Press Release: Consumers: Commissioner Kuneva launches EU online consumer education programmes in Bulgaria and Romania

EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva launched a new internet programme designed to help adults and children know more about their basic consumers rights. You’ve bought a new hi-fi system and when you get it home it doesn’t work properly; you ordered books on the Internet, but you’ve never received them; you receive an invoice for an abnormally high mobile telephone bill; you booked a package holiday abroad before the summer, but it was nothing like what was described in the brochure. What can you do? How do you resolve these consumer problems? The EU online information consumer education programme ('DOLCETA' www.dolceta.eu) aims to provide some answers to these important questions. It sets out clearly – in three levels for basic to more advanced users - what consumer rights you have, on issues from sales contracts, to guarantees, to settling disputes and taking out a credit loan. The programmes are designed to be used by trainers and teachers in adult education, as well as in schools for 15-18 year old students, in primary schools, and for training or reference work by consumer organisations, government agencies, by NGOs or community education programmes. The online consumer education tools already existed in other EU languages, today it was extended to Bulgaria and Romania.