"I don't rent to Roma!" Czech Trade Inspection Authority discovers discrimination against Romani renters by a residential hotel, no fine levied against the owner
The Czech Trade Inspection Authority (ČOI) has undertaken a series of audits focused on revealing discrimination against consumers in the Czech Republic during the second quarter of 2024. Forty audits were undertaken between 1 April and 30 June 2024; discriminatory treatment was discovered in three.
The cases concerned discrimination on the basis of race, sex and other factors. The ČOI issued a press release about its findings on 14 August.
So far this year inspectors have revealed eight such cases. One pertained to an audit of a residential hotel facility, where the inspector performed a simulated reservation for four Romani adults.
“The entrepreneur whom we contacted said that would be a problem because she had had very bad experiences [with other Romani tenants] and she ultimately refused to accommodate them,” the ČOI reported in its press release. The consumer protection law forbids tradespeople from discriminating against customers when providing services or selling products and forbids them to differentiate among customers on the basis of age, disability, ethnic origin or sex.
Another case concerned “wellness” facilities, where inspectors revealed different entrance fees for men and women. While men were charged CZK 700 [EUR 30], women were charged just CZK 200 [EUR 8].
The operator of the facilities justified the differential pricing as part of her marketing strategy because male customers allegedly have higher incomes. The third case of discrimination involved the field of e-commerce, when a consumer who had frequently returned goods ordered online ascertained he was automatically prevented from ordering more goods from the same online outlet.
“The investigation revealed that the consumer placed three orders with the e-shop, returning the goods received through the first and second orders, with his third order being rejected by the online retailer. The person being audited justified their behavior by saying that when the products were repeatedly returned, in one case the tags had been removed from them, even though that meant the goods could no longer be used according to the contractual terms,” the ČOI said.
In addition to these cases, the ČOI ascertained eight more cases of consumer protection regulations being violated, concerning, for example, the incorrect labeling of prices or insufficient information about resolving consumer disputes out of court being provided to the consumer. The Inspection Authority, on the basis of these findings, handed down six fines worth a total of CZK 55,000 [EUR 2,200], but none of those fines involved the cases of discrimination.
The ČOI stated that given its most recent findings, it will continue to pay increased attention to the discrimination issue.
