Business of Profiteering

One has to be an enlightened consumer. This is the only way to escape from the clutches of profiteers.

Sajjad Bazaz
The frozen meat scandal has once again exposed that profiteering continues to plague our business environment in different layers. The way business is practiced in our region (J&K) cuffs largely of dishonesty and can easily be described as robbery in broad day light. Here, over a period of time, a mindset has developed where most of our businesses think that business won’t get them rolling in money if it is conducted without manipulations on the normal business rules. Most of the businesses always look for higher returns on investment at any cost and the rotten meat scandal reflects that those involved in unfair practices don’t even care for a human life to pick profits by hook or crook. To achieve their goal of profiteering, most of them resort to unethical, unlawful and unjustified business practices.
In rest of the India the focus in the market places may have gradually shifted from customer satisfaction to customer delight, in our state, the focus of most of our business community is how to swoop on the customers and snatch their hard earned money through profiteering.  They are busy in finding new and innovative way of profiteering.
The jet age and the resulting euphoria in the markets may have given the customers status of a king, but here the customer is not the king. He is, most of the times, at the receiving end. Element of mistrust looms large in the market, as unfair trade practices continue unabated. It is usually found that the prices of not only consumer goods but other items traded in the markets here are settled arbitrarily by the seller.
Ours is a place where within one city, different products have different rates. It becomes very difficult for a consumer to check whether retailers are actually charging the right amount of local taxes on the products they sell or they are overcharging. This has led to a situation where the confusion in respect of price of the goods is natural for the consumer. Amid this confusion, the traders and manufacturers gain huge profit. The trader in league with the manufacturers of products most of the times arbitrarily fix the price and the consumers are forced to purchase goods at higher costs.
Don’t be surprised if you find different price tags of a single brand in the same market. Don’t be surprised if a medium size bottled drink is pegged at maximum retail price (MRP) of Rs.15, the shopkeeper won’t hesitate to charge you Rs 5 extra. The oft-used excuse by the retailer is that he’s charging extra for cooling the product. Unfortunately, it is such a widely followed practice in Kashmir that most of us don’t even bother to negotiate the prices fixed on commodities.
You should always look for retailers who sell below the MRP because the MRP is the maximum retail price allowed for that commodity and not the actual price and a retailer can well reduce his margin built into the MRP. Don’t forget to obtain proper receipt/cash memo. Obtain the guarantee/warranty card duly stamped and signed by the shopkeeper, wherever necessary. These can be helpful in consumer courts.
Now let’s take the case of restaurants. They charge more for cold drinks and bottled water. Hardly anybody shows resistance and most of the consumers pay gladly. Is this overcharging justified? No, provided the restaurants serve the packaged water or bottled cold drink in their own crockery. In this case they are offering a service in addition to the product.
Sometimes it also happens that the company increases the price of a product and sells old stocks/products on new price rates. But this new price does not apply to the stock already with the retailer. And this is where retailers try to make a quick buck by trying to sell the old stock at the new revised rate. So this is simply an unfair trade practice.
Now, speaking specifically in the context of sale of drugs. The increase in the prices of drugs is not less than a tsunami for the patients as most of them have been struggling to lay their hands on the drugs for their treatment. The local pharma market is already dominated by the skewed drug prices.
In my previous columns on the subject, I have been deliberating upon the skewed pricing of medicines, especially the life-saving drugs, in the local markets. It makes sense to reproduce those pharma trade tricks eating the savings of gullible patients. Even as you see the cost of the medicine plainly displayed on its cover, the actual cost price of the drug remains invisible. It’s wrapped in so many layers like maximum retail price (MRP) that almost no one understands what’s really happening. The maximum retail price (MRP) printed on most of the drugs/ a healthcare article is already loaded with unbelievable margins ranging from 100 to 1000 percent!
Now coming to most recent technology driven mode of payment method where cash is not involved. I mean making purchases through the use of credit and debit cards. Instances galore where merchant establishments (shopkeepers) here charge commission from the cardholder if they desire to make payment through cards.
To put the things straight, a credit or a debit card holder does not need to pay any commission to the merchant establishment where he uses his card for making purchases and demanding this kind of ‘commission’ from the cardholder is unethical as well as illegal. However, the onus lies on the cardholder. If he faces such a situation, he should immediately report to the card-issuing bank. Under Master Card guidelines, any merchant establishment found indulging in such unethical and illegal practices will be delisted and no bank can install Point of Sale (PoS) terminal at such business establishments.
There are numerous instances of profiteering engineered by our merchants. If you as a consumer want to set these profiteers right, you have help at hand. Instead of being a dumb driven consumer, you can take consumer court route. There are consumer protection laws are on your side. These laws are designed to protect you from deceptive and unfair practices. Lastly, we need a large scale consumer protection movement to curb the merchants of profiteering.