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Our complaint handling process

We give businesses information to help them resolve marketplace disputes.

When parties cannot resolve a dispute on their own, they can lodge an official complaint with us. We then use conciliation to attempt to resolve the dispute.

When you make a complaint with us

We assess your complaint to determine:

the issues in dispute
options that may help resolve it
whether someone has broken a law that we have the power to act on
whether another organisation could better handle the dispute, in which case we refer you to the appropriate organisation.

When we contact you

Once we receive your complaint, we contact you within 10 working days to:

confirm that we received your complaint
give you a file reference number
get your consent to release your contact details to the other business (if necessary). If you do not want us to release your details, we may not be able to help you.

If your complaint leads to an investigation, we will keep you informed throughout the entire process.

How we help resolve complaints

We contact each party to try to resolve the matter.

We aim to resolve most complaints within 30 days. However, if a complaint is complex or the parties do not cooperate, it takes longer.

Under the law that governs the general marketplace, we cannot make official judgements like a court or judge. Nor can we force the trader to pay you. Only a court or tribunal can do this.

Our investigators operate under the Office of Fair Trading Compliance and Enforcement Framework (PDF, 127KB). The framework provides the general policy and standards on which we base our compliance business. A key function of the framework is that it provides important operational and administrative direction and guidance to investigators during the conduct of investigations and the taking of subsequent enforcement actions.

If we cannot resolve the complaint

If we cannot help you resolve the dispute to your satisfaction, we suggest alternatives, such as:

taking the complaint to a tribunal
referring it to another department
getting your own legal advice.

When a business has broken the law

If a law has been broken that we can legally enforce (for example, under certain sections of the Fair Trading Act 1989 or the Property Agents and Motor Dealers Act 2000), we investigate the breach.

When we investigate a serious complaint, we aim to prevent it happening again. We do not necessarily fight for compensation.

When another business has broken the law, we can take action in several ways. We can:

notify the business and seek their cooperation to fix the problem
advise the business to follow the law in the future
formally warn the business
publicly warn consumers not to deal with the business
fine the business
take the business to court
ban the business from working via a court order.

The action we take depends on several factors. We may consider:

the intention behind the breach, such as whether we believe it was deliberate or unintentional
whether the business tried to fix the problem before we intervened
how long the breach had been going on
whether the business had committed the breach before.

Every investigation is different and this information is provided as general advice only.

Your information

We participate in Auzshare, a secure, information-sharing system between fair trading agencies in Australian and New Zealand state, territory and federal governments.

The Auzshare agreement makes it easier for us to track interstate consumer fraud and travelling businesses.

By lodging a complaint with us, you agree to share your information with these other fair trading organisations. We manage your information and share confidentially only between us.

We follow the privacy guidelines outlined in the Information Privacy Act 2009.