As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, although it was said that the application would be finished by now, that has unfortunately failed to happen, meaning that the mystery shoppers haven’t yet gone out into action in the country’s stores.
It was also explained how these mystery shoppers will monitor the entire process of price alterations as we approach Eurozone entry and work to protect Croatian consumers.
“Each mystery shopper will keep their eye on twenty different products, they’ll be the exact same products every month being sold by the same retailers or service providers. It must be checked whether the price is stated in accordance with the law. For now, we’re only listing prices in kuna, because the obligation to declare prices in both kuna and euros will only been mandatory as of September the 5th, 2022. Then, we’ll start checking whether the price is expressed in kuna and euros, whether there’s a fixed exchange rate being used, and whether or not it’s being calculated correctly. Given that the prices must be expressed to two decimal places, we have to make sure that there’s no rounding up of the figures going on,” said the president of the Association for Consumer Protection.
She also said that it is to be assumed that the rounding up of prices will also occur in Croatia if it happened in Italy, Slovenia and Austria as well.
”Croatia isn’t going to be an exception, given that the country even worse than those countries in terms of legal regulation. We’ll probably have to cope with that too. Since there is a lot of talk about it, I expect that it won’t occur on such a large scale, that we’ll manage to control it, so traders will probably also be aware that they should show the correct prices. If they start rounding up, we’ll report it,” she warned.
Where should Croatian consumers exercise the most care? In all situations, the president of the aforementioned association believes.
“We expect that it will be very difficult for customers in the beginning. It will be especially difficult in the period from New Year to January the 14th, 2023, when it will be possible to pay in both currencies, and merchants must only return euros. It’s there where problems will occur because people will pay for items in kuna and receive euros in return. We’re warning people that they should react to any issues with that right there, before they move away from the cash register,” she said.
She noted that Croatian consumers must pay attention to the fact that merchants and service providers have a price list with prices in kuna and euros available to them.
She assessed the reduction of VAT on food as a bad decision by the Croatian Government.
“The opposite has now happened, items haven’t become cheaper, they’ve become significantly more expensive. If the government had limited the prices and used that money to subsidise retailers and producers, then consumers would have benefited,” the president of the Association for Consumer Protection believes.
For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.
