Apenisa Waqairadovu 
The Consumer Council of Fiji is calling on retailers to stop tricking shoppers with deceptive deals and spurious special offers.
CCF Chief Executive Seema Shandil says a total of 574 cases of misleading prices and advertisements were discovered from August 2022 to March 2023.
Shandil says complaints have revealed that supermarkets are failing to satiate the requirements of fair and ethical pricing in line with the Fijian Competition and Consumer (FCCC) Act 2010.
She says whenever supermarkets are being investigated, the most common excuse provided by supermarkets involved in misleading prices and advertisements is that it was an IT ‘glitch’ or ‘human error’ and that it was not intentional.
Shandil says this type of behavior is simply equivalent to robbing people in broad daylight.
The CEO says retailers have had enough time to get their act straight, and CCF will be stringently monitoring this.
She adds that supermarkets engaging in misleading advertisements and prices will be referred for enforcement actions, and the Council will continuously push for stringent penalties against supermarkets found engaging in these unethical practices.
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