The government on Friday estimated consumer losses from shady business practices at ¥3.39 trillion in fiscal 2007 and called for creating an effective system for bailing out victims.
The estimated losses in the year to last March were equivalent to some 0.7 percent of the year's gross domestic product, the Cabinet Office said in an annual white paper on national lifestyles.
Shady business practices include fraudulent mail and door-to-door sales, and offering defective or mislabeled goods.
As losses are less than ¥50,000 in some 40 percent of shady business practices, victims may do nothing to recover their losses in view of the costs involved, the paper said.
Some system should therefore be created to collectively reimburse consumers who have seen small losses, it said.
The paper also cited a poll indicating that some 70 percent of consumers feel the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan and other public organizations have failed to fully protect them.
Public organizations should enhance their readiness to protect consumers, it said.
The annual paper focused on consumers before the planned creation of a consumer agency next year to integrate the government's consumer protection operations.
"The consumer agency will become consumers' new counterpart to utilize consumers' ideas and proposals," Seiko Noda, minister in charge of consumer affairs, said Friday.