U.S. consumer head sees credit as main problem

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33254, 18 June 1973, Page 6

U.S. consumer head sees credit as main problem

(By arrangement with the "Christian Science Monitor")

(By

DIANA LOERCHER

NEW YORK.

To Miss Betty Furness, credit is the most important problem facing the consumer: “Credit in all it aspects, from misunderstanding 'contracts to the abuses that are used by industry to collect.”

And she confesses, for the first time, that her biggest personal gripe as a consumer is “pay toilets. I have never known what I was spending the 10 cents for.” The former television personality, petite, ash-blonde, and immaculately groomed, is New York City’s new Consumer Affairs Commissioner.

She succeeds Mrs Bess Myerson, and has only eight months remaining to serve under the current Administration of Mayor Lindsay. Miss Furness, a young-look-ing grandmother, appears less daunted than stimulated by the time limit, and her energy finds its match in the enterprise of the Department of Consumer Affairs, established in 1968 by Mayor Lindsay and encompassing the departments of licensing and marketing under its umbrella. The department’s precociousness has earned it nation-wide distinction, and Miss Furness brings to it her own expertise, acquired as special assistant for consumer affairs to President Johnson from 1967 to 1969 and as chairman, appointed by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1970, of the New York State Consumer Protection Board, a position from which she resigned in disillusionment after 11 months.

“Having gone from Federal to state to city, I’m heading for the local precinct, that’s very clear,” joked the shrewd and articulate Miss Furness while comparing her various positions. “LEGAL” POWER

“For different reasons I’ve had different emotions. When you are working in radio and television trying to do good things, and you get a call I from the White House, that is never going to be topped, right? “Then I had the state job which, as you know, did not work out. It turned out to be deceptive packaging. I don’t Ithink anyone intended it to be, but it turned out to be not what I thought it was going to be, and so I walked away from it. But in neither of those jobs did I have any power, and here I have power, legal power.” The “legal power” to which she refers is the result of Miss Myerson’s ground-break-ing Consumer Protection Law, passed by the City Council in 1969. It states: “No person shall engage in any deceptive or unconscionable trade practice in the sale, lease, rental, or loan of any consumer goods or services or in the collection of consumer debts.”

Its regulations cover such diverse matters as repair, advertising, credit, and the unit price and open dating of food products. A MODEL CITY

Miss Furness attributes the department’s success to the efforts of Mayor Lindsay and Miss Myerson, and she feels that New York should serve as a model of consumer protection for other cities.

“They only have to look here and see what has been accomplished. They can take out the Consumer Protection Law and introduce it locally just exactly as it is and then start up with our regulations.”

The only crack she perceives so far in her golden bowl is that “to a degree I think the legal work we’ve done has run ahead of the implementation, and that is what I’m going to try to fix. “At this point I think probably the most effective thing I can do is to try to consolidate department gains and make sure that now that we have these regulations and that we have this power, we (are following through on them. . . .

“We don’t necessarily have the personnel to inspect or enforce the regulations . . . and that, I would say, is our real role. Now, of course, that isn’t going to look terribly glamorous, but it’s housekeeping. It’s what must be done.” LEGAL AID PLANS

Sounding another practical note, Miss Furness emphasised the need for more neighbourhood offices, beyond the five that already exist, and announced plans for the establishment of two more.

“When I worked in Washington and was learning what this was all about, it became

clear to me that consumer protection eventually had to go down to neighbourhood level.”

She also hopes to make free legal advice and aid more readily available to consumers.

Miss Furness views the formation of consumer groups such as Women United for Action and the National Consumer Congress with the pleasure of Madame Defarge presiding over the French Revolution, but she urges a more enlightened approach to change. “Consumers in this country, female in this case, all spontaneously did the same thing at the same time (the recent meat boycott); it’s never happened before, but now they are going to have to harness their own energy. I mean, you can give them pep talks, and you can tell them how important they are, but unless they really care they’re not going to go through the hard work, the hard research, the business of raising enough money to pay their own phone bills and postage; and I hope terribly that they really care.” For the consumer movement to have ultimate power, Miss Furness says, “there are going to have to be organizations and there are going to have to be more sophisticated consumers than there are now People have got to find out what has gone into making prices go up to the degree they have and what are the specifics that can be done that may help turn the situation round....” Though the implication is

that education is a more powerful weapon than boycott, she ( did not discredit the importance of the recent meat boycott. “I think there was tremendous effectiveness in two ways. I never thought it would roll back meat prices more than a little for a short time, if indeed it did that. .. . But it did two things: “It showed the Administration that a big hunk of its constituency was angery and wanted some action taken, and never mind in this instance that the women didn’t know what the action should be more specifically. Never mind that. They sent a very fast message to the White House, a spontaneous and enermous message saying they were fed up. “Thats one good thing out of it. The other is that the meat industry has heard them, us (I boycotted), and the meat industry, I hope, got th) message ” “SCARED”SHOPS

Miss Furness offered a final word of advice to conspiratorial consumers: “If women are going to boycott supermarkets now, actually I think they’re pushing in the wrong place. I don’t know at what place they ought to be pushing, but think how scared those poor people must be now! It isn’t even their fault any more even if it was then. I think these women can probably get more co-operation from supermarkets than they can get from anybody else. . . In a sense they’re almost allies now.”