Consumer Revolt Spurred Via the Internet

sas-dot writes "UK's newspaper Independent outlines the brewing consumer revolt being fomented on the web. 'Consumer militancy' is becoming ever more common, as individuals join forces on the internet to fight back against the state and big business. Businesses from banks to soccer clubs have been the target of these groups, in each case facing the fury of consumers who feel they have been wronged. For example, 'A mass revolt has left the high street banks facing thousands of claims from customers seeking to claw back some of the £4.75bn levied annually on charges for overdrafts and bounced cheques. More than one million forms demanding refunds have been downloaded from a number of consumer websites. The banks are settling out of court, often paying £1,000 a time.' Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"

Comments

Consider my mountain bike...

[AdamInParadise]

A few months ago, I bought a nice mountain bike from a well-known vendor. Right from the start I had issues with the front crank. So I went online and founds hundreds of people having exactly the same problem on the very same model. It gave me a much stronger case to get the shop to replace the problematic part by another brand: they could not claim that it was my fault. So yeah, online consumer activist is good, but you already knew that, right ?