A site about consumer rights

There may be many instances when you swallowed the anger and frustration against the shopkeeper who cheated on you with your new buy. Don’t take it anymore, shout out. Let others hear and you be pacified.

 A few Malayalam sentences carrying the same meaning would invite you to the website of shoutout.in, which is a place to jot down your complaints on consumer items, make it a public talk, hear about similar experiences and invite responses and reactions.

 Shoutout is an initiative from Trivandrum Bloggers Group. It may be the first time that such a website has come up in Malayalam. A few bloggers like Sreekandakumar (blogger of tech.in), Uncle (upabokthavu) and Keralafarmer deserve more accolades than others for the effort they have put in. While Sreekandakumar has done all the technical make-up, Uncle and Keralafarmer have helped with the content and posting.

 The website will be launched by Shashi Tharoor MP on Tuesday at the tweetup organised in the city.

 “It’s not a complaint box. That alone would have drained its goodness. So, it’s an information site plus a complaint forum for consumers. We are all consumers and at some point of time we have had bad shopping experiences. So, it has a face of social service too,’’ says Sreekandakumar, who is a techie running his own firm.

 As many as 26 consumer items - from clothing, electronic appliances, gold and automobiles to cosmetics and stationery - have been listed, against which consumers can put down their complaints. All you need is a valid e-mail id of your own.

 The forum is for discussions too. “When you jot down a complaint, you will be surprised to hear a hundred other similar complaints. The comments to the post might point out a way to handle the situation or it may reveal something that you had failed to notice. So talking will always help,’’ Sreekandakumar says.

 Consumer rights, consumer protection rules and even a narration on who is a consumer can be found here. But the people behind the initiative are not in a mood to relax. They are still thinking of ways to make it user-friendly, which they promise will happen in the meantime.

 anil.asha@gmail.com