Ayman Hossam El-Din, head of the Consumer Protection Agency (CPA) said that fraud was monitored by some car dealers by adding some luxuries to vehicles pushing the return of the overprice phenomenon, and an exaggerated increase in prices, noting that the agency decided that any luxuries in cars will not exceed 5% of its original price at distributors.
Hossam El-Din announced that agents will also be allowed to refund their down payment, whether for cars or durable goods, provided that the refund will be collected with an interest of 18% since the beginning of the reservation period for the consumer who seeks a refund.
He added, after an emergency meeting to discuss the repercussions of the Ukrainian-Russian crisis and its impact on the market and consumers, during a press conference on Sunday, that the agency is concerned with preserving the rights of the Egyptian consumer.
He added that during the past three years, the world has gone through many crises that it has not witnessed in more than 100 years, pointing out that the coronavirus crisis has globally affected supply chains and production rates, as well as a crisis in the shortage of semiconductor production that enters the manufacture of most non-food commodities as devices, computers and mobile devices, in addition to cars, explaining that an average car needs about 2,000 semiconductors.
He explained that with the partial closures that the world witnessed due to the pandemic, the semiconductor production factories worked to change the production pattern and shift to the production of semiconductors for electronic games and personal computers, which reduced the production of semiconductors for cars and household appliances, reducing their production by more than 50%, noting that there was a shortage of some commodities at varying rates, amounting to about 70%, which led, with the increase in demand, to an increase in prices.
He pointed out that the world has also witnessed a crisis of unprecedented rises in inflation rates and an increase in gasoline prices. The most stable countries in which inflation rates did not exceed 1% have currently witnessed rates of up to 8%, which constituted a real crisis on the shoulders of every global consumer.
