Australia’s consumer protection

Having lived in India all my life, there are things I got used to. Like dodgy customer service. You know, when you buy a product or service from the market, and it does not work as intended. Or when you place an order for something, and it does not get delivered on time. Over the years, I noticed private companies upping the quality of their customer service, public companies never cared. Ever rising competition between private companies, with the need to retain customers, and the risk of receiving ‘negative reviews’ in the era of social media, all led to private sellers trying to resolve their customer’s complaints.   This was unheard of a few decades back, when national television used to air public service announcements about consumer rights, and consumer courts. I just sort of assumed that the problem was India being a ‘developing’ nation, and such problems are not to be found in developed countries.

How wrong I was.

Australia is an eye opener. In terms of customer service and consumer rights, I think they are a few years behind. The people at sales counters are extremely cheerful, of course. IBut once they have made their sale, it falls back to ‘its-somebody-elses-problem’ mode. And this is one of those areas where reality lags expectations.

In India, larger companies run 7 day call centers. Some even 24/7, specially telecom , banks and travel companies. Surprisingly , most Australian businessess run only a 5 working day service on the weeks. And strictly 8am to 5pm. For after hours services, they have a voice mail system , where you could leave messages for them to service later. So if your rental car breaks down, you are on your own. Of if you want to know when your phone will be disconnected, you have to wait for them to respond to your email.

But the problem I think most consumers here are going to be unhappy about , is online orders.

I recently placed an order for a water filter, to be used on the tap on a kitchen sink. Such things are still expensive in this country, and the best deals are online.  The company is called truwater, and I think they are just resellers of products, and have no inventory of their own. I made the online payment, and the amount was promptly deducted from my account. The product was to shipped to my address in 1 week. But I failed to get it delivered even after 2 weeks. Finally, I made the call to their (non-existant) customer service line.

It went to voice mail.

I even emailed them. No response.

After 1 month of initial order placement, they finally reponded that they were facing issues with their supplier. And that the order will be delayed. Further.

I called them up, and this time somebody picked up.

I politely told them to cancel my order.  I was promplty told it cannot be done.

I then rudley asked for order cancellation. Out of the question. The lady  told me I would get an order update within a week.

So now is 5 weeks after order placement.

I decided to slow down. It was a water filter, after all.

But after 7 weeks, I was still told that the order would be further delayed.

I tried to contact someone via social media, or linked in. Tried various channels. And none worked.

Frustrated, I finally decided to google the one place that could help me. I googled:

“Australia consumer protection”

Turns out, Australia has a different consumer rights authority in each of its states. Since I was dealing with an NSW company, I ended up at the website if NSW Fairtrading.

After reading all their site documentation, I finally decided I qualified to raise an complaint with them.

I uploaded all my emails, and proof of payment. And stated my problem in detail. I guess they gave the company a call. Because my order was shipped the same week. And I received it the next monday !

I later had to call NSW Fairtrading to update them, and to close my complaint.

Thats all it took. A little nudge. And the bad boys had to oblige.  In the course of my investigation, I had found that lots of customers had faced a similiar issues with truwater.

Check Australia’s consumer rights site here. This page shows the small claims tribunal of all states.

So there you go. Before placing any online order with any unheard of company down under, look up their service review. And if they refuse to deliver, or to reverse payment, promply call up the fair trading onbudsman, or consumer protection group of that state.

Don’t wait. Customer service here is still in its nascent stages. But you do have rights.