Craftsman services biggest culprit when failed purchases gobble up billions every year

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Published: 2024-04-25 07:46

Artisans, carpenters, Hallstavik Photo: Fotograferna Holmberg / TT /

Every year Swedes lose at least SEK 40 billion on purchases that don’t end well. This is shown by a new study by the Swedish Consumer Agency.
A small group accounts for the greatest cost; craftsman services and house building, closely followed by the car trade and telecom services.

Unsuccessful purchases lead to consumers losing both time and money. For example, it could be about goods that don’t work as they should or services that aren’t performed as requested.

In total, for the whole of 2023, Swedish consumers lost SEK 40 billion. That is as much as SEK 6,500 per consumer.

The industries in the study

The figures come from a study carried out by the Swedish Consumer Agency and are based on 8,000 cases of consumer problems that have been collected over a four-year period. This concerns, for example, goods and services that are deficient, trips that are canceled and contracts that are difficult to cancel.

Many different industries appear in the study. But it is a small group that accounts for the greatest cost; at the top are craftsman services and house building, closely followed by the car trade and telecom services.

If you look at the most common purchases that go wrong, the statistics are topped by food, telecom services, clothing, restaurant visits, home electronics and train travel.

– What stands out in the results for Sweden, compared to other countries that have done similar studies, are problems with house construction and, specifically for 2023, installation of solar cells, says Hannah Hall, analyst at the Consumer Agency.

A big dark speech

The Swedish Consumer Agency states that the total figure of SEK 40 billion is large, as much as one percent of Sweden’s GDP.

– This figure is high. But it is also, unfortunately, an underestimation of the total damage caused to consumers. There is indeed a large amount of darkness here and it concerns problems that consumers are not aware of. For example, this applies to misleading marketing. We don’t know how much money is hidden here, says Hannah Hall.