The three guarantees for services
- Guarantee 1
Due care and skill
A provider has to bring acceptable care and skill to the job, working at least to the standard of a competent provider with average skill and experience. They also have to take reasonable steps not to cause you loss or damage.
The ACCC’s own example is a plumber whose fixed leak returns the next day.
- Guarantee 2
Fit for a particular purpose
If a purpose was made clear, the service has to meet it. That covers a purpose you told the provider about, one the business’s own advice led you to buy for, and one the provider advertised.
So what was said or advertised about the purpose matters. Keep the ad, the email, the brochure.
- Guarantee 3
Provided within a reasonable time
Where no timing was agreed, the service has to be delivered within a reasonable time: one that most people would consider fair, given the circumstances.
This is the guarantee that covers delay when no schedule was agreed.
When a guarantee isn’t met, the path forks
What you can ask for depends on whether the problem with a service is major or minor. Before it offers a remedy, the business is entitled to look into the problem.
A major problem
In the ACCC’s guidance, a problem with a service counts as major in any of these situations, where it can’t easily be put right within a reasonable time:
- it makes things unsafe
- its faults, one big one or several small ones, would have put a buyer off had they known
- it can’t do its usual job, or the particular job you told the seller you needed
- it misses a specific result you told the seller you wanted.
The choice is then yours. You can end the contract and get your money back, less a reasonable amount for any work already done properly; or carry on, and pay a lower price that reflects the problem.
A minor problem
A minor problem has to be fixed at no cost to you. A refund isn’t required, though the business may offer one.
If the business can’t or won’t fix a minor problem within a reasonable time, the ACCC says the consumer is entitled to further options, set out on its remedies page.
When the guarantees don’t give a remedy
The ACCC sets out cases where the consumer guarantees give no remedy. The ones that touch services are when:
- you received what you asked for and have simply changed your mind
- the work was done your way after the business advised against it
- someone other than the business caused the problem.
A business with its own change-of-mind policy still has to honour it. And a “no refunds” sign doesn’t remove your rights: the ACCC says businesses can’t rely on policies or terms that deny them.
Raising a problem, using NSW as the example
In NSW, NSW Fair Trading’s steps for a problem with a service are to contact the provider to explain the problem, say you want to cancel if they can’t fix it in a reasonable time, and ask for compensation for any damage or loss where it’s relevant. It suggests including copies of any correspondence that shows how you’ve tried to resolve the matter when you make a complaint. This is the NSW process; if you live elsewhere, check your own state or territory government’s consumer pages.