Discount department store Target admitted to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) that it may have broken Australian Consumer Law.
Staff at the Wesfarmers-owned retailer made false or misleading representations when dealing with customers who purchased faulty Sony PlayStations.
“The ACCC was concerned that between at least January 2017 and August 2017, Target’s customer service staff told some consumers who complained about faulty Sony PlayStations that they had to contact Sony directly for a remedy and were not entitled to any remedy from Target because the fault had occurred after 30 days from the date of purchase,” the regulator says.
Which is just wrong: retailers have an obligation to replace faulty goods, issue a refund or arrange repairs.
Retailers don’t always enjoy meeting that obligation, because as CRN reported in 2018 it leaves them holding dead stock and having to arrange returns and replacements to disties and/or vendors.
The Australian Retailers Association in 2016 called (pdf) for changes that would see manufacturers forced to offer greater assistance to retailers, but recent reform of the Consumer Law appears to have skipped over such proposals.
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