Opinion – Maria Inês Dolci: CDC is still little known by entrepreneurs

In 2021, almost 4 million entrepreneurs legally became micro and small business owners or individual microentrepreneurs. An advance of around 20% over 2020. It was a mixture of entrepreneurship with the need to continue standing in the midst of 12.4 million unemployed. These numbers reinforce the importance of taking consumer education beyond product manuals.

Entrepreneurs who enter the market must be prepared for consumer relations. Explain how the CDC (Consumer Defense Code) and the entire SNDC (National Consumer Defense System) apparatus works.

These are not easy, automatic relationships. Seeing the customer as a consumer requires dedication and respect for legislation – not only for the CDC, which is already very broad and comprehensive, but for the Elderly Statute, the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, the LGPD (General Personal Data Protection Law); the Child and Adolescent Statute, and the Over-indebtedness Law.

In the recent past, at the head of an entity for the defense of consumer rights, we had the opportunity to produce some 40 booklets on topics of interest to consumers, service providers and authorities. There are several applause-worthy initiatives promoted by non-profit associations, such as the Alana Institute’s Toy Exchange Fair.

Sebrae (Support Service for Micro and Small Enterprises) has good courses, including distance courses, covering various topics of interest to entrepreneurs.

But what I am defending here is a change in business vision, with a focus on the consumer. If millions of Brazilians are going to undertake, today or tomorrow, they should have contact with concepts of consumer relations since the first years of high school.

The CDC would have to be better known and debated early on, both for Brazilians to know their rights in this area, and for future businesswomen to understand their responsibilities in consumer relations. The basis for all of this is basic consumer rights:

• life, health and safety;
• education, information and freedom of choice;
• protection against misleading and abusive advertising;
• contractual protection;
• the prevention and repair of damage;
• the defense of rights;
• adequate and effective public service.

They should also familiarize themselves with advances made possible by the CDC, such as the reversal of the burden of proof, which takes into account the consumer’s vulnerability to economic power. It is the manufacturer or service provider who has to prove, in lawsuits, that the consumer has not been harmed in a certain right.

But you can also contribute to consumer rights, which belong to all of us: make sure your sons and daughters have access to the Code. Explain that all citizens have rights when they buy a product or service. While this doesn’t become a subject at school, let’s do our part.