Consumers Association of Penang

Giving a voice to the little people...since 1970

CAP today calls on the Ministry of Information Communications and Culture to take action against the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for failure in playing their role as a regulatory body for multimedia matters.

This call is made in view of the uprising number of complaints made by consumers against Content Providers in ripping off consumers through their various modus operandi. It is bad enough that multimedia users are subjected to spam, spoofing, fraud etc. to rip them off, but when licensed entities also rip consumers off by breaching the laws and regulations that they promise to abide with when applying for their licences, it is intolerable.

NO to hidden costs when eating out: Service tax and service charge should be included in the prices advertised

Consumers should always know exactly how much is the price of their food and drinks before they purchase them. Thus the price of any food or beverage should automatically include extras like the 6% service tax (to be paid to the government) or/and where applicable, the 5-10% service charge (to be paid to the waiter). The present practice of putting a notice saying (often in fine print) that there will be a 6% service charge and 10% service charge added on to the price on the bill is not fair to consumers.

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Sending of unsolicited messages to mobile phones must be stopped

Short messaging service (SMS) is one of the medium of communication being used commonly nowadays by hand phone users. However SMS can also be used to commit crime and fraud by various parties. Mobile phones are now being blasted with so many unwanted or unsolicited short messages. Unsolicited messages include advertisement-linked messages, contest winning messages, pornographic messages and so on.

Scratch-and-win scams: blame everybody else!

Scratch and win and other scams have been going on in the country for many years now. The most distressful development of this mode of openly cheating consumers is the standard response from the authorities: The victims are to be blamed for being gullible.

While this is true to a fair extent, what bothers consumers is, why is such an illegal activity continuing to flourish in all parts of the country, in the small towns even?

Right move to use the ringgit in international business

CAP applauds Bank Negara’s decision to relax the foreign exchange administration rules, to enable the ringgit to be used as a currency in international trade.

The decision makes good economic sense. Had the decision been made earlier it could have saved local business millions of ringgit.