on to an alternative dispute resolution scheme (ADR).

ADR is a cost effective way to resolve your dispute and is an easier alternative than going to court. If there is an ADR available, that covers the scope of your dispute, we will provide further information to your self:

• Length of time the procedure takes,
• Cost of procedure, if any and
• Whether the decision is binding or not.

It will be then your decision to proceed or not. During the ADR process we will make every effort to keep you informed of the progress of your case at regular intervals.

The UK European Consumer Centre has available a free newsletter, “UK ECC – your update”. The aim of the newsletter is to provide you, the consumer, with a flavour of what the UK ECC does, provide examples of cases we have been working on and, more importantly, provide you with the best advice on cross-border shopping.

If you are interested in subscribing to our newsletter please complete the form on our subscription page. Once you have subscribed you will receive confirmation of your subscription and then you will receive the latest copy of our newsletter, with new ones being provided when they are released.

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