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Author Topic: Consumer Rights in Turkey  (Read 3631 times)

Offline Enjoy Kalkan

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Consumer Rights in Turkey
« on: November 21, 2008, 08:15:18 AM »
Hi Everyone,

I have got some great information from a Turkish friend which they were keen to share with members of EnjoyKalkan...... Please see below  :D





Dear Jon,
I thought this might be of interest to a lot of people who look at the enjoy Kalkan website.
 
I know a lot of people have had problems with builders. estate agents and other businesses. We have found a department in Antalya which specialises in the problems that foreigners sometimes experience with businesses in Turkey. However the department is not well known and a lot of people think their only recourse is to a lawyer that they wıll have to pay 10 or 15% , whether they win or lose.
 
The department is Antalya Rehber Odası, translates as Antalya Guide Chamber, part of the larger Tüketici Hakları DerneÄŸi (consumer rıghts assocıatıon)  www.tuketicihaklari.org.tr They have a lınk from the web site of the Alanya gazete www.alanyagazete.com look for the lınk to the tuketici dosya (consumer fıles) or the link to Åžikayet formu (problem reportıng form)
The department employs a lawyer who specialises in the problems of foreigners. His name is Av. ibrahim his email is avibrahim07@hotmail.com
 
As a government department they do not charge the customer with the problem.
 
I think this would be a very useful link for people even if it annoys alot of the rogue traders!

Linkback: https://www.enjoykalkan.com/forum/index.php?topic=2615.0

Offline Tomcat

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Re: Consumer Rights in Turkey
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2009, 10:07:18 AM »
Hi Jon,

Just spotted this post and was wondering if I could contact them (preferably in English!) to sort out a long standing problem that we have had with our water and electricity bills on our holiday villa.  Basically our agent pays our bills and then tells us what we owe him, which we always promptly pay.  Unfortunately when we saw the most recent bills, for both utilities, they show a large amount of arrears and fines!  As a result we have been contacting the Kalkan Beldiye (for water bills) and the Kalkan electric company (for electric) requesting that they supply us with a comprehensive statement of our accounts to show all charges and payments over the last two years. 

Although we have a Turkish friend in the UK who has helped us (by telephoning and faxing) we still have not received any replies, responses or acknowledgements since we first started communicating in October last year.

As you can imagine we are getting increasingly worried by the lack of response.  Do you think that we could get help in obtaining this information?

Many thanks.

Offline olive

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Re: Consumer Rights in Turkey
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2009, 11:55:47 AM »
Türkiye''ye hoş geldiniz

Offline Lantana

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Re: Consumer Rights in Turkey
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2009, 01:12:21 PM »
Philby

The water and electric systems here are fully computerised and the exact payment date of all bills is recorded. When the bill is paid, a receipt is issued with the date and amount of payment, This is then given to the person paying the bill.  so your agent should be able to give you these receipts and you can match payment date against bill due date (to see if they were paid on time) and check if the amount owed is the amount which has been paid.  There are no exceptions, receipts are always given. Ours go back over the last ten years.

As your bills have shown arrears and fines for non-payment, it could be  that your agent is taking your money but not paying your bills when due. This is a very common practice here amongst some agents - most people simply accept whatever the agent tells them and never question the service or ask to see actual bills and receipts. Professional, honest agents keep all these bills and receipts on hand for the customer to see.
Ask to see the dated receipts, you will need these before you take up a complaint with Tedas. If the agent can''t give you the receipts, you will know where the problem lies.

Lantana

Offline Tomcat

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Re: Consumer Rights in Turkey
« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2009, 04:11:45 PM »
Hi Lantana,

Thank you for your very helpful response.

We questioned the agent on the arrears and fines showing on the bills in October 2008 when we were in Kalkan but he could not provide receipts although he said everything was paid up and there was no problem.  Obviously we were not satisfied and this is why we have tried to contact the suppliers directly for information on our accounts.  We just cannot understand why they will not respond to us (both accounts are in our names) with a history of our account.  As you say the accounts are computerised so surely it should not be a problem for them.

If we had unpaid bills then presumably we would have had the electric and water cut off from our villa? As far as we are aware this has never happened.

As you can imagine we are very frustrated with the lack of any information and worried that we might owe a significant amount of money if the agent has not been paying the bills.  This  is why we asked Jon if he thought that we could approach Antalya Rehber Odasıh (Consumer Rights Dept) with our problem.

Any other suggestions or advice would be very welcome.

Regards,

Philby


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