Public Defender: New state complaints list goes live, realtors dominating
MORE than a decade in the making, a name-and-shame file which goes live today is dominated by real estate agencies — and they are blowing up about it.
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TO top the state’s new official consumer complaints register, how many reports would have to be made against a large chain of businesses in a month? More than 1000? 100?
Try 31. This is arguably the most surprising thing about the register — that very few formal complaints are being made.
More than a decade in the making, the name-and-shame file which goes live today is dominated by real estate agencies — and they are blowing up about it.
The industry’s NSW lobby group says the way the register has been put together is “negligent and reckless”.
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But NSW Fair Trading commissioner Rod Stowe rejected that.
He said the register would empower consumers to make better-informed decisions about who they deal with and also provide an incentive for traders to lift their game — businesses that have fewer than 10 complaints in a month are not shamed.
The Real Estate Institute of NSW lobbied, unsuccessfully, to have complaints tied only to the individual business or franchise involved instead of “lumping large groups” together.
“We believe the NSW consumer watchdog has poorly executed what is essentially a good idea,” said REINSW president John Cunningham.
It “has been negligent and reckless to apply a product-based system to the service industries of NSW, thereby unfairly discrediting good businesses and, as such, is acting as one of the worst discriminators in NSW.”
Mr Stowe responded: “I think it’s quite reasonable for us to aggregate the data. These are the business names that are advertised.”
In March, Fair Trading started warning traders they would be named and shamed unless they took steps to reduce complaints.
The register is published at fairtrading.nsw.gov.au and it will be updated every month.
It is the first of its kind in Australia.
Mr Stowe said he expected other states to follow.
Consumer group Choice said it was time for a national register.
Spokesman Tom Godfrey said it supported Fair Trading’s decision to aggregate complaints.
“We think it’s right that franchisees should be listed under their common brand,” Mr Godfrey said.
THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF AIRLINES
IF I had been asked to guess which industry would feature most prominently in a consumer complaints register I would have said airlines.
Yet there is only one on it — and it is not one of the Australian carriers.
Andy Hine is a customer of that airline who has had no end of trouble getting a dispute resolved. And when I say no end, I really mean no end.
Mr Hine turned to Public Defender for help with his complaint against the airline after he and Quynh Ngo filed 30 “e-cases” between February and July this year seeking a $380 refund on a flight booked in her name.
The airline told Public Defender the delay had been due to the need to translate documents from Vietnamese. It promised to provide a refund, which it has since confirmed in writing to Mr Hine.
While dispute levels revealed in the first edition of the official consumer complaints register are very low, Mr Hine’s experience shows companies need to do more to resolve issues raised by customers.
Having to raise your problem 30 times is utterly ridiculous.
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