The Customs and Excise Department ("C&ED") is the principal agency responsible for enforcing the TDO. Concurrent jurisdiction is conferred on the Communications Authority ("CA"), with the Office of the Communications Authority ("OFCA") as its executive arm, to enforce the "fair trading sections" in relation to the commercial practices of licensees under the Telecommunications Ordinance (Cap. 106) ("TO") and the Broadcasting Ordinance (Cap. 562) ("BO") that are directly connected with the provision of a telecommunications service or broadcasting service under the two Ordinances.

To enforce the "fair trading sections" of the TDO effectively and ensure that every case is taken up by the appropriate enforcement agency, the Commissioner of Customs and Excise and the CA have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding for the purpose of coordinating the performance of their functions.

The CA will take up cases which involve unfair trade practices connected with a telecommunications/broadcasting service provided by licensees under the TO and the BO.

In the event that the aforementioned unfair trade practices adopted by a telecommunications/broadcasting service licensee involve "goods/non-telecommunications, non-broadcasting services", such cases will be handled by C&ED while OFCA will offer support. (Please refer to the following table for details.)

Delineation of responsibilities for cases of unfair trade practices involving the telecommunications/broadcasting industry:

# the areas with which any unfair trade practice is concerned

OFCA will, as it has been the case all along, closely monitor the developments in the telecommunications and broadcasting markets, and where circumstances warrant, exercise the powers conferred on the CA under the TDO. OFCA will examine every consumer complaint received pursuant to the Compliance and Enforcement Policy Statement of the Enforcement Guidelines, and conduct the relevant investigation and enforcement work in accordance with the principles elaborated in the Policy Statement and by considering the listed factors under the enforcement resource priority, as well as adopting the most appropriate enforcement tools having regard to the actual circumstances of each case.

In addition to enforcement work, OFCA will also cooperate with C&ED to strengthen public education in order to help consumers understand and guard against unfair trade practices in the market, and also to enhance traders’ understanding of and promote their compliance with the "fair trading sections" of the TDO.

To lodge a complaint with OFCA about a suspected contravention of the “fair trading sections” of the TDO, the complainant should fill in the specified complaint form and send it to OFCA. Please click here for more details.

The complainant’s assistance is crucial to facilitate OFCA to conduct its investigation. The complainant is reminded to:

• keep the originals of the relevant documents and information (such as contracts, bills, prepaid card packages, advertisements, correspondence, information of the salespersons involved, etc.)   properly, and submit the copies to OFCA;
• lodge the complaint as soon as possible, as memory may fade with time; and
• provide written statement(s) to OFCA and act as a prosecution witness in court proceedings, where necessary.

The "fair trading sections" prohibit specified unfair trade practices including false trade descriptions in relation to goods and services, misleading omissions, aggressive commercial practices, bait advertising, bait-and-switch and wrongly accepting payment. Sections 4, 5, 7, 7A, 13E, 13F, 13G, 13H and 13I of the TDO specify the relevant offences.

Generally speaking, contractual disputes and customer service issues are outside the scope of the TDO. Some examples are given below for illustration purpose only:

• The customer disagrees with a charge which has been specified under the contract (e.g. early contract termination charge), or considers that the charge is too high.
• Poor attitude of the trader’s customer service staff.
• The customer considers that the trader’s follow-up of his/her complaint was slow.
• The customer considers that the service provided by the trader was of poor quality.