Shraddha Shiwakoti (name changed), a resident of Kathmandu, placed an order for a kurti (a closely fitting kurti) from Surkhet-based online retailer ‘Reason Able Closet’ by making a prepayment of Rs1,760, including shipping charges, through Instagram on March 1. Surkhet is a district in the Karnali province in west Nepal.

But when she received the delivery, she was shocked. “Neither the colour, size and prints that I ordered matched,” she said.

“I wrote to them requesting an exchange, but they never responded. I don’t know what to do with it now.”

She could not find a proper channel to lodge her complaint.

Buying a product, online or in a store is easy. But when the product is defective and needs to be replaced, you are left powerless.

There is no law for holding online sellers accountable for promoting faulty or substandard products.

Forget about the liability to compensate a consumer for any harm or injury caused by a defective good or deficient service.

There has been a rampant rise among shops of neglecting price lists, recycling dairy products that have been returned from the market, buying cheaply and selling at higher prices, selling unlicensed food products, and relabeling expired products in the market.

These are the common issues Nepali shoppers have been facing as online shopping thrives in the country. Many consumers too, in the end, surrender as most of them say they don’t want to deal with legal hassles over small sums of money, consumer rights activists say. And this encourages fraud, which has become increasingly rampant, particularly in the online marketplace.

Today, (March 15) is World Consumer Rights Day, observed annually to highlight the importance of consumer rights in the global marketplace, but in Nepal, there is a glaring absence of laws prioritising public and consumer interest issues.

“The Constitution of Nepal ensures consumer rights as fundamental rights. But the ground reality is completely different,” said Prem Lal Maharjan, president of the National Consumers Forum.

“The reality is—we have unclear consumer policy, commercial anomaly and wrongdoers have political protection. Consumer rights have always been in the shadows,” Maharjan said.

With the change in time, the mode of cheating has also evolved, he said.

“Decades ago, consumers used to get cheated in price and quantity. Now, the policy openly cheats them,” he said. “Politicians, bureaucrats and the private sector have colluded to cheat the common man. Smugglers and middlemen call the shots in the market,” said Maharjan.

Market anomalies are rising.

According to the Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection, the quality watchdog, it inspected 3,309 commercial firms in the first eight months of the current fiscal year, which ended in mid-March.

Out of them, one-fourth or 842 firms were fined a total of Rs30.29 million for market anomalies.

The department has destroyed adulterated food and non-food goods worth Rs10.5 million during the review period.

In the last fiscal year, out of 2,632 firms inspected, 549 were fined for promoting market anomalies.

According to the department, many business firms were found not issuing proper invoices, and if they did, most of them had under-invoiced the value. Also, businesses are found not mentioning expiry dates on their products. Most of them were found storing edible and non-edible products together, which increases health risks if such goods are consumed.

Businesses are not following the mandatory price index for packaged goods.

Products like drinking water were found selling at higher prices than what were mentioned on the label.

Also there has also been a sharp rise in relabelling expiry dates and maximum retail prices, the department said.

Some of the firms were fined for involvement in inappropriate business activities like selling banned products.

The quality watchdog has filed cases against 89 firms for selling and distributing low-quality and adulterated foods among the 1,167 samples collected and tested.

Among them, 38 cases were filed against processed drinking water, 10 involved milk and dairy products, and 6 concerned ghee and edible oil.

According to consumer rights activists, the sale of adulterated goods continues unchecked.

Nepal has long struggled with its tarnished reputation as an unfavourable shopping destination. Consumers are being cheated left and right, yet the government appears to be making minimal efforts to address the issue, they said.

While there are sufficient laws in Nepal to protect consumer rights, implementation remains ineffective, said Maharjan. When firms are punished after being found guilty of mixing products, engaging in black marketing, and smuggling, politicians exert pressure on the government to exonerate them, he said.

“Such is the state of the consumer rights situation in Nepal,” he said.

The department said problems compound when there are too many laws and agencies but no dedicated organisation to address the consumers’ grievances.

Five years ago, the amended Consumer Protection Act 2018, which contained a provision requiring the government to establish a consumer court, was passed by Parliament.

But the government has repeatedly delayed the process of establishing these courts, apparently disregarding Nepal’s top court ruling issued two years ago.

Officials say once these courts are established, consumers will not need to hire a lawyer or a legal professional for a hearing unless they feel it necessary.

While the government delays the consumer court formation, rights activists say that market malpractice and cheating have become rampant—prevailing everywhere from microfinance and cooperatives to both online and offline shops.