WITH Christmas and New Year's well and truly behind us and all the presents tried and tested, complaints about refunds and exchanges are coming hard and fast.
The NSW Fair Trading commissioner Rod Stowe has urged both traders and consumers to approach Fair Trading for advice to make sure transactions are consistent with Australian consumer laws.
"The agency has a great success rate with dispute resolution with reference to the Australian Consumer Law.
"Traders can best avoid conflict by providing excellence in product and service delivery, a commitment to customer service and effective dispute resolution processes," Mr Stowe said.
Although, each year a number of consumers are disappointed by the treatment received at the hands of retailers, many businesses have generous refund and exchange policies and maintain customer loyalty by following the rules on refunds and by honouring guarantees.
Good Guys South Tweed owner proprietor Rory Curtis said his business didn't really come across requests for refunds very often.
"We don't really have that problem but do have the odd client who wants to exchange an item.
"If a customer comes into the store with a receipt and the item is a regular item we usually stock and is packaged, we'd consider refunding the money.
"However, this isn't something we encounter a lot," Mr Curtis said.
Mr Curtis added if customers had received a gift which they already owned, the store would look at exchanging the item.
Fair Trading commissioner Stowe said if consumers were dissatisfied with the response from a trader they could lodge a complaint with Fair Trading online at fairtrading.nsw.gov.au or any Fair Trading centre in NSW.