What the ACCC does

  • We educate consumers and businesses about their rights and responsibilities under the consumer guarantees.
  • We accept reports where people consider a business is doing something it shouldn’t do. We use those reports to inform our education, compliance and enforcement work.
  • We can investigate, and may take some form of compliance or enforcement action if a business misleads consumers or other businesses about their rights.

What the ACCC can't do

  • We don’t resolve individual disputes between consumers and businesses, or between businesses.
  • We don’t provide legal advice about what consumers are entitled to, or what businesses need to do in a particular situation.

Rights and responsibilities when there’s a problem with a product or service

Consumer rights and guarantees

Under consumer law, businesses must meet a set of basic consumer rights known as consumer guarantees when they sell products or services. A business can be a consumer too, and these rights apply to businesses in certain situations.

Repair, replace, refund, cancel

When a business sells a product or service that doesn’t meet basic rights, it must offer the consumer a solution, such as a repair, replacement or refund.

Compensation claims

When a problem with a product or service causes damage or loss for a consumer, they have a right to compensation.

Repair notices

Businesses must give consumers repair notices before repairing products that can store user data and before starting repairs that may use refurbished parts.

Warranties

Businesses must honour any extra promises they make about product quality or how they will fix problems with their products or services.

ACCC action on problems with products and services

Broken but out of warranty? Your consumer guarantee rights may still apply

The ACCC is encouraging Australians to take advantage of their consumer guarantee rights under the Australian Consumer Law when dealing with businesses over defective products or poorly performed services, following more than 28,000 reports and enquiries to the ACCC last year about consumer guarantees or warranties.
See media releases on problems with products and services