In 2021, telephony was the main reason for complaints at the Municipal Consumer Information Office (OMIC) of La Orotava, which registered 31.65% of user complaints, followed by cancellations due to COVID-19. 19, which during the past year accounted for 27.88% of the total. It is followed by claims on the topics of flights (11.76%), energy (9.46%), financial entities (7.93%), leisure (5.88%), household appliances (4.60%), automobile (4.35%), health (3.84%), food (2.56%), textiles/footwear (2.53%), reforms (2.81%) and insurance (2.30%) .
This is clear from the data from last year’s annual report, in which the OMIC managed a total of 6,877 queries, with a daily average of 23. Of the total, a total of 391 have given rise to claims, a figure that has decreased compared to other years. Of all the open files, 68% (268 files) have been resolved by the mutual agreement procedure, thus avoiding the initiation of legal proceedings for the parties involved (consumer and company), while 31% (123 files) are still in process.
The request for information is not only exercised by consumers, it is also required by businessmen. From the OMIC they are provided in an adequate and free way, since this is in favor of consumers, since the company, on certain occasions, acts incorrectly due to ignorance of the norm. Retail establishments and qualified professionals are required to have claim forms. The requests submitted to the office by businessmen for claim forms, in 2021, have been 178.
In addition to resolving small conflicts that may arise between a consumer and a company, the OMIC guides citizens to prepare documents of various kinds or that are addressed to different bodies such as the client’s ombudsman or the insured’s ombudsman, depending on the procedure to be carried out in each case.
A practical and close service
Consumers have a “practical and close to the citizen” service that enables them to exercise their rights without having to invest too much time, being able to make inquiries from home or on the spot, and the staff is responsible for managing their claims, keeping them informed of the processing of these at all times ”, emphasizes the Councilor for Consumption, Yayi García. This service, through friendly mediation between consumers and companies, resolves small conflicts, manages to offload a small part of the work to the Courts and represents savings for citizens.
Well-informed users turn to the complaint sheets of the Government of the Canary Islands, which all establishments and qualified professionals must have at their disposal to file complaints, claims and reports.
