Can anyone tell me if a consumer law exists in Italy?

Question

I used to teach consumer law in retail to new starters for a large retailer company in the UK. Yesterday I debated with a friend in Italy regarding the protection for retail consumers in Italy. I was told it is vastly diverse in Italy and the customer is never right. As both the UK and italy are members of the European community, I believe that surely the consumer rights law are equal. Can any help me with this, I need actual written evidence to prove my point, so a web site would be great.

Answer 1

Try this link http://www.euconsumer.com  All the best Alan

Answer 2

EU laws and regulation could be the same everywhere, but awareness and enforcement vary greatly from country to country.

In Italy a comprehensive piece of legislation named "Codice del consumo" (consumer code) has been enacted with Legislative Decree 6th September 2005, n. 206. And yet knowledge of the rights upheld by it is still sketchy. Very recently it has even been amended with a section disciplining "class action" lawsuits (azione collettiva risarcitoria), but its entry into force has been delayed by the present cabinet.

The Italian average consumer very often is not aware of the laws that protect his purchases, and even now there's no granted "money back" warranty if you return an item to the shop within two days from purchase. The shopowner will also come up with an excuse not to return your money but rather preferring to offer you other merchandise of the same value in exchange.

And if something goes wrong, suing a shop owner or a manufacturer for defective products could be expensive and time-consuming for a single consumer.

Answer 3

Laws inside EU are getting more and more the same for everybody, at least about consumer's protection. Perhaps it was to be as your friend says, but both because of EU laws *and* more stricter Italian laws approved during latest years and more effectively enforced, the situation is better, now. For instance, there is the mandatory minimum of two year warranty for virtually any kind of goods and today the seller is responsible towards the customer, while in the past the seller was used to drop the problem on the producer or the national distributor of that item.

Today the customer have to deal just with the seller, and is up to the seller to take it out on the distributor, the manufacturer or whoever else.

I think the bigger issue is too often customers are not really aware about the laws, but this is changing, too.