Recovering losses of 4.35 billion yuan! State Administration for Market Regulation releases 2025 consumer rights protection data

Source: CCTV News Client

Today (15th), the State Administration for Market Regulation announced that in 2025, market regulators across the country handled a total of 43.866 million consumer complaints, reports, and inquiries through the 12315 platform, phone calls, and other channels, recovering 4.35 billion yuan in economic losses for consumers and effectively protecting their legal rights.

The State Administration for Market Regulation highlighted the following characteristics of consumer complaints and reports in 2025:

Consumer complaints exceeded 20 million for the first time, with issues related to after-sales service and contracts being prominent

In 2025, market regulators nationwide received 20.366 million complaints, a 9.3% increase year-on-year. The total complaints surpassed 20 million for the first time, reflecting a continued rise in consumer awareness of rights. Complaints about after-sales service have ranked first for three consecutive years, indicating some merchants’ insufficient attention to after-sales guarantees and failure to meet basic service demands. Contract issues grew by 40.3% year-on-year, making it the fastest-growing core problem, with consumers mainly reporting difficulties in refunds, opaque contract terms, hidden “霸王条款” (abusive clauses) in standard contracts, merchants not fulfilling obligations as agreed, and discrepancies between promotional promises and contract content.

New trends in online shopping complaints, with economic losses recovered exceeding 1 billion yuan

In 2025, the 12315 platform received 15.067 million complaints and reports related to online shopping, a 14.3% increase year-on-year, accounting for 56.9% of total complaints and reports. Among these, complaints numbered 11.447 million, reports 3.62 million, recovering 1.07 billion yuan in economic losses for consumers, representing 24.6% of total recovered losses.

Regarding issues, after-sales service and product quality are the two most reported areas, with complaints of 3.486 million and 2.886 million respectively, together accounting for 42.3%.

Additionally, price disputes during shopping festivals are prominent, with core conflicts centered on: consumers paying deposits during pre-sale periods discovering lower prices during final payment or peak promotional periods. Despite platforms offering price protection services, consumers are often denied claims due to reasons such as changed product links or different types of coupons.

Noticeable fluctuations in takeout complaints, industry competition needs to become more rational

In 2025, platforms received 505,000 complaints and reports about takeout, a 14.1% increase year-on-year. The main issues include food safety (262,000), after-sales service (63,000), contract issues (24,000), unfair competition (23,000), and quality problems (19,000), together accounting for nearly 80% of complaints.

In the third quarter, major platforms engaged in subsidy wars to attract users, leading to a surge in orders. However, service quality could not keep pace, resulting in increased demands. Complaints and reports increased by 23.8% year-on-year and 19.2% quarter-on-quarter, marking the highest growth period of the year.

In the fourth quarter, as subsidy policies receded and the market cooled, complaint volumes decreased by 22.8% quarter-on-quarter. The Market Regulation Administration stated that overall, consumer demands in the takeout industry fluctuate with market conditions, and industry competition should shift toward more rational and sustainable development.

“Charging anxiety” complaints rise, service experience needs upgrading

In 2025, complaints related to power banks reached 156,000, a 62.5% increase year-on-year, mainly involving product quality issues, refund disputes, shared power bank borrowing and returning difficulties, and abnormal billing. Meanwhile, with the rapid increase in new energy vehicle ownership and expanding charging infrastructure, the quality of charging services is increasingly problematic.

Complaints involving EV charging infrastructure totaled 61,000, a 47.8% increase year-on-year. Key issues include difficulty in refunding recharge balances, some charging station operators disappearing (“跑路”), opaque charging standards, and unresponsive customer service.

Jewelry consumption upgrades, gold and jade become core complaint areas

In 2025, jewelry complaints reached 380,000, a 16.4% increase. Among these, gold jewelry (142,000) and natural jade (102,000) are the main focus, accounting for 87.9% of total jewelry complaints and reports, followed by silver jewelry (45,000), alloy jewelry (28,000), and natural gemstones (17,000).

Consumers mainly report three issues:

1. Some products have insufficient precious metal purity, inferior jade, or harmful substances exceeding standards;

2. “One-price” gold jewelry lacks clear weight markings, with actual prices far above market gold prices, and undisclosed exchange restrictions;

3. E-commerce sales issues are prominent, accounting for 60% of jewelry complaints, involving false advertising, mismatched products, and “no returns on custom orders.”

Smart devices rapidly emerging, functionality claims and user perceptions diverge

In 2025, the 12315 platform received 152,000 complaints about smart devices, a 26.6% increase. Leading categories include smartwatches (50,000), smart home devices (29,000), drones (19,000), smart accessories (18,000), and smart robots (17,000), together accounting for 87.5%. Drones, smart bands (10,000), and smart glasses (3,235) saw significant growth, with increases of 45.5%, 39.4%, and 37.7% respectively.

Main consumer concerns include:

1. Overhyped “smart” labels, with actual functions limited to basic networking or remote control, failing to address real needs, leading to large expectation gaps;

2. Software issues such as failed system updates, app crashes, poor compatibility, and data synchronization problems, often intertwined with hardware faults;

3. Lack of unified technical standards and quality benchmarks in emerging smart device fields, with incomplete after-sales systems and high thresholds for returns and exchanges.

(Reporter Wang Jing, CCTV)