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Zveza Potrošnikov Slovenije - ZPS

About

 

ZPS –Slovene Consumers’ Association is a, non-profit, independent non-government membership consumer organisation established in 1990 to defend, promote and advocate for the interests of consumers. Currently it has approximately 8,000 membership fee paying members. ZPS is known by more than 90% of Slovenians and respected by general public as well as with other institutions and business. Its web portal www.zps.si the most important national web portal for consumer information and advice with approx. 850.000 unique visitors. ZPS is governed by an elected Council and led by its founder-President, Breda Kutin. ZPS acts as the champion of the individual consumer, through advice and information, research and advocacy, campaigning and policy-making and represents Slovenian consumers nationally and internationally. Its most powerful tool is the independent consumer magazine ZPStest, published by ZPS’s research arm International Consumer Research Institute (MIPOR).

ZPS is also an active member of:
o    the European Consumer Voice in Standardization (ANEC)
o    International Consumer Research & Testing (ICRT)
o    Consumers International (CI)

Success Stories
  • 2017: In 2015, when reference interest rates started to fall below zero, Sparkasse bank decided not to take negative Euribor into account when calculating loan interest, even though the loan agreement did not include any clause that excluded negative Euribor nor did it include a clause setting the minimum interest rate at 0.0%. We filed an injunction action against Sparkasse in 2017 claiming the Bank should calculate the applicable interest rate without using the 0% EURIBOR floor. The court ruled in our favour in 2021 and banned the bank from using this unfair practice for further use. The higher court rejected the bank's appeal and on 1 April 2022 the decision of the court of first instance became final.

  • 2015-2019: Three energy collective switching campaigns (Electricity and gas). More than 100.000 Slovenian households participated and direct savings by switching with ZPS of more than 2,4 Mio € were secured.

  • 2006: Following a complaint by one of ZPS members in 2006, ZPS discovered a material breach of the law in the long-term savings contracts of NLB, as the bank had been decreasing the interest rates previously agreed upon in the contract. ZPS filed 160 lawsuits. The individual claims amounted to between 400 and 20,000 euro. Subsequently the bank offered all of their clients (approximately 40,000 of them) settlement to pay only part of the outstanding interest rates. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in favour of the savers on most counts, the bank in 2009 suggested a legal settlement, which two thirds of the plaintiffs agreed upon. Our estimate is that owing to our efforts, the NLB savers will be paid additional 12 million euro by the bank.

  • 1994: As a result of a dispute over a telephone bill (following disputed use of commercial hotlines), a lawsuit was filed against Telekom Slovenije in 1994. It ended in 2004 with an out-of-court settlement. During negotiations with Telekom ZPS succeeded in resolving a number of disputes regarding the misuse of commercial hotlines.

  • Between 1991 and 1993: ZPS filed 200 lawsuits against the company Cimos. Buyers of vehicles sold by the company had suffered financial damages after the company had failed to deliver cars on time and rejected acknowledge the interest of their prepayments, even though the company itself was several months late in delivering the prepaid vehicles. Payment of delayed interest were paid after several years of legal battles.

  • 1991: In the first year of its activity, in 1990 ZPS reviewed the home loan contracts of SKB Bank. Several thousand borrowers had complained about a massive increase in the value of their loans. In time of extremely high inflation the SKB bank unilaterally changed the contracts by increasing “real” interest rate (inflation excluded) from 2% to 5% and finally to 14% in the period of couple of months. ZPS, with great support of media lobbied decision makers who listened to ZPS proposals for resolving an unbearable situation for families with housing loans. The ZPS campaign coincided with the preparation stage of the new Housing Act, as a result of which ZPS played a major role in proposing remedies to the problems for the advantage of majority of the borrowers. ZPSs' proposal, which was included in the Housing Act, was to transfer 20% of the purchase price of approx. 150.000 council estates sales into the initial capital of the Housing Fund to be used as the seed capital for granting low-interest loans. In the first-round loans on 2% interest rate were granted only to borrowers of the SKB Bank, providing certain conditions were met. By transferring loans to the fund and solving consumer issue of SKB Bank housing loans, 3.500 borrowers (families) saved more than 200 million euro in total, whereas a 25% discount was given by the bank to individuals which exceeded 50 million euro in total (calculated to present day value). Inflation in Slovenia amounted in 1989 to 2700%. Since ZPS played a very important part in resolving this issue and in establishing the Housing Fund, its president was appointed as a member of the Housing Fund management board and as a Head of Loans committee. As a member of the Board, she represented consumer interests for four years. As for those borrowers who were unable to take out Housing Fund loans, ZPS helped them by filing nine »sample« lawsuits against the SKB Bank. The dispute was resolved by settlement between ZPS and the bank in 2002.

Facts
  • Founded in June 1990
  • A BEUC member since 1995 and CI full member since 1991
  • 20 full time and part time staff
  • Members in 2022: 7,700
  • Advice to ZPS members and 10,000 requests for advice on a yearly basis

www.zps.si