Chinese consumer complaints hit five-year high

Chinese consumer complaints hit a five year high with an increase of 11.1 percent, market watchdog State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) revealed.

The total number of complaints filed with the SAIC hit 12.9 million, the China Daily reported on tuesday.

The most-complained-about categories were daily necessities (160,600), telecommunications networks (124,900), home appliances (97,800), transportation (93,500) and food (66,500).

Those combined took up 74.9 percent of total volumes.

Within the all-important services sector, the top five most-complained-about areas were distance shopping, residential services, telecommunication, online services and repairs.

Complaints about automobiles and parts, and mobile phones grew 37.3 percent and 9.7 percent.

There were 122,800 mobile phone complaints, within a total 500 million devices sold last year.

The SAIC said it dealt directly with 1.21 million complaints in 2015, a 12.2 percent rise on the previous year, which involved transactions worth 3.79 billion yuan ($584 million).

Online shopping led to 145,800 individual consumer complaints, up 87.3 percent, with the quality of items and the truth of advertising triggering the most consumer anger.