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Consumer issues which are now attracting attention

Part 1 : Trend in consumer issues and consumer's attitude / behavior
Chapter 1 : Results of information gathering and analysis on consumer accidents
Section 3 : Overview of consumer affairs consultations
Section 4 : Consumer issues which are now attracting attention

Consumer issues which are now attracting attention

  • With consultations involving young people, the internet and beauty came to top.
  • Consumer affairs consultations related to online games increased among those under 20 years of age.

[Figure I-1-3-9] Highest numbers of consultations on product/service types by young people (2020)

[Figure I-1-4-8] Transition of the number of consumer affairs consultations involving

  • The number of consumer affairs consultations involving elderly people continued to fall since the previous year. Consultations involving elderly people accounted for about 30% of all consultations.

[Figure I-1-3-10] Transition of the number of consumer affairs consultations involving elderly people

[Figure I-1-3-5] Attributes of contracting persons in consumer affairs consultations (2020)

  • As with the previous year, "Goods in general" stood out in the consultations, including spam emails and billing fraud. However, the number of such cases fell by half.
  • Cases of "Other health food," including subscription, were on the increase. "Health-care & sanitary goods, etc.", including face masks, ranked in 2020.

[Figure I-1-3-11] Transition of the number of consultations on product/service types by elderly people
PDF [Figure I-1-3-11]

  • Among different sales/purchase patterns, the proportion of "mail order sales" increased. The proportions of "in-store purchases," "door-to-door sales" and "telemarketing sales" dropped.
  • Consultations related to "internet shopping" increased. Among different product/service types, product-related consultations increased with many troubles such as undelivered goods and no contact opportunities (i.e. unable to contact business operators), in particular.

[Figure I-1-3-14] Changes in the proportions of different sales/purchase patterns in consumer affairs consultations

[Figure I-1-4-2] Transition of the number of consumer affairs consultations regarding

[Figure I-1-4-3] Transition of the number of consumer affairs consultations regarding undelivered goods, no contact opportunities, etc.

  • Consumer affairs consultations regarding "subscription" in mail order sales continued to be on the increase. In 2020, they reached about 60,000, the largest number in history.
  • Consumer affairs consultations that had some connection to social networking service (SNS) also continued to be on the increase.

[Figure I-1-4-5] Transition of the number of consumer affairs consultations involving

[Figure I-1-4-11] Transition of the number of consumer affairs consultations related to SNS (by age group)

* Main examples of consultation details are as follows.

  • 1Examples of troubles triggered by SNS advertisements
  • 2Examples of troubles triggered by SNS solicitations
  • 3Troubles in private individual transactions with people met through SNS