Consumer watchdog reveals SA’s biggest gripes

Coronavirus shutdowns triggered a surge in disappointed travellers calling in the big guns to recoup money spent on cancelled trips.

Travel related complaints skyrocketed last year as South Australians battled to get back refunds, new figures show.

Data from SA’s consumer watchdog shows there was a 16-fold increase in travel related complaints.

Commissioner for Consumer Affairs Dini Soulio said disputes related to goods and services that weren’t provided because of coronavirus restrictions made up the bulk of the complaints handled by Consumer and Business Services (CBS) in the last year.

But he said his office helped people recoup tens of thousands of dollars in refunds.

“In 2019, CBS received 23 travel-related complaints – compared with 401 in 2020,” he said.

SA Consumer Affairs Commissioner Dini Soulio.

“That’s a more than 16-fold increase, with the vast majority of those complaints involving cancellations as a result of the coronavirus. “Our staff helped consumers who were dealing with businesses which either refused to offer a refund for cancelled travel arrangements or offered a refund that was unacceptable.

“Through our intervention, travel service providers agreed to either offer a refund or increase their refund offers by several thousand dollars.”

The experience of would-be travellers in SA was replicated on a national scale.

In November the federal consumer watchdog, the ACCC, released figures that showed COVID-19-related consumer reports made up the majority of the 109,446 complaints the ACCC received in the first 10 months of 2020.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Consumers and Fair Trading report revealed there were 24,210 complaints to the ACCC about travel, an increase of 497 per cent on the same period the previous year.

In SA, Mr Soulio said that, overall, hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds had been secured, as a result of intervention by CBS.

Other top complaint areas for 2020 included second-hand car dealers (82 complaints compared with 65 in 2019), solar panel installation (66, compared with 105 in 2019), new home construction (126, compared with 169 in 2019) and car repairs (44 compared with 46 in 2019).

He said the CBS fielded more than 1400 complaints during the year.

“No doubt, the challenges posed by the coronavirus will continue to have an impact into the new year, and we’ll stand ready to help consumers with any issues they encounter,” he said.