comcom.govt.nz Making a Complaint New Zealand : Commerce Commission

Organization : Commerce Commission
Service Name : Making a Complaint
Country: New Zealand

Website : http://www.comcom.govt.nz/the-commission/making-a-complaint/
Complaint Form: http://www.comcom.govt.nz/the-commission/making-a-complaint/online-complaint-form/

Making a Complaint :

This page explains how to make a complaint and the kinds of issues we deal with and don’t deal with, so you know whether we may be able to help.

Related : Real Estate Agents Authority Make a Complaint New Zealand : www.statusin.org/11955.html

How to make a complaint:
You can make a complaint to us through our complaint form or by calling us on 0800 943 600. Before you get in touch, please read the information below to ensure we are the right agency to deal with your issue.

What we do:
The Commerce Commission enforces three key pieces of competition and consumer legislation: the Fair Trading Act, the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, and the Commerce Act. We provide guidance to businesses and consumers to help them understand the legislation we enforce and how we work.

Fair Trading Act:
The Fair Trading Act is designed to protect consumers and make competition more effective. It is illegal for businesses to give false and misleading information in the promotion and sale of goods and services.

Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act:
The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act provides important protection to borrowers. It helps ensure borrowers can make informed choices and know what they’re agreeing to by requiring lenders to fully disclose all terms and fees under a contract.

Commerce Act:
This Act prohibits anti-competitive behaviour, such as price fixing or bid rigging, or using market power to exclude competitors from a market.

The Commission also ensures that businesses are not able to become dominant in a market through acquiring competitors, where this would create a substantial lessening of competition.

What we don’t do and who else can help:
Some of the complaints we receive are about issues outside the scope of our responsibilities, such as faulty goods and services, retail prices, advertising standards and scams. Find out who else can help.

From 1 April 2014 the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) replaced the Commerce Commission as the primary regulator of conduct in relation to financial products and services (excluding credit contracts). For complaints about misleading or deceptive conduct in relation to financial products or services (that occurred after 1 April 2014) please contact the FMA. For complaints relating to financial products and services conduct prior to 1 April, you can contact either the Commerce Commission or the FMA.

While individual complaints are very important to us and may help us stop illegal behaviour and prevent it from happening again, we are not a dispute resolution service and can’t give legal advice to individuals.

Other organisations that may be able to help you include:
** a community law centre or a lawyer
** a Citizens Advice Bureau
** 0800 LOAN STRESS
** the New Zealand Federation of Family Budgeting Services
** Complaint Line (access to other disputes resolution and investigation agencies)

We also don’t investigate every complaint we receive. We get around 10,000 enquiries and complaints a year. Up to a quarter of these are outside our scope. Of the remainder, we assess which complaints to investigate on a case by case basis, depending on how widespread, blatant and damaging the issue appears to be.

Requesting confidentiality:
You may feel that informing the Commission about possible wrong doing might put your position at risk (for example you may be an employee or trading partner of the person or organisation you want to complain about).

If you are concerned about the need to protect your identity, please raise it with us when you make your complaint.

We value information from confidential informants and have a strong policy of protecting people’s identity when requested.