Few arrests in tourism sector for breaching unfair trade rules despite many complaints
Customs officers receive over 300 complaints a year; they point to cases involving denial of a seat on a plane and providing false information
Just five people from tour operators and airlines were arrested in the past 17 months over unfair trade practices even though the Hong Kong customs department received over 450 relevant complaints during the period.
The latest Customs and Excise Department figures show that 455 complaints were received from January 2016 to April this year. The investigation into 97 of the cases is ongoing, and of the remaining 358 cases, in which the probes were completed, only three resulted in prosecution and two in arrests. No criminal evidence was found in 140 other cases, and the remaining 215 have been withdrawn.
Cases involving an arrest included one in which a traveller was denied a seat on a plane even though he had a confirmed ticket, customs officers said.
Prosecutions are rare in the tourism sector, said Kwan Kin-keung, superintendent of a customs squad investigating unfair trade practices. “Most of them are merely disputes ... We encourage the industry to make contracts clearer to consumers to reduce misunderstandings.”
The city’s trade descriptions law was amended in 2012 to prohibit practices including false product descriptions and misleading omissions.
