The Poor Malaysian Consumer!!!

If you're active on social media, you'd be aware there isn't a day in Malaysia that goes by where a Malaysian would not be disgusted or pissed off at the service he/she received from some company or rather. Most of these companies, it seems are of the GLC/monopolistic type.

It appears that in Malaysia these companies act with impunity. Quick on the draw when payment is in default but slow to respond to complaints or even refunds when service or product is poor.

An efficient, inexpensive and informal redress machinery is essential for consumer protection. In Malaysia the court system is rightly or wrongly generally perceived to be unable to satisfy consumer needs. This was the reason for the establishment of the Tribunal for Consumer Claims in 1999 and the Tribunal for Homebuyer Claims in 2002.

And yet still it seems that Companies in Malaysia regularly take advantage of Malaysians for the simple reason that Malaysians do not seem to possess a culture of redress. I do not know why, maybe it has to do with our culture of deference to authority (some call it feudalism)

Whatever it is, time to simplify the process, if only we had a system where a person could send a complain via SMS, and we had an efficient agency that would swing into action and set up a sting to verify the complaint.

But then again this is Malaysia, its still only 50 years since Merdeka and I may be asking too much :)