• Where should I return the goods, to whom should I send my complaint or a declaration on contract rescission?
• Consumers have no transparent information whether they conclude a contract with an entrepreneur or a natural person or what the segregation of duties between Temu and the seller is.
• The President of UOKiK has brought charges against the Temu website.

Temu website is one of the largest purchase platforms with Chinese capital. It offers a variety of goods categories, such as clothes, cosmetics, electronic devices or household appliances, among other things. The company responsible for the sales in Poland is the Irish company Whaleco Technology Limited with its registered office in Dublin. It is the entity which has faced charges brought by the President of UOKiK on violating consumer rights as soon as UOKIK has checked the method of presenting the information which is important for buyers at Temu website and in Temu app.

From whom are the goods? To whom should a complaint be sent?

Suppliers of online trading platforms must provide consumers with the legally required information at specific times and in a specific way. If we shop online, we must be informed of our rights as early as before the conclusion of the contract. It must be transparent to us from whom we buy - from an entrepreneur or from a natural person - and what the segregation of duties between the seller and the platform we use for orders is. The President of UOKIK is of the opinion that when shopping via Temu website or mobile app, consumers may not be informed transparently and explicitly about it.

Some doubts are also raised by a method of presenting specific sellers - this information may not be available easily and intuitively. For example, if you wish to reach it, you must click on the selected interface elements a few times. It happens that some content available there is presented in Chinese. Meanwhile, when shopping at e-commerce, it is the priority to provide consumers with transparency and reliable knowledge about the contract concluded remotely. The EU Omnibus Directive has enhanced protection in the digital world and the President of UOKiK verifies whether new regulations are being duly implemented.

The next charge pressed concerns a button used for ordering products so that consumers know at what time the obligation to pay for the goods in the virtual cart arises. The President of UOKIK is of the opinion that the button “Place your order” may be insufficient as according to the relevant laws, it should contain the words as follows: “with obligation to pay” or another equivalent and unambiguous formula.

- With whom we conclude the contract, to whom should we send the goods returned, to whom should we send our complaint - we as consumers should receive this information before we take a decision to shop online. Moreover, we should know at what time precisely we conclude the contract. This moment is important in particular when taking shopping decisions online. Only comprehensive and transparent presentation of those issues allows you to use e-commerce safely. We will continue to verify and enforce correct implementation of the informational obligation by entrepreneurs - says Tomasz Chróstny, the President of UOKiK.

If these charges are substantiated, the Whaleco Technology Limited company may be fined up to 10% of its turnover per each challenged practice.

Additionally, the President of UOKiK has been pursuing the preliminary investigation into Temu where he checks the method of presenting prices and some other information presented to consumers.