Consumer disputes highlight rise in online cases: court

Shanghai courts handled nearly 20,000 cases related to consumer disputes last year, with a rise in disputes relating to online shopping and travel services, the city's higher count announced on Thursday.

Last year, local courts solved 19,711 consumer disputes, 1,426 less than 2017. There's not much change in the number of disputes over food and drugs, while cases in connection with online shopping and travel contracts both saw significant increases. Online shopping disputes almost doubled the 612 in 2016.

To keep up with problems brought about by emerging industries, district courts like Jiading, Jing'an, Yangpu and the Shanghai Railway Transport Court are all doing research on judicial issues related to shared consumption, online hailing cars and online shopping.

Last year local courts issued seven documents with judicial directives to relevant authorities. For example, the Hongkou District People's Court delivered a document to a supermarket chain to prevent unlicensed food from being displayed on their shelves.

In one case the court released on Thursday, a company which sold cereal from areas affected by nuclear radiation online was ordered by the Baoshan District People's Court to refund a buyer with tenfold compensation.

The customer, surnamed Liao, bought some cereal from a Japanese brand sold by the company online on November 11, 2016 at a price of 272 yuan (US$40.6). Liao later found the cereal's origin was an area affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster and that it was banned from food import. He then brought the company to court and demanded a refund as well as a compensation.

In another case recently handled by the Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People's Court, a man received a refund and triple compensation after he found the Mac he bought from a store on Taobao was a refurbished second-hand one.

The man, surnamed Gao, bought a Mac from a Taobao store on September 29, 2016, for more than 14,000 yuan and the seller promised him it was a brand-new one from the US. One year later, Gao found the PC's network connection was unstable and sent it to an Apple store for repair. 

A report given by Apple showed that the Mac had been refurbished. Gao then filed a lawsuit against the seller, who denied that the Mac was sold from her store. The seller lost both the suit of first instance and the appeal.