Special court division opens to deal with online shopping fraud cases

The court’s newly opened division officially starting operating from Thursday, and will deal directly with online shopping cases.

Consumers who suffer damage from online shopping can now file their petition with the court through an electronic filing system at any time and at no cost, the spokesman said.

Also, the Court of Justice will later sign an agreement on cooperation for protection of online shoppers with the Consumer Protection Board, the Electronic Transactions Development Agency, the Food and Drugs Administration, the Ministry of Justice’s Legal Execution Department, the Royal Thai Police, and the Thailand Consumers Council, Sorawis said.

The agreement calls for exchange of information and a common plan and goal for protection, remedy and dispute settlement involving online shopping consumers.

The new Civil Court division was set up after several thousands of complaints from online shoppers who did not get the goods they had ordered or received ones with different quality, size or colour from what was advertised.

More than 80 per cent of the fraud complaints came from consumers who had ordered via fraudulent Facebook users, according to the Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry. Its hotline has received some 2,000 complaints on average each month about online fraud.

Last year, the ministry received more than 33,000 complaints involving online shopping fraud, up by over 50 per cent from over 20,000 a year earlier.

More than half of the complaints involved three groups of goods — fashion items, home products, and IT equipment, according to the DES Ministry.