The Consumer Council of Fiji is concerned with the way some traders label customers on receipts whilst waiting to be served.

This comes after the Council received a complaint from a Lautoka woman who was issued a receipt from a renowned coffee shop that read “Pink Fat Lady”.

Traders cannot issue receipts according to their physique, however should make an effort to use other identifiers to take orders.

Consumer Council of Fiji CEO Seema Shandil says such incidences will not be tolerated.

She says consumers should be treated with paramount respect as they pay for the goods and services and here we see that traders are labelling customers in a very insulting manner.

The CCF CEO says these labels are nothing short of fat shaming and it is discriminatory.

Shandil is also urging traders to train their staff on customer service standards and refrain from using physical appearances as identifiers for their orders.

She says there are many other systems that traders can employ to identify and serve their customers, the number system for instance is an effective way.

We need to move away from providing discriminatory derogatory remarks to customers. Traders must remember consumer confidence is key to an effective business and incidences as such will not augur well for them.