Almost half of Irish websites selling electronic goods are infringing EU consumer law, an investigation by the European Commission has established.
Six of the 15 Irish websites examined by the commission as part of an EU-wide sweep into misleading advertising and unfair practices were found to have irregularities.
Across Europe, over half of the 369 websites were found to be problematic because of misleading information about consumer rights or the cost of products, or incomplete contact details.
The National Consumer Agency, which carried out the Irish part of the investigation, said most of the issues with Irish websites related to a lack of contact details for the trader.
The investigation looked at websites selling six of the most popular electronic goods in the EU, including digital cameras, mobile phones, computer equipment and game consoles. Internet shopping is a €7 billion a year business in Europe and one in four online shoppers buy electronic goods.
Only three of the 28 countries, not including Ireland, published the names of the companies covered by the investigation. The NCA said it had no problem “naming and shaming” companies against which enforcement proceedings might be taken at a later stage.
EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva said: "We targeted websites selling electronic goods because I know from my own mail bag, and we know from the level of complaints coming into European Consumer Centres that these are a real problem area for consumers. This is a Europe-wide problem which needs a European solution. There is a lot of work to be done in the months ahead to clean up this sector."
Two-thirds of the problems uncovered related to misleading information about consumer rights, where buyers were not informed or were misinformed about their right to return a product within seven days of purchase. Consumers were also misled about whether they could receive cash rather than credit, or about their entitlement to have faulty products replaced.
In 45 per cent of cases, information on extra delivery charges was missing or difficult to find, and extras were added only at the final payment stage.
Contact details for traders were missing in one-third of cases, so they couldn’t be contacted when problems arose.
The offending websites will now be asked to change their websites, under threat of enforcement proceedings.