Some advice from the Legal guys please

We've only started selling on Gumtree a few months ago, and it's generated quite a few good sales without many stupid offers.
We only sell new products so maybe they realise they have to be in the ballpark for us to take them seriously?

I suppose you just have to spell out the T & C very, very clear and concise to avoid the tyre kickers.
 
We've only started selling on Gumtree a few months ago, and it's generated quite a few good sales without many stupid offers.
We only sell new products so maybe they realise they have to be in the ballpark for us to take them seriously?

I suppose you just have to spell out the T & C very, very clear and concise to avoid the tyre kickers.

LOL! We only sell new stuff too.....but still get the stupid ones. Like the one who offered less than half the ask price 'cause yer not a shop'. Then it was 'it's $hIt anyhow'. Lovely!
 
Never again will I buy clothes online ... what a joke ... !!

Interesting. I hate shopping and buy nearly all my clothes online. Esspecially business clothes. Usually you can get fitted/taylor made stuff for less online than it costs in stores. I don't recall having anything which didn't meet my expectation. I was the best man and a wedding, and we all purchased our $1,000+fitted suits online.

When I went skiing last year, we purchased the full kit of skiing clothes online. Jackets, pants, ski socks (tubes), gloves, etc. Total order for 3people was over $1,000 (which was about 1/3 of the cost instores). The order didn't arrive on the due date. So called the company. They said wait 2 more weeks. Still hadn't arrived, so called them back - they express posted the whole lot again FREE. On returning home from holidays the original order had arrived. I called up and let them know, asked if they wanted me to send it back as I didn't want to pay for it a second time. They said "nah, just keep it - but remember us next time you want to buy anything". So now I have 2x everything I need :p

Blacky
 
skater,
Do you have any updates?

Well.....Australia Post lost the item, I refunded her what I owed her on Christmas Eve, then I got a nasty email from her on5/1/15, still spouting that I owed her over $200, but it was a different amount to what she originally claimed. I sent back a note telling her that I owe her nothing, and that it was a fictitious claim, then the next day I got another email from her saying that eBay had just notified her that she'd been paid, which is BS, because that would have come when I refunded her, not two weeks later. And this, quoted from her email:

The claim was not fictitious. And if you had any understanding of consumer rights, you'd know that claims against businesses like yours happen every day. It was pure timing that eBay followed up with me yesterday.


But you keep doing what you're doing. Digging your heels in the ground when things aren't I your fault must pay off for you.

Obviously, my understanding of consumer rights and hers differ considerably. She thinks it's fine to try & screw you over, with no sound reasoning, while I don't. Consumer law, as far as I am aware, says that I have to provide goods that are fit for purpose, and I must refund or exchange an item with manufactures defects within 3 months of purchase. It says nothing about refunding customers where an item has gone missing BEFORE any checks are done to see if it can be found.

And the comment about digging your heels in is just stupid. If you are not at fault, of course you are going to stand your ground.

After my phone calls to SA in regards to this, I was pretty sure she wouldn't go the next step. It would have cost her $135 to do so, and although I do think she's a complete nut job, I was sure she wouldn't pay that much for something that was obvious (to me anyway) that she had no grounds to be making a claim on.
 
Obviously, my understanding of consumer rights and hers differ considerably. ... Consumer law, as far as I am aware, says that I have to provide goods that are fit for purpose, and I must refund or exchange an item with manufactures defects within 3 months of purchase.
The national Australian Consumer Law that came into effect in 2011 is a lot more far-reaching than that. I'm not suggesting you did anything wrong in your handling of this, but you might want to check it out because you have a lot more obligations than you've outlined. This is a good resource: The Australian Consumer Law and your business

For example, you have to warrant durability, and freedom from defects, and neither have specific times specified.

For example, if you sell skates and they break in two years, and the person takes the skate apart to find out why and it reveals a manufacturing defect that wasn't obvious until taking the skate apart, you'd be responsible for that.

I'm not suggesting it's fair, I'm only suggesting that it's important to know what your obligation are. :) Because you can also be fined for falsely telling a customer that you don't owe them a refund when you do, for example. :eek: If you told a customer you had no responsibility for manufacturers' defects beyond 3 months from purchase, that would be an offence under the ACL.
 
Nothing would have come from it. I wouldn't worry until she actually filed a formal claim which this isn't. If you look at the SA magistrates site im pretty sure it even says that 1 of your options is to ignore this thing.
 
Nothing would have come from it. I wouldn't worry until she actually filed a formal claim which this isn't. If you look at the SA magistrates site im pretty sure it even says that 1 of your options is to ignore this thing.
A Statement of Claim is a formal claim, and ignoring it will usually result in a default judgment against you. This is terrible advice.
 
...Because you can also be fined for falsely telling a customer that you don't owe them a refund when you do, for example. :eek:

I'm guessing skater didn't delve into warranty issues at all, and was simply asking her buyer to allow Aust Post to deliver the product in a reasonable time?

If so, then she (without reading back over the thread) told them if it didn't turn up within the timeframe that Aust Post gave her to search for the product, that skater would refund her in full.

So, I'm thinking skater would not be breaching any consumer laws about refusing to warrant the product or refusing to refund, as she didn't refuse to refund.

Just thinking out loud...
 
I'm guessing skater didn't delve into warranty issues at all, and was simply asking her buyer to allow Aust Post to deliver the product in a reasonable time?
Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that skater did do this in this instance; apologies if that's what you thought.

I was responding to her statement:
skater said:
Consumer law, as far as I am aware, says that I have to provide goods that are fit for purpose, and I must refund or exchange an item with manufactures defects within 3 months of purchase.
Saying that, putting it in an email or on the eBay listing etc. would all constitute a breach of the ACL, so I was trying to caution against that happening in future. :)

Basically, representing to a consumer that they have fewer rights under the ACL than they actually have is an offence, so all providers of goods and services need to know what these laws are, or be very, very careful about ever saying anything like "I'm not going to refund" without being sure that they're on the right side of the law.

I offer that as a point of education that may be of interest to people following this thread, not because I think skater fell foul of it.
 
Thanks Perp. I see the comment from what skater said that you were concerned about. I guess skater needs to ensure that she doesn't state anything about three months in her ebay adverts. You just have to be so careful these days. It is a minefield.

I did a favour recently and tried to sell a used oven for a friend. Someone told me to be careful because I had not had it tagged and tested. I googled and could only find information for other states, but not Queensland. I then emailed someone I know who works in the industry and he said...

...In Qld The onus is on the buyer to have the stove installed by a licenced Electrician who would perform an insulation test being a used appliance. There is no further obligation on you here than to say it worked.

I hope he is right. It does make sense because there are hundreds of listings for used appliances. I know that doesn't make it "correct" and I would have liked to see the actual link to the legislation, but imagine finding yourself sued after selling something as a favour for a friend.

I'd be keen to hear whether anybody can confirm this to be true for Queensland used electrical goods. (I guess a stove must be installed by a qualified electrician and possibly the rules may be different for plugged appliances?)
 
The national Australian Consumer Law that came into effect in 2011 is a lot more far-reaching than that.

Yes, I know it's a lot more than what I mentioned, but in relation to her claim is all I'm worried about at this time. She claimed that I'd taken her money & not provided the skates. This is not true. They got lost in the mail & I sent her a refund, as per my obligation.
 
I'm guessing skater didn't delve into warranty issues at all, and was simply asking her buyer to allow Aust Post to deliver the product in a reasonable time?

If so, then she (without reading back over the thread) told them if it didn't turn up within the timeframe that Aust Post gave her to search for the product, that skater would refund her in full.

So, I'm thinking skater would not be breaching any consumer laws about refusing to warrant the product or refusing to refund, as she didn't refuse to refund.

Just thinking out loud...

Yes, that is precisely the situation.
 
Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that skater did do this in this instance; apologies if that's what you thought.

I was responding to her statement:

Saying that, putting it in an email or on the eBay listing etc. would all constitute a breach of the ACL, so I was trying to caution against that happening in future. :)

Basically, representing to a consumer that they have fewer rights under the ACL than they actually have is an offence, so all providers of goods and services need to know what these laws are, or be very, very careful about ever saying anything like "I'm not going to refund" without being sure that they're on the right side of the law.

I offer that as a point of education that may be of interest to people following this thread, not because I think skater fell foul of it.
Don't worry, I'm pretty careful with the wording. :D
 
we sent an expensive toy to someone, it got flogged, seller pays. then the buyer got up me for not redirecting the package to the post office because it was obvious that it was a block of units... so now I sticker everyhting as 'do not safe drop'. not that it helps much, if you want paypal seller protection you woul dnever get anything sold or done.

ebay buyers are terrible. my wife was once in tears when a buyer sent a message hoping our kids would get a fatal disease. it seems to attract arather feral client base for some reason. ebay pushes all the responsibility and risk back on to sellers in order to build their business. Incredible market reach, draconian selling terms and fees.

gumtree is terrible because you spend your life waiting for people to turn up that never do. ebay bought gumtree... high selling fees on the way
 
Someone from Australia post got skates for Xmas...courtesy of skater

More than one person from Australia Post got skates for Christmas courtesy of me. :mad:

As an aside, I got an email from Australia Post just now, apparently they have now found it and it's on it's way to the customer. I've just spent half an hour on the phone to see if they can send it back to me, but I'm not confident that they will. Their system is down now too, so they can't enter stuff. :mad:
 
oh auspost... they keep slowing down their service delivery times frames, meanign delivery from west to east can take up to 14 days or more. ebay sticks unrealistic post timeframes on their site. keep gettign constant messages and feedback about postal times - seriously I am not auspost. If I hear one more time about how things arrive quicker from the UK I will throw up.

the classic is: "I ordered x from you on this day and it hasn't arrived, where exactly is is it?!"... ummm....
 
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