Make Fines Heftier by Consumer Forums
If I make 1000/- daily then do you think it's worth the hassle to take company to consumer forum for 10k loss if after 6 months of court visits, days off, paper work, stamp paper, application, mental hassle, my compensation is 20k? If I don't go, and others think like that, then it makes sense for companies to cheat their customers. If they cheat 10 customers for 10k and even if 1 customer wins 20k case against them, then they are still in profit for over 50k. And remember that while 10k is big for one customer, it is often trivial to corporations against which case happens.
Consumer Forums should be granted power to get compensation to the magnitude that it hurts the corporation and becomes deterrent next time around. For instance, for my above example, customer can get 2-3 lakh but company should pay 10 lakh and rest 7-8 lakh government can keep it's kitty as either general tax revenue or funding towards more consumer forum. Penalty amount should be big enough to compensate the time-value to customer and hurt corporation significantly, say 100-1000 times penalty amount. More penalty when there is proof that customer has raised issue politely before at appropriate level of escalations and yet company refused to settle.
This will empower customers. more