Complaints about misleading goods and services tripled last year, with most being lodged after the amended Trade Descriptions Ordinance took effect in July.
The Customs and Excise Department said yesterday that it received 2,360 complaints last year, with 85 per cent lodged after July. This compared with fewer than 600 in 2012.
"The trend of complaints that we received reflected that, in fact, a lot of these complainants are very, very aware of their rights," commissioner Clement Cheung Wan-ching said in a year-end review.
In another key area of customs activity, Cheung said involvement of syndicates was increasingly evident in smuggling of milk formula across the border, with 33,000kg intercepted and 4,737 people arrested.
Amendments to the trade descriptions law expanded its coverage from goods to services, bringing entertainment, travel, cosmetics and telecommunications into its orbit from July 19.
Of the complaints, 2,051 were received in the last half of the year - 1,552 concerning goods and 499 about services.
Almost 400 investigations were launched into the former and 126 into the latter, but by the end of the year, only six prosecutions were in progress.