The law that most often impacts ordinary Australians is the Australian Consumer Law (ACL). The ACL contains broad protections that, if applied correctly, would protect consumers from just about any issue that may occur.
What we’re seeing though is that increasingly corporations are finding ways to game the system – to delay or confuse consumers so long they give up and simply accept a loss.
The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) does a good job of protecting us from the big things – the advertisements by banks that don’t say what they should or unfair terms on credit accounts, but they don’t look at individual issues.
Fair Trading (in NSW) tries to help with individual issues but often what you end up with doesn’t put you back into the position that you should be. You’ve spent hours on the phone, over months, to get a portion of the cost of the product back but nothing on the cost of the trades you had to rehire to install a faulty product.
In many cases the cost of taking your issue to a lawyer would cost far more than the cost of simply buying a new product so the consumer simply gives up. Companies know this and disreputable suppliers will rely on the fact that it’s too hard for consumers to enforce their rights.
We’d love to hear if you’ve had a consumer issue that you’ve been unable to find help with. Whether that was inadequate protection from government agencies or inadequate information on what you’re able to ask for.