Months have passed since fisherman Song Yu ordered a cell phone from a TV shopping program. Exhausted by anxious waiting, he called the hotline only to find it had been cancelled.

The farmer in China's northeast Jilin Province was not the only victim of TV shopping frauds in the country. Statistics show that an increasing number of farmers are entangled in such schemes.

According to the statistics released by the consumer society of Jilin, farmers' complaints of TV shopping programs accounted for 50 percent of the total consumer complaints in the past nine months, compared with 20 percent previously.

To offset the impact of the global economic downturn, the Chinese government has put forward stimulus packages aimed at boosting domestic demand by encouraging farmers to buy more.

But swindlers found the occasion a rare opportunity to plunder the meager income of farmers. While urban residents are immune to TV shopping programs due to constant exposure, TV shopping is a novel concept to farmers.

Zong Shouyun, director of the publicity and education center of Jilin consumer society, said efforts should be made to warn farmers to make cautious selections in buying goods promoted by TV shopping programs.

Analysts said that consumers were very likely to buy low-quality products or be swindled as TV shopping programs barred consumers from seeing both the product and the dealer.

TV shopping programs began to spread in China in late 1990s, and mostly feature promotions for health care products such as digital products aimed to increase body height and facilities for treating shortsightedness.

In August 2006, China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) issued a ban to suspend misleading TV programs following complaints by consumers.

Those programs included TV shopping programs for medicine, medical equipment, weight loss, breast enlargement and other beauty products and treatments.

The suspension will only be lifted when these kinds of programs have been corrected and a new circular can be released.

Ren Qian, deputy director of media organization management department of SARFT, said in a recent interview that SARFT was drafting a management document of TV shopping programs in an effort to rectify the practice of TV shopping.

More stringent and specific measures would be formulated on the market entry and air time of TV shopping programs, he said, adding those who violated the rules would be ordered to suspend their programs. Licenses could be canceled for the most severe cases.

But analysts have remained optimistic about China's TV shopping market and predicted potential.

Ye Maozhong, a brand management expert, said "TV shopping in China has a potential market but lacks standardized operation."

A report from China's TV shopping research and development center showed that TV shopping accounted for only 0.15 percent of total volume of China's retail sales in 2008, while the figure was eight percent in the United States and more than 10 percent in the Republic of Korea.

Public mistrust in the profession halted the development of TV shopping in China, according to the report.

(Xinhua News Agency June 30, 2009)