You Have To Fight For Your Right To A Refund

November 2010, we purchased a hard drive device to tape television shows. We got it from a very large retail outlet in Australia and paid good money.

Now would you believe this hard drive would not work for more than a few days at a time? You would read the instructions and follow them to the letter. But after a maximum of a week, we were getting error messages. What can you do in this situation? This is how we handled it.

1. We called the company. No not the retail company, but the manufacturer. Their details are generally included in the instructions, or are a quick Google search away. We told them the problems and got them to walk us through the instructions over the phone. The important part is, we took down a log of the time and date we called. Plus we took down the person’s name and their general location (e.g. Sydney).

2. After 4 calls over three weeks to this company’s main office, our system was still playing up. We let our fingers do the talking. We wrote an email to their head office. We explained the problems and included a log of all the times and people we had spoken to. Two weeks went by and we did not get a response. We printed off the email so we had a hard copy.

3. While an email is good, a letter is much more formal. This time we wrote and included a copy of the receipt, the first email, and the log of phone calls. Now all of a sudden we received a phone call. Tom the Customer Service manager called to apologise for the problem. He said he had already called our local retail outlet and made arrangements for a credit. All we had to do was take back the faulty items and they would be expecting us. Victory! Finally we had this item out of our lives, and we did swap it over for a similar product from a different company.

4. However what about if there was still no response? We would have written a letter to the head office of the retail outlet; included all our former correspondence and our log of calls to the company. The last thing any manufacturer of goods wants is customers complaining to the people who sell their products about problems with their items. This would only go to hurt their reputation with people in the industry that they so want to impress. Had this not worked, we would have moved onto step 5.

5. Let’s get the government involved. Had we still not got the response from the retail outlet which we required, under Australian law we are all provided with certain rights when purchasing something. The item must do what it says it does on the box. Plus faulty items must be fixed or replaced. The next step would be to contact the office of consumer and business affairs. They are the last resort for action. However they can assist you to know your rights and responsibilities.

When you shell out good money for a product, if it does not work correctly don’t stick your head in the sand. It is your right to fight for your money back or a replacement. We have all heard stories of where items purchased have not worked to the buyer’s satisfaction. Each item you don’t take back or replace is good money down the drain. The key here is to know the steps and start on them as soon as you notice a problem.