THE chairman of the House Committee on Trade and Industry on Sunday called for the immediate passage of the proposed Internet Transactions Act (ITA) to curb the prevalence of online scams.
Valenzuela 1st District Rep. Wes Gatchalian said the ITA is one of the priority measures cited by President Duterte in his last State of the Nation Address as he urged his colleagues in the House of Representatives to expedite the passage of the bill.Having a law regulating internet transactions would address fraudulent and deceptive practices, noting reports of a college student from Guimaras who bought a laptop via an online app, only to receive three rocks instead.
“We also really need stricter rules to hold both eCommerce platforms and courier services accountable for damaged or lost goods purchased online. Doing so would drastically reduce the incidence of fraud and theft of goods while in transit to the consumer,” the lawmaker said.
Gatchalian said that this was not the first time he has heard of complaints of items being stolen and replaced by stones and rocks while in transit to the customer.
Incidents of lost or damaged items are not good for both buyers and sellers, he said.
“In this case, the student is fortunate because the seller, who is located overseas, promised to replace the lost laptop. But most, if not all the time, consumers have no other option but to use the courier services utilized by online platforms in order for them to be able to purchase the items they want even if those courier services have a less than stellar reputation,” he said.
The Valenzuela lawmaker is the author of House Bill 6122, or the Internet Transactions Act (ITA), which specifies obligations and liabilities for eCommerce platforms and online merchants, including the delivery of goods to consumers in the condition as required by the sales contract.
The bill also establishes a code of conduct for online businesses, including allowing for the tracking of deliveries by online merchants; providing complete records of the goods purchased; and having them delivered within the promised time and described condition.
Moreover, the ITA expressly states that any agreement between buyer and seller is “valid only if, at the time of the conclusion of the contract, the consumer has knowledge of the specific condition of the goods and the consumer has expressly accepted this specific condition when concluding the contract.”
“During these times when people are under a pandemic and relying heavily on online transactions, an enabling law that will impose stricter rules and regulations on the medium to avoid consumers from falling prey to these unscrupulous individuals is all the more needed,” he said.
“If we want to stop the practice of unscrupulous sellers and courier employees of replacing high value items with rocks and stones and prevent more Filipinos from being duped, we must pass the ITA sooner rather than later, especially since we foresee that online transactions will be the new normal after the pandemic,” he added.
Image credits: AP