WARSAW (Reuters) – Amazon has been fined 31 million zlotys ($7.8 million) in Poland for misleading customers about product availability and delivery dates, consumer watchdog UOKiK said on Wednesday.
The regulator said it had received complaints from customers who did not receive their orders.
“The average consumer has the right to assume that the purchase options, availability and delivery times offered by traders are not misleading,” UOKiK head Tomasz Chrostny said in a statement.
Chrostny said that UOKiK had questioned practices such as displaying a time counter on the screen indicating a period in which the order should be placed without a guarantee that it will arrive within the timeframe given.
Amazon’s press office said the company would appeal against the decision.
“While the vast majority of our deliveries arrive on time, customers can contact us in the rare event that they experience a delay or order cancellation, and we will make it right,” it said in an emailed statement.
“Over the last year, we have collaborated with … UOKiK, and proposed multiple voluntary amendments to continue to improve the customer experience on Amazon.pl. We strictly follow legal standards in all countries where we operate and we strongly disagree with the assessment and penalty issued by the UOKiK.”
($1 = 3.9811 zlotys)
(Reporting by Alan Charlish; Editing by David Goodman)
