Unscrupulous companies be warned. The Consumer Council is speeding up the process to name the bad guys and prevent shoppers from falling into their hands.
Naming companies is a way used by the council to warn consumers against those who adopt improper practices, but in the past some companies used various excuses to delay the announcement of their names.
Such plots will no longer work.
'We finished a review of the naming mechanism this month, and our aim is to speed up the naming process,' council chief executive Connie Lau Yin-hing said yesterday.
The watchdog originally considered naming companies case by case. But decided, as a general rule, they should be warned before being named so they had time to correct their errors. Only those that showed no improvement would have their names publicised.
Yet the council's good intentions were abused. 'Some companies refused to meet us, or tried to delay meetings, saying their bosses were away,' Lau said.
To tackle the problem, the council decided it would now send written warnings to firms if they refused face-to-face talks. Other measures are also in place, but it did not elaborate, citing them as internal guidelines.