In the year since the Consumer Affairs Agency started a new Consumer Safety Investigation Committee to investigate consumer incidents, things have not gone well. The committee originally aimed to examine 100 cases per year, but then reduced that to 30 cases. In the end, it actually investigated only six of the some 4,000 consumer incidents reported every year.
Despite this rough start, the need for such a committee remains imperative. With 10 to 12 incidents reported on average every day, consumers deserve better support and protection. The purpose of the committee is to investigate reported incidents, determine causes and, if necessary, make recommendations for compensation or criminal charges. But from the start the committee has experienced significant problems.
The committee has been handicapped by insufficient funding. It needs to have more investigators than the 21 now employed. Currently many of those contributing to investigations are specialists who are not full-time members of the committee. With a large payroll, more investigators can talk to more specialists on the specifics of each investigation.