Irish consumers are the third most likely in Europe to complain about being prevented from buying goods on cross-border websites or being unable to have them delivered in Ireland, new research has found.

Shoppers can be discriminated by nationality through “geo-blocking”, which prevents customers in one country being able to use a company’s website in another EU country. The frustrations of customers across the EU are the focus of a three-year trawl of complaints to ECC-Net, a network of 30 European centres overseeing cross-border transactions.

The report entitled “Do Invisible Borders Still Restrict Consumer Access to Services in the EU?” is published today by the Ireland-based European Consumer Centre. Consumers in the Republic, but also in Northern Ireland, “continue to face artificial barriers and are regularly confronted with refusal to deliver, longer delivery times and often higher prices”.

The EU is now likely to call for tougher enforcement on the grounds that “geo-blocking” breaches EU single market rules that allow companies to sell across the Union.

Between January 2013 and December 2015, ECC-Net received 532 complaints – an increase of 140 per cent on the previous three years. The largest number of complaints came from Austria, followed by Italy and Ireland.

“They face restrictions and are regularly confronted with refusal to deliver or higher prices based on their nationality or place of residence,” the ECC-Net report said.

More than two-thirds of complaints dealt with higher prices being charged for electronic goods, household appliances, vehicles, clothes, books and music or data downloads. A quarter of complaints came from customers who said they had been charged more for holidays, amusement park visits and hotels than were available to people living in the country where the website was based.

Disneyland

In April, Disney stopped charging its German and British customers more for visits to Disneyland Paris, following an EU warning that the company could face an investigation by regulators.

A refusal to supply was the most frequent complaint, followed by price differences. Some price gaps are explained by deals companies make with suppliers, the report found.

“Complaints received by ECC-Net confirm that the principle of non-discrimination of article 20.2 has not been effective in combating unjustified service differentiation,” the report said.

Standard complaint rules should be put in place across the EU because customers find it “extremely challenging” currently to obtain redress when things go wrong.

“ECC-Net welcomes the European Commission’s acknowledgment that further action is necessary to give effect to this principle and develop rules against discrimination.”

Some price gaps are justified, however where additional costs are incurred because of distance, or due to market conditions, pricing by competitors, or extra risk linked to rules differing in member states.

However, the report notes, “the lack of clarity as to what constitutes a direct justification by objective criteria . . .gives rise to arbitrary justifications”.

Irish complaints

One Irish shopper complained that he had attempted to use a UK-based website but was told to use the Irish site instead. While he could browse the UK site’s content, it would not deliver to Ireland.

In another case, an Irish consumer ordered a dress from a UK-based site where it was priced at £95 (€113), but it was marked at €155 on the Irish version of the site. The consumer indicated the UK as the place of delivery, but was told she would have to pay €155 as she was using an Irish credit card and clearly residing in Ireland. That case was referred to the Trading Standards office in the UK which refused to look into the matter, arguing the EU Services Directive was not applicable in the case of online purchase of goods.

In another example, in the “offline world”, an Irish consumer who attempted to hire a car in France was refused a vehicle having been unable to provide a French driving license.