Every year, over 130,000 people turn to the European Consumer Centres Network with questions and complaints regarding cross-border purchases of goods and services. Free assistance is provided by more than 150 lawyers and advisors in 29 offices located in EU countries, Norway, and Iceland, who resolve disputes with businesses with a success rate of approximately 60%. However, the cases they handle are not just statistics—they have detailed knowledge of current issues and can inspire lawmakers to amend legal regulations in order to improve the environment for consumers in the single market.
The ESC network has been in operation since 2005, when the two former networks, Euroguichets and EEJ-Net, merged. Since the 1990s, these networks had operated only in border regions to assist consumers facing difficulties with purchases made in ordinary shops across borders. Today, it is a tightly-knit team of national centers. Thousands of interactions take place daily between the centers via the European Commission’s online system, designed to resolve cross-border disputes within the aforementioned countries.
The center in the consumer’s country takes on the case, assesses it, and, if it deems the consumer’s claim justified, forwards it to the center in the business’s country, which then invites the seller to resolve the dispute out of court.
In the early years of the ESC network, air travel dominated the issues, including the impacts of the widespread closure of airspace following the eruption of the Icelandic volcano. Disputes with car rental companies are a perennial issue (unrefunded amounts for additional insurance sold by staff at the vehicle pickup location in exchange for refundable deposits, invoices for alleged body damage, etc.), and online shopping is a constantly growing area (undelivered goods, payment refunds, sellers’ unwillingness to resolve complaints remotely).
Digital services and subscriptions have been added over time (automatic renewals, delivery, right to rectification). The ESC network conducted mystery shopping, confirming European Commission surveys showing that roughly 95% of online purchases and contract cancellations within 14 days proceed without issues. The network offered people the ECC-Net Travel App and for several years compared services and prices at winter ski resorts in roughly twenty European countries.
Case data reveal recurring issues—such as the attitude of some car rental companies, unclear subscription terms, or the misuse of marketing discounts. The challenges are growing: platforms and marketplaces, cross-border fraud, new types of digital services where users barely notice the borders between countries. And then they’re surprised to find that on a website in Czech, they’ve used the services of a foreign company from which they must seek redress in a foreign language. European Consumer Centers are dedicated to raising awareness. They organize lectures for schools, universities, senior citizen clubs, and the general public. They speak to the media. They are in contact with partners in the consumer sector, such as consumer organizations, as well as with ministries, supervisory authorities, and the European Commission, which has been funding the network’s activities for 20 years together with participating member states.
The text was published in the magazine dTest 11/2025.