CONSUMER COMPLAINTS REGARDING OVERPRICING IN THE COVID-19 PERIOD AND MEASURES TAKEN IN TERMS OF COMPETITION LAW

Abstract

The aim of this study is to describe consumer complaints about overpricing during the Covid-19 period, to determine and evaluate what kind of preventive and regulatory measures have been taken in terms of Competition Law in the world and in Turkey. The secondary data obtained using the Document Scanning method has been simplified and the sentences and paragraphs used as the analysis unit have been gathered under the same subheadings. The qualitative data obtained are given in tables; In addition, complaints regarding overpricing in the last 20 months on sikayetvar.com are classified. The findings that emerged in the complaint analysis on the sikayetvar.com site are presented both numerically and categorically in tables. The most frequently complained goods and services are domestic equipment and repairs, food, personal communication tools and services. The findings in the literature show that overpricing is applied by businesses in many countries with the Covid-19 epidemic. On the other hand, it has been revealed that the competition authorities of the countries impose sanctions on such companies that provide unfair profits. In this study, it has been pointed out that it is important to take the measures to eliminate the source of the problems with the common agreement of all parties, to include these measures in the market law and retail law to be enacted, and to constantly control the implementation of these measures.