Centre’s Advisory: No need for Customers to share Mobile No. while purchasing; Forcing the Customers will term as ‘Unfair Trade Practice’

In an attempt to check the menace of retailers seeking mobile numbers of customers after every purchase to generate a bill, the consumer affairs ministry will issue an advisory to end this practice and mandate explicit consent of buyers to get the contact details.

No need to provide your Mobile number while purchasing:

Union consumer affairs secretary Rohit Kumar Singh recently said that the Centre is issuing the advisory and said any seller insisting on the contact number of the customer falls under “unfair trade practice”.

He stated further, “Sellers typically state that they cannot create the bill unless personal contact information is given. Under the Consumer Protection Act, this is an unfair and restrictive commercial practise, and there is no rationale for collecting the information. They should not take the number unless they have specific permission.”

While it is not required in India for customers to provide their mobile numbers in order to make a purchase, they are frequently not offered the choice to opt out. According to officials, this is also a privacy problem, and the consumer should have the option of sharing the contact number or not.

They also stated that there have been reports of salespeople convincing clients that they cannot create a bill without a contact number, which is incorporated into the system.

“We will specify the procedure that retailers must follow in order to obtain customer contact information. If a consumer refuses to reveal his phone number even after being briefed about the perks, such as loyalty points for purchases, salespeople must not urge,” stated an official.