Prohibited acts in protection of consumers’ rights in Vietnam as of July 1, 2024

Prohibited acts in protection of consumers’ rights in Vietnam as of July 1, 2024 (Internet image)

Regarding this matter, LawNet would like to answer as follows:

Prohibited acts in protection of consumers’ rights in Vietnam as of July 1, 2024

Specifically, Article 10 of the Law on Protection of Consumers’ Rights 2023 stipulates prohibited acts in protecting consumer rights from July 1, 2024 as follows:

(1) Traders are prohibited from performing any of the following acts:

- Deceiving or misleading consumers by providing false, incomplete or inaccurate information about one of the following details: products, goods or services which traders sell or supply; traders’ prestige, business capacity, capacity for supply of products, goods and services; details and characteristics of transactions between consumers and traders; photos, papers and documents of competent authorities certifying products, goods, services or traders;

- Harassing consumers through acts of direct or indirect contact against the will of consumers to introduce products, goods, services and traders, proposing the conclusion of contracts or committing other acts that hinder the normal working or living conditions of consumers;

- Forcing consumers to buy products, goods and services against their will by the use of force, threat of force or other acts of similar nature;

- Forcing consumers to pay for products, goods and services supplied without reaching an agreement with consumers in advance;

- Failure to compensate or refund consumers or replace products, goods or services when there is fault on traders’ part;

- Failure to provide compensation or refund or replace products, goods or services for consumers as the products, goods or services are inconsistent with those registered, notified, announced, posted, advertised, introduced, agreed or declared by traders;

- Swapping products, goods or services or cheating at delivery of goods or supply of services to consumers;

- Failure to notify in advance or make publicly available to consumers the sponsorship by influencers in any shape or form to use image, advice or recommendation of these persons with a view to promoting trade or encouraging consumers to purchase or use products, goods or services;

- Preventing consumers from inspecting products, goods and services, unless otherwise prescribed by law;

- Requesting consumers to buy a product, good or service as a prerequisite for conclusion of a contract against the consumer’s will;

- Specifying the prohibited clauses mentioned in Article 25 of the Law on Protection of Consumers’ Rights 2023 in contracts signed with consumers, standard form contracts and general trading conditions;

- Collecting, storing, using, modifying, updating or destroying consumer information against the law.

(2) Organization and individuals that perform MLM are prohibited from performing any of the following acts:

- Requesting a prospective participant to deposit or pay a certain amount of money or purchase a certain quantity of goods in any way to be eligible to enter into an MLM contract;

- Providing false or misleading information to consumers and individuals participating in MLM.

- Operating the MLM network without obtaining the MLM registration certificate; introducing the MLM network before obtaining the MLM registration certificate;

- Operating the MLM network with respect to services or other forms other than purchase or sale of goods, unless otherwise provided for by law;

- Developing the MLM network without actual goods sale and purchase transactions

- Engaging in any of the acts specified in (1).

(3) Traders establishing, operating and supplying digital platform services are prohibited from performing any of the following acts:

- Forcing or preventing consumers from registering or using other intermediary digital platforms as a prerequisite for using services;

- Limiting consumer choice by arranging products, goods or services among traders on digital platforms in certain order of priority without disclosing the arrangement criteria;

- Implementing any measure to prevent the display or to untruthfully display consumers' feedback or reviews on products, goods, services or traders on digital platforms, unless such feedback or reviews contradict regulations of law or social ethics;

- Adopting any measure to prevent the registration, operation or review by or the display of feedback of social organizations participating in protection of consumers’ rights;

- Preventing consumers from removing built-in software or apps which do not affect basic technical features in support of normal operation of digital platforms or forcing consumers to install accompanying software or apps on digital platforms;

- Engaging in any of the acts specified in (1).

(4) Organizations and individuals are prohibited from taking advantage of the protection of consumers’ rights so as to infringe upon interests of the State, legitimate rights and interests of other organizations and individuals.

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