Pre-paid consumption has caused a lot of controversy in the community in recent years, especially in the beauty and fitness industry is more common. To this end, the HKSAR Government launched a two-month public consultation on the policy proposals for the Trade Descriptions Ordinance, including a 7-day cooling-off period for pre-paid contracts for beauty and fitness services.
Hong Kong’s Sing Tao daily reported on June 30 that the SAR government has put forward a number of proposals in the public consultation document, including a proposal to establish a statutory cooling-off period of 7 days and a refund period of 14 days, it also proposed setting a regulatory threshold based on the contract amount. To reduce the risk of prepaid consumption, the government proposes to limit the contract period to a maximum of two years, and prohibits businesses from entering into contracts with consumers of unknown duration (i.e. , no duration) . A spokesman for the HKSAR Government said problems such as improper sales practices and pre-paid consumption risks were concentrated in the beauty and fitness services industry. From 2020 to 2025, complaints about improper payment for beauty and fitness services accounted for about 50% of the complaints.
On June 30, the deputy secretary-general of Hong Kong’s commerce and Economic Development Bureau, Ms. au wai-sum, said on a radio program that the goal of the consultation was to protect consumers’ rights and interests while avoiding over-regulation, to build a fair and just system for merchants and consumers, and to create a good operating environment. The Consumer Council said that this was an important step in strengthening the protection of consumers against bad business practices and in improving the overall consumer protection system. The chairman of the Consumer Council, Mr Chan Kam-wing, said that beauty and fitness services involved large amounts of money and long contracts, and consumers were prone to make hasty decisions under high-pressure marketing, “In the long run, the policy will help create a healthy and sustainable market environment.”. The chairman of the Hong Kong Beauty Industry Association, Mr Ip Sai-hung, said that the beauty industry generally calculated services by number of times. Sometimes customers could not use the service due to physical reasons and needed to extend the service. Setting a contract period could harm the interests of consumers.
Hong Kong legislator Tang Ka-biao said that in the past, consumers needed to complain to the customs when they encountered disputes involving a cooling-off period, and sales staff might be involved in criminal prosecutions. He proposed to establish a cooling-off period, this resolves the dilemma that consumers can only complain to the customs, and also allows employees not to be held criminally responsible. Chan hang-pan, a legislator from the UDF, said he hoped the scope of regulation could be expanded if similar consumption problems arose in other industries after the policy had been implemented for some time.
Many Hong Kong residents agree. Ms. Luo, a citizen, recounted her experience of being“Caught” in her early years. At that time, she was forced to stay in her room for nearly two hours by the staff of the boxing school after attending the boxing experience class. She then repeatedly called to threaten to“Break the contract and pay for the money”. Mr. Li, who has a fitness habit, believes that the length of the cooling-off period should be linked to the contract period.
Hong Kong media commented on June 30 that for a long time, some beauty salons and fitness centers have used preferential discounts as bait to lure consumers into signing long-term, high-value prepaid contracts, but after the frequent decline in service quality, sudden closure, refused to refund and other issues, consumers often have no way to recover. In 2024, the Hong Kong Fitness Centre chain shut down, and the Consumer Council received more than 4,000 complaints, involving a total amount of HK $139 million, a record in the history of the Consumer Council. These incidents reflect the current regulation of prepaid consumption, but it is clearly inadequate. The new measures of the SAR government“Are an important step to protect consumers’ rights and interests, and an important opportunity to promote the healthy development of the industry”, reflecting the“People-oriented” policy philosophy.