The Consumer Council of Fiji in its proactive approach has started its pre-Diwali market surveillance.

Council Chief Executive Seema Shandil says this is to ensure traders are not taking advantage of this festive season.

Shandil says during their surveillance they’ve found that retailers are selling fireworks at misleading prices whereby the in-house advertised prices did not match the Point-of-Sale System price.

She says that fireworks are already quite expensive for most consumers in Fiji, and to top it off, traders were duping them by charging extra at the POS.

“This is a clear act of misleading the consumers. “Unbelievable prices” and “discount offers” could be traps to lure consumer into buying fireworks at normal price far less than what is promised.”

Shandil says it is also extremely worrying to see traders selling fireworks which are labelled in foreign language without any English translation.

She adds fireworks are dangerous and it is advisable for consumers to purchase fireworks which has instructions written in English language.