The Ministry of Commerce and Investment (MCI) announced that it has detected 128 violations among gold and jewelry shops, and some of the violators will face a two-year jail term and a fine of SR400,000 ($106,658).
Last week, the ministry carried out 2,670 inspections on gold and jewelry shops in different regions of the Kingdom. According to a ministry official, a total of 128 violations related to invoices, absence of proper licenses, not using the proper scales and others were registered.
Inspections revealed that 63 violations were related to invoices and price tags for not including detailed data on the prices in Arabic; 32 violations related to the absence of any billing data; 17 violations were for not using scales during the sale of jewelry and gemstones; 11 violations were for lack of a license to practice the activity; two violations for not stamping the gold offered for sale; two violations were for lack of invoices given to customers; one violation was for not stamping jewelry according to their proper karats.
The official said the ministry would continue its ongoing operations of inspection tours on all gold and jewelry shops to detect cases of fraud and irregularities practiced in these outlets.
In case of suspected fraud in gold and jewelry shops, customers have been requested to lodge their complaints through the ministry’s consumer call center (1900) or through the application of a commercial violation report, via their smart phones.