Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/578494
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER 2015 News Toyota Malta For more information contact: Michael Debono Limited 0GLQD5RDGĽHEEXã 7HO VDOHV#WR\RWDFRPPW ZZZWR\RWDFRPPW Toyota Gozo Showroom 0ãDUU5RDG ;HZNLMD;:.*R]R 7HO JJV#WR\RWDFRPPW 5 year WARRANTY DEBONO F I N A N C E ONLY 5.5% VARIABLE RATE OVER 6 YEARS Police question Gaffarena brothers BROTHERS Marco and Michael Gaffarena have been called in for questioning by the Eco- nomic Crimes Unit at the Police Headquarters, MaltaToday is in- formed. The brothers join their father, businessman Joe Gaffarena, who was called in at the headquarters on Sunday evening. He was also held in the lock-up for some time while under police custody. As part of "a broad investiga- tion", the police also questioned Daniel Zammit, a former police officer and son of the former acting police commissioner Ray Zammit, who was in business with the Gaffarena family. Although there is no confirma- tion of what the Police are inves- tigating, it is understood that the Zammit-Gaffarena business rela- tionship could be the subject of interest. The Gaffarena family's involve- ment with the family of former acting police commissioner Ray Zammit raised numerous ques- tions of conf licts of interest for the family of police officers; and former police inspector Daniel Zammit's conduct in the prosecu- tion of Joe Gaffarena's son-in-law, Stephen Caruana, for murder. The links were the recent subject of an inquiry by Judge Michael Mallia. Maltese consumers know their rights, EU scoreboard shows MIRIAM DALLI THE Maltese are your best go-to population if you have any ques- tions about faulty products and guarantees, a study by the Euro- pean Commission on online shop- ping has found. The Consumer Conditions Scoreboard – an EU-wide survey that tracks the situation and be- havior of consumers across mem- ber states – has shown that Malta had the highest proportion (66%) of correct answers to the question on faulty product guarantee. However, the island is amongst the lowest in terms of correct an- swers to the questions on promo- tion of products for children (63%) and the use of premium rate phone numbers (52%). The scoreboard also finds Ger- many and Malta among the coun- tries with the lowest prevalence of unfair practices in the EU, based on consumers' assessments. How- ever, they have a much worse per- formance in the retailers' eyes. On product safety warnings, a third of retailers who sell non- food products (33%) say that pub- lic authorities have issued product safety warnings in their sector in the last 24 months. The same proportion of EU re- tailers says that public authorities have asked for product recalls or withdrawals in their sector in the last 24 months. On average, these measures were most common in Ireland (44 %), Malta (42 %) and Germany (40 %), as opposed to 13% in Lithuania and 15% in Es- tonia. The European Union is also try- ing to push the promotion of alter- native dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms. According to the scoreboard, the proportion of re- tailers who are willing or obliged to participate in an ADR scheme ranges from 53% in Malta, 44% in Hungary and 43% in Spain to 14% in Latvia, 16% in Lithuania and 17% in Cyprus. These indicators are expected to considerably improve due to the implementation of the ADR Directive, the European Commis- sion believes. In 2014, only 15% of consumers reported buying goods or serv- ices via the internet from other EU countries while 44% bought from national sellers/providers. Less than a tenth of consumers (8%) reported buying online from sellers outside the EU. Domestic online purchases are also made much more frequently than cross- border ones. In a recent survey of online consumers, domestic purchases accounted for 70% of the most recent online purchases, followed by purchases in other EU countries (12%) and outside the EU (6%). According to the score- board, intra-EU cross-border pur- chases are more popular in some of the smaller countries with lan- guage and cultural links to larger markets. The highest levels were found in Luxembourg, Austria, Malta, Finland, Denmark and Bel- gium, where over a third of con- sumers say they have made online purchases in another EU country in the past year. Online shopping outside the EU is most popular in Malta (24%), Finland, Luxembourg (both 18%) and the UK (17%). While 37 % of EU retailers sell online to consumers in their own country, only 12% sell to consum- ers in other EU countries. This is even lower than the percentage of those who make such sales outside the EU (14%). "Cross-border online sales are more popular in some of the smaller markets, where the do- mestic economy may be too small to amortise the fixed costs of de- veloping an e-commerce infra- structure. Retailers in Iceland are the most likely to sell online to consumers in other EU countries (34 %), followed by those in Greece (24%), Malta (22%) and Ireland (21%). Some of these countries also have the highest rates of on- line sales to consumers outside the EU: 34% in Iceland, 22% in Greece and Croatia, 21% in Malta and Cy- prus." The Commission's study also finds that, at country level, pref- erence for online sellers that also have a physical shop is the lowest in Luxembourg (21%) and Malta (23%), which could be linked to a much smaller presence of physical shops in these smaller countries. In Malta, Germany and Austria, almost 95% of consumers had their latest online purchase delivered at home/work, compared to less than 40% in Estonia (where a third of respondents picked up their order from a collecting point/safe box), Latvia and Finland (where the same proportion picked it up from a local post office). Marco Gaffarena