06.1What the fine print can’t take away
Products and services normally bought for personal or household use come with the consumer guarantees, and the ACCC says nothing a business says or does can remove them. Its examples of what doesn’t work:
| What a business might say | Where the ACCC stands |
|---|---|
| No refunds, or none after a set number of days | Doesn’t remove the guarantees. |
| It isn’t responsible for problems with its service | Doesn’t remove them either, and it is misleading and unlawful for a business to say it isn’t responsible for the foreseeable losses its service causes. |
| You must buy an extended warranty to keep your rights | A warranty is an extra promise a business can choose to make on top of the guarantees, not a replacement for them. |
Misleading consumers about their rights in these ways is against the law.
Two limits worth knowing
In the ACCC’s words: “Services to transport or store goods for business purposes are not covered by consumer guarantees.”
Insurance is a financial product, and the consumer guarantees don’t apply to it; other laws do. So cover for your goods in transit is a separate matter from the removal service itself.
06.2Checking the business before you pay
The ACCC’s own warning is blunt: not every business is genuine, a registration number or business card doesn’t prove one is, and scammers fake identifiers too. It suggests a set of checks.
- Find the ABN or ACNUsually on the website, in the terms and conditions, on a business card or on an invoice. Business names in Australia have to be registered with ASIC.
- Test any claimed membershipMemberships of industry associations are usually voluntary. If a business claims one, the association can confirm it.
- Read reviews in more than one placeNot only the business’s own site and social media. Signs a review may be fake include a sudden burst of very good or very bad ones, reviewers with similar names, and vague reviews written in the same language as others.
- Look at the address and the web addressCheck on a map that the business is where it says it is, and read the domain closely, since fake sites copy real ones with similar addresses.
- Read the terms and the complaints processThe ACCC says these give a sense of how a business will deal with a problem.
- Notice how it wants to be paidBe wary of a payment method that is unusual for the industry, and check any payment page’s address begins with https.
06.3When part of the business is overseas
An overseas business that sells directly to consumers in Australia has to follow the Australian Consumer Law, guarantees included. The ACCC is frank that, in practice, a remedy from an overseas business can be hard to get, and that Australian consumer agencies can do only so much. If a problem can’t be settled, it suggests asking the consumer protection agency in the country where the business is based.
The law doesn’t reach a business that doesn’t officially offer its products or services in Australia. On an international move, then, the name on your quote and contract is worth reading carefully: it tells you which business you are dealing with and where it is.
06.4If something is lost or damaged
When a service fails a guarantee, you are entitled to a remedy such as a repair, replacement or refund, and on top of that to compensation for other loss or damage it causes, if that loss was reasonably foreseeable. A business doesn’t have to pay for loss its service didn’t cause.
How to make a claim, and how the amount is worked out, is set out on the ACCC’s page Claiming compensation.
06.5If the business fails mid-move
If a business becomes insolvent, the ACCC counts a consumer who paid in full for a service not yet received, or paid a deposit, as someone it owes money to. A removal paid for before the goods arrive fits that description.
Consumers are usually unsecured creditors. They are repaid only after secured creditors, such as the business’s bank and major suppliers, and after priority creditors such as employees, so they may get back part of their money or none of it.
- Check whether it is insolventSearch the business’s name or number in ASIC’s published notices, which also show who the administrator is.
- Ask your bank or card provider about a chargebackIf you paid by card, loan or a payment service, the provider may be able to reverse the payment. Chargebacks have time limits, so the ACCC says to contact your provider straight away.
- Watch the administrator’s announcementsA business under administration sometimes keeps trading and delivers what was paid for, and a buyer of the business is generally able to choose which old obligations it takes on.
- Register as a creditorIf the company has stopped trading, registering as an unsecured creditor with the administrator is the way to have a chance of getting money back.
- Ask about a compensation fundSome states and territories have funds for consumers who lose money when a business in a particular industry fails; your state or territory consumer protection agency can say whether one applies.