Independent & Member Funded, CHOICE® is here to Ensure Australian Consumers Get a Fair Go. Avoid A Costly Mistake With Our Rigorous Lab Testing For Your Next Purchase. Unbiased Reviews. Over 5,000 Products. Unbiased Expert Advice.
The reliability of the products we buy has always been central to our work. It was particularly important when CHOICE was established in 1960 because many common appliances were a lot more expensive to the average consumer. A typical fridge cost about 10 times the average weekly wage, so if you were buying one, you wanted to be confident it would last. Fast forward to 2022 and the world is very different. Appliances are cheaper and more easily replaced – you can buy a decent fridge with less than one week’s average wages. But that doesn’t mean that people no longer care about how long products last. If anything, this is a growing concern driven by increased awareness of the impact of waste, carbon emissions and the rare metals that…
Energy prices soar Wholesale gas and electricity prices across Australia’s main grid have more than tripled compared with the June quarter last year, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). The average spot prices for electricity in the national market were $264 per megawatt hour across the quarter, more than double the previous record high of $130 in 2019. The average price in the June quarter of 2021 was only $85. Gas prices were also on the rise with the average price on the east coast almost 250% higher than 12 months ago. Executive general manager at AEMO Violette Mouchaileh says the price surge is due to high global prices for fossil fuels, outages at coal-fired power plants, other supply issues and a deep cold snap on the east…
The federal government used the first week of the new parliament to announce a support fund for some of the Indigenous Australians holding policies with the funeral company Youpla, which went into liquidation earlier this year. Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney and Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones announced up to $4 million would be available to pay for the funerals. The money will be limited to the beneficiaries of First Nations people who held active policies with Youpla as of 1 April 2020, and who have recently died or who die before 30 November 2023. The typical value of each of these policies is $8000 and the payments will be on offer until 30 November 2023. Burney says the initiative will support Sorry Business – a mourning practice of “deepest…
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) surveyed 2270 caravan owners for a new report, and found 80% of them had experienced problems with their purchase. The regulator heard of widespread guarantee failures, misrepresentations by suppliers, and unexpected delays in delivery and repair in the caravan industry. Under Australian Consumer Law (the ACL), if your caravan fails to meet one or more consumer guarantees – for example, it’s not of acceptable quality or doesn’t match a description made by a supplier – then you’re entitled to a repair, replacement or refund. But the ACCC says many consumers have spoken of being unable to obtain one of these remedies when they experienced a failure with their caravan. “A caravan can represent a significant financial and emotional investment. If something goes wrong…
In 2020, CHOICE gave Revitalife, an electric bed retailer, a Shonky Award for their dodgy, high-pressure sales tactics that targeted older Australians. Our investigation revealed that Revitalife’s online and telephone ‘health survey’ inflated its healthcare credentials in order to convince people to buy expensive beds. We also found the claims behind their ‘sleep systems’ were lacking in evidence. Now, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has accepted the company’s steps to provide 49 customers with refunds, totalling more than $55,000. Revitalife has also agreed to update its complaints handling system and to establish and maintain a program that ensures its compliance with the ACL. Earlier this year, Revitalife stopped conducting in-home sales and amended its policies, practices, and terms to be in line with the ACL. These changes came…
In late July the Minister for Small Business Julie Collins and the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Andrew Leigh announced that the government would be introducing legislation to implement penalties for businesses that propose or rely on unfair contract terms. CHOICE supports the introduction of penalties for businesses that breach the ACL. Terms that might be considered unfair are ones that: • cause a significant imbalance in rights between the consumer and business • are not reasonably necessary to protect the legitimate interests of the business or consumer • would cause financial or other detriments to either the consumer or business. Businesses have been prohibited from using unfair terms in their standard form consumer contracts since 2010. But without penalties, businesses have continued to use unfair contract terms…
