ECC looks back on 2025: demand for our services keeps rising
In 2025, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the ECC Network with our colleagues, the European Commission and our partners. We reflected on twenty years of cooperation and the importance of good consumer protection. The fact that this is necessary is clearly noticeable: more and more consumers are asking us for help with a purchase or trip that didn’t go as expected.
More consumers helped
In 2025, we helped nearly 12,000 consumers with problems related to purchases and cross-border travel. That is over 30% more than in 2024. This once again shows how important it is that we are easily accessible. Because without our help, those consumers would not have received what they were entitled to.
More than one and a half million euros recovered
With the same number of employees as last year, we gave advice in 6506 cases and mediated in 5453 cases. We are receiving more and more requests. Unfortunately, this means that consumers have to wait longer for a response and that we can no longer handle all cases. Despite that, our lawyers recovered no less than €1.6 million for consumers this year. The ECC Network recovered a total of more than €11 million.
Recurring topics and countries where things went wrong
Most complaints from Dutch consumers were about international air travel, online services (such as dating sites) and women's clothing and shoes. This year, their complaints were mainly about problems with companies from Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Conversely, consumers from abroad complained most about Dutch providers of accommodation, international air travel, or women's clothing and shoes.
Website use and online accessibility
Our online information remains important to consumers. In 2025, almost one in three website visitors used our template letters. The most popular were the template letters to cancel a subscription and to ask for compensation for baggage issues. We also started initiatives aimed at improving the accessibility of our online services in 2026.
Consumers have their say
According to our customer satisfaction survey, 80% of consumers are satisfied or very satisfied with our help. Moreover, 85% would recommend our services. This is what consumers say about the ECC:
"It's great that you are here. Without your efforts, I would not have expected to get the money back."
"I didn't know about ECC before. It's great that this agency is there for the consumer. Without ECC, I would definitely not have received compensation for the canceled flight."
"I just would like to thank you very much for your work. In these small disputes, as a customer you feel super helpless. I would have never thought to get my money back, but thanks to you it worked! Thank you very much for your work!"
The ECC Network celebrates its 20th anniversary
Together with our colleagues, the European Commission, and our partners, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the ECC Network with various activities. For example, our legal experts were at Eindhoven Central Station to answer consumers’ questions and they held a workshop on dropshipping on Europe Day in May. In addition, we worked on new content on the ECC Network website to celebrate the network’s successes over the last two decades.
Check out our annual review
Interested in the results and developments in 2025? Check out the full annual review (in Dutch) for a complete overview of our commitment and impact.
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