When a service a consumer buys doesn’t meet one of the consumer guarantees, and the failure is minor and can be remedied, the supplier, not the consumer, generally chooses the remedy. The ACCC also says the fix for a minor problem must be free, and that the consumer has other remedies if the business can’t or won’t fix it within a reasonable time, or at all; they are set out below. Where it is major, the ACCC lists the two choices open to the consumer in step 4 below.
General informationDotto is not an event supplier. It does not offer, hire out, supply, deliver, staff or arrange photo booths. This is general information, not advice.
The ACCC publishes the official guidance on remedies; individual complaints are managed by each state and territory’s consumer protection agency, which may offer a voluntary dispute service.
From the problem to the remedy, in order
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A guarantee is not met
The services guarantees cover three things, as the first guide sets out: the care and skill of the work, its fitness for a purpose the consumer made known, and its timing.
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Minor or major
The ACCC’s test for a service, in its own words:
“A service has a major problem when it:”
- “creates an unsafe situation”
- “has either one serious problem or several smaller problems that would stop someone buying the service if they knew about them beforehand”
- “can’t be used for its normal purpose, or for a specific purpose that the consumer told the seller about, or doesn’t achieve a specific result that the consumer told the seller about, and can’t easily be fixed within a reasonable time.”
Small problems can add up. The ACCC notes that its guide to the consumer guarantees “does not reflect changes to the Australian Consumer Law which have occurred since initial publication.” It goes on, “These changes include:”, and lists “clarification that multiple minor failures with a good or service will constitute a major failure to comply with a consumer guarantee”.
This guide does not say whether any particular failure meets the test.
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If it is minor
The ACCC’s guide for businesses says: “Generally, if a failure to comply with a guarantee is minor and can be remedied, the supplier can choose whether they wish to repair or replace goods or fix problems with services.” The ACCC’s page for businesses on repair, replace, refund and cancel adds that the business must fix a minor problem for free, and that if it can’t or won’t do so within a reasonable time, or at all, the consumer is entitled to have it done somewhere else and be paid back the reasonable cost, to a refund or replacement instead, or to cancel the service contract and be compensated for the drop in value the problem caused.
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If it is major
“When a service has a major problem, a consumer can choose to:”
- “cancel the contract and get a refund. This may not be a full refund, as the consumer needs to pay a reasonable amount for any work done so far and as expected”
- “keep the contract, but pay a lower price that takes the problem into account.”
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Loss beyond the price
business.gov.au says customers can also seek compensation for damages or loss.
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If the two sides disagree
Each state and territory’s consumer protection agency manages individual complaints and issues with businesses there, and may offer a voluntary dispute service, business.gov.au says.
Paid for, and never supplied
The ACCC deals with non-delivery under a heading of its own. Where a business cannot supply a paid-for service on time, or within a reasonable time, it must provide a solution, the ACCC says. Section 62’s reasonable-time guarantee, on the first guide, applies where the contract fixes no time.
The ACCC’s own example of a refund is a hotel that took full payment by credit card and then could not provide the room, because it had given it to someone else by mistake and had no other room free. The money had to go back to the consumer’s card; the hotel could offer its loyalty points in place of a refund only if the consumer chose to accept them. The example is the ACCC’s, about a hotel; this guide does not carry it across to any other case.
What a “no refunds” term cannot do
Relying on a store policy, or on terms and conditions, that denies these rights is illegal, the ACCC says, and its example is ‘no refunds’. A contract term that sets out to limit or exclude guarantee rights is void, its guide for businesses says. And a business must not tell a consumer that they have to pay for rights equivalent to a consumer guarantee, Consumer Affairs Victoria says.
Consumer Affairs Victoria puts the same point from the consumer’s side: “Consumers cannot agree to give up their rights to any consumer guarantees.”
Extra loss, as Consumer Affairs Victoria puts it
Consumer Affairs Victoria says a business cannot write a term into a sales contract saying it will not answer for extra loss a consumer suffers because something went wrong with the products or services. A business that does so, it says, “could be misleading consumers about their legal right to compensation for consequential loss”.