Concepts of seller, provider, and service in consumer law

Seller:

A seller is defined as a natural or legal person who offers goods to a consumer or acts on behalf of or for the account of the person offering the goods. Public legal entities are included within the scope of the concept of a seller. The seller's purpose is commercial or professional.

According to Article 3/1-i of the Law on the Protection of Consumers, public institutions and organizations, municipalities, ministries, and similar bodies that perform this work to generate income within the scope of their commercial and professional activities are considered sellers. Joint-stock companies, limited liability companies, natural or legal persons operating a commercial enterprise for profit, and public institutions and organizations such as ASKİ and İSKİ that generate income by selling goods and services within the scope of their duties are considered sellers. The only criterion the law relies on is acting for commercial or professional purposes. A seller is always a natural or legal person acting with the intent to generate income. Natural or legal persons acting without a profit motive are in no way considered sellers under the law.

Provider:

A provider is a natural or legal person, including public legal entities, who offers services to a consumer for commercial or professional purposes or acts on behalf of or for the account of the person offering the service.

“According to Article 3/1-I of the LAW ON THE PROTECTION OF CONSUMERS No. 6502, the only criterion sought is acting for commercial or professional purposes. The natural consequence of this is that a provider is always a natural or legal person acting with the intent to generate income. Natural or legal persons without an intent to generate income cannot be considered providers. This is because the provider, who is the counterparty to the consumer transaction, is an entrepreneur acting for commercial and professional purposes. It is of no importance whether the provider is a natural or legal person.”

Service:

“According to Article 3/1-I of the LAW ON THE PROTECTION OF CONSUMERS No. 6502, the only criterion sought is, “Any consumer transaction other than the provision of goods that is performed or committed to be performed in exchange for a fee or benefit.”

Elements of service:

-Being performed in exchange for a fee or benefit.

-Committing to its performance.

-Not being a transaction for the provision of goods.

-Being in the nature of a legal consumer transaction.

What is important here is that the concept of service is kept quite broad due to this definition.

For consumer law to be understood and applied correctly, the concepts written in the third article of the law must be well known and correctly understood. If these basic concepts are not understood correctly, a transaction that is not within the scope of consumer law may be perceived as a consumer transaction, leading to incorrect applications and loss of rights.

As can be seen, the concept of service has been interpreted very broadly. If a transaction is a consumer transaction and is performed or committed to be performed in exchange for a fee or benefit, that transaction falls within the scope of the concept of service. The most important point to note here is that a transaction for the provision of goods is not a service transaction. As seen, a consumer transaction consists of actions. It is more related to performing a task. Tailoring, medicine, dentistry, law, etc., are each a service. These transactions constitute a service transaction. Each is a consumer transaction.