Consumer Rights, Compensation, Refunds & the Australian Consumer Law

If the claim is for a Major Fault (and it certainly seems that it is) and is being applied for through the Store then they have to offer to you your choice of outcome, not theirs. ACL is very clear on that. You are correct on the replacement of a device in that it is a possibility but must be like for like (From ACCC site “Replaced products must be of an identical type to the product originally supplied”), however the supplier can choose to upgrade you. However as the Cooktop is no longer available and they don’t seem willing to upgrade you then it seems a refund is the only option left to you.

You are also correct that compensation is payable for costs incurred because of a major fault. If for example you had to buy cooking devices as temporary measures in my opinion you could claim.You would need to keep careful records of these additional costs and your dealings with the retailer. Phone calls are not the best way, letters, faxes & emails and similar where you have proof of sending them is important. The re-wiring of the device again in my opinion would be a claim that should be met.

Please understand I’m no legal expert or even trained in that area but a reading of the ACCC’s ACL breakdown in regards to Major and Minor faults seems pretty clear. I also think the retailer is more than likely going to resist the claim/s and this is where you need to get some legal advice on the matter and it would seem likely it will end up in a Civil and Admin Tribunal. In each State and Territory there is free Consumer Legal advice available. The link is to a list of at least some that are available but there may be more you can avail yourself of:- Free Legal Advice Centres.

Regarding Compensation:

If you are a member of CHOICE don’t forget they have a help service that can help you find the next steps you need to take.

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Why not go gas?

We replaced the electric cooktop with a LPG one at our previous residence and we replaced the existing LPG cooktop with another one at our current residence.

I would never have an electric cooktop again and the gas cooktops are great when the power fails.

Hi @syncretic,

That is a bad news situation that should not have gone this long. No need to repeat the excellent response from @grahroll, but if you have not already you need to compose a formal letter of complaint per the ACL and deliver it to the store.

As a regular here you probably read the the details for doing it across numerous topics, and may have done it already. Anything done without that formality is nothing but ‘idle chit chat’ as for as many shops are concerned. You cannot take ‘idle chit chat’ to a tribunal, but you can take their response (or lack thereof) to the tribunal. Seeking assistance from your state fair trading will usually start with them advising to send a formal letter of complaint, with the shops response, if has not already been done.

You need to write the letter as if you are a silk in front of a magistrate citing the ACL, your rights, the major failure vs your rights, and precisely what you want and a reasonable date for their response.

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Some high end gas cooktops will not work when the power fails. They have electric fail safe and automated relighting mechanisms. The flame blows out, they relight themselves. No power and they go into fail-safe off mode; manual lighting to heat a thermocouple is not enough since the removal of power turns off the gas supply by an internal valve.

Sometime a top end appliance can have an unexpected ‘feature’. Have one, that is how they can work.

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Our Bosch cooktop can be simply ignited with a BBQ lighter.

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So can my son’s Electrolux. My Miele cannot. Who would have expected a gas cooktop to require power to operate?

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Hi @syncretic,

I moved your topic here as it is related and may avoid some repetition in responses. In the case I posted of the failed dryer at

it worked as it should have. If TGG did not have the best replacement product who knows, but they did and went a bit beyond to ‘make it right’.

Who was your retailer?

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Because, with the exception of stir frying, induction is far superior to gas. Induction has better control overall, better stability at low power, far easier to clean and (if you get the right one) it is as powerful, or more powerful, than gas. Energy efficiency of induction is second only to an immersed electric element and that isn’t useful for cooking. You cannot compare conventional electric to induction, their performance, safety and cleaning are not even similar. There is no chance of having my own gas well and some of powering the induction stove from the sun at least sometimes until come the battery.

I have used conventional electric which is only better than a wood fuel stove, town gas, bottled gas and induction and I am never going back. If money and space in the kitchen was no object I would put the gas back on to have a high power wok ring on the side of the induction. This exception is oddly because of geometry not power. Induction needs a flat bottomed pan so you can’t use a wok and flat bottomed pans with high sides are just not as good as the old mild steel wok when it comes to the speed that you can toss the ingredients with the wok chan.

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Yes starting that today. In the meantime I need a new cooktop. :grimacing:

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I don’t know if it will help you (due to your location?), but Ikea sell very good quality induction cooktops, with a range of sizes - substantially cheaper than many brands. You would be able to check specifications /product reviews etc online - and maybe have it freighted for a fair price…
Another quick & simple option is to buy a cheap portable (single element) induction cooker, as a temporary solution???

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The Good Guys. I will be having more to say when the dust setles.

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Thanks but they don’t have 90cm.

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They do have a portable though… https://www.ikea.com/au/en/p/tillreda-portable-induction-hob-white-80331628/

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The good news is I now have a new functional cooktop installed at no extra cost. The bad news is that it took eight weeks. As I see it the Good Guys system is a pile of warm bovine ordure.

Here is the much abbreviated saga.

  • It took 10 days after reporting the problem to get an electrician out to inspect it.
  • It took another 4 weeks and 4 visits by an electrician to take action to attempt a repair by installing new parts. The repair did not work.
  • Four days later after chivying TGG and their agents I had an email saying we would get a credit as the cooktop was not repairable and they had no replacements in stock and nor did the maker.
  • Two days later I exchanged the dead cooktop for another model. Six days after the electrician returned to instal it. I was without a functioning cooktop for five weeks as it partially worked for three.

Some observations:

  • There is no effective oversight of the process, no individual had responsibility to get the job done. It is the bucket brigade approach, the four players (TGG, their service agent, the local electrician and the manufacturer) each pass the job on to the next person in the chain. If there is any monitoring software or other record system it is quite ineffective. If any flag was raised that the job was taking too long it was ignored.
  • TGG person was the salesman on the floor! Little wonder he didn’t return calls much.
  • Overall it took 29 steps from me to get this done in 8 weeks. That is filling web forms, phone calls, emails, personal trips etc. If I had not pushed it along from place to place I have no idea how long it would have taken. In many cases this included extra phone calls because promised return calls never happened.
  • I ended up with a cooktop of lower power than the original as there was not a replacement available of similar power that was anywhere near the same price that fitted the benchtop and wiring. If I was prepared to wait weeks or months some better models might have become available at not too much more but I needed a cooktop quickly. You have no idea how boring food is with no cooktop, no cafe and no take away.

On the question of compensation I am going to let it drop as I don’t see arguing for the value of being given the runaround is worth more runaround.

Unlike some vendors (eg Nick Scali) I did not detect any attempt to refuse to honour their obligations under consumer law - just institutionalised incompetence.

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the consumer law never worked when my second hand car failed i tried several options holden was hopeless in regards to fixing a repair on a car i dont have confidence at all. the law failed me as far as i am concerned for a car issue which was major.

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There have been many discussions regarding Australia needing explicit lemon laws, and how the manufacturers routinely avoid responsibilities under the ACL.

Holden may have been hopeless but even under the ACL if you bought the car from a private seller the ACL would not apply, and if you bought it from a car yard the car yard would be the responsible party in the first instance, not Holden.

If Holden (dealers) has been unable to affect a diagnosis or repair that is yet another situation.

Without further details that is what I can add…

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Sometimes the Retailer does not respond appropriately to the ACL requirements and then in these cases it requires the purchaser to pursue their rights through legal means eg Administrative & Civil Tribunals… I don’t know the options you undertook so my answer is somewhat supposition as to what you undertook, so my apologies if you took those steps.

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Thanks for sharing @Fred123. Here are our top five tips for asserting your rights:

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Our new Westinghouse fridge was delivered on Saturday. The installers recommended waiting an hour before switching it on. Right from the start, each time the top fridge door closed, the bottom freezer door opened. We have to continuously check to ensure the freezer door is closed, and ice has started to build up on the freezer drawers. We have phoned Westinghouse/Electrolux customer service many times, but cannot get through. The fridge was registered the day it was installed. Today we contacted the retailer, who promised to follow up with Westinghouse/Electrolux, but still we have had no response. Clearly, this is an unsatisfactory situation with a brand new fridge, in summer, two weeks out from Christmas.
What are our rights - should we request an immediate replacement from the retailer, or wait (and wait) for contact with Westinghouse/Electrolux who may just send a service technician. We lost a fridge/freezer full of perishables when the previous 21-year-old Maytag fridge expired, and do not wish to risk losing a freezer load to a faulty door.