What To Do If You Do NOT Receive Your Refund

Our definitive guide outlines how to hold a seller accountable if you were promised a refund, but never received it, with templates to help you fight your case

Updated 13 July 2021

Asking for a refund for a product or service you are not happy with is often a task that many New Zealanders dread. Just to submit a refund request, you have to collect the evidence, write up an email, and get in touch with the seller. What happens if, after all that effort, the seller refuses to give you the refund, repair or replacement that you rightfully deserve? Or even worse, the seller promises to give you a refund, but later goes back on their word?

To help solve such issues, our guide covers:

Before you read this guide:

This guide is only for cases where there is a problem on the seller’s end, whether they have cancelled an item or have sold you a faulty product or service. The steps we outline in this guide will not work if you have changed your mind about a purchase and want to cancel or get a refund.
If you have come purchased a faulty item or unsatisfactory service, you may be seeking a refund, repair or replacement. Check out our guide on how to ask for one of these options here. If the seller does not respond to your request, or if you are unhappy with the solution you were offered, this guide on refund disputes acts as a “part two”.
For easy reading of this guide, we often refer to any solutions a consumer may seek simply as “refund”. In most cases where we say “refund”, you can substitute it for repair, replacement or any other solution to solving a consumer dispute.

Our templates fight your corner
We have put together two templates to make it easy for you to:

Three Things You Should Know About Settling a Refund Dispute

Keep evidence of any cancellations from the seller’s end. Take screenshots, save emails, write down a summary of phone calls you take, and keep any written communications. This evidence will come in handy when you go to request a refund from the seller, or if the seller refuses and you have to go elsewhere to settle this issue.
A “strictly no refund” policy has no teeth. If the product or service you were provided with has a major problem, you will always be entitled to a remedy regardless of a seller’s refund policy. Businesses are not allowed to create their own refund policies in substitute of the law. A seller that relies on their “no refund policy” or sets conditions on refunds to dismiss your claim may be breaking the law. You could report this to the Commerce Commission (we explain how to do this in Step Five).
Act quickly. Timing is important with consumer disputes. If you come across an issue with products or services you purchased, or if the seller has cancelled, raise the issue with the seller as soon as possible. This way, the seller cannot blame the problem on your delay. Acting quickly is also important if you want to initiate a chargeback as there are strict time limits. Finally, if you do end up going to the Disputes Tribunal or to the District Court, sitting on your hands for several months can come back to bite you. The law does not like it when people drag out a problem for an unnecessarily long period.

Five Steps to Getting Your Money Back If the Seller is Not Cooperating

Step One: Give the seller a chance to respond

After you submit a refund request, it may take some time for the seller or their customer service team to process your request. If you have not heard back in three business days, follow up with another email or call to check what has happened to your request. Is it currently being dealt with or did it get lost somehow?
When you go to follow up, remind the seller that you previously contacted them about this issue. If you can, attach the email chain or screenshots of these previous communications.
We have created a follow up email template you can use here.
Save a copy of all communications you have with the seller. Make sure to get the date, time, who you communicated with, what the seller said, and any actions that the seller promised they would take. You can save email chains, or write down a summary of what you talked about if you called the seller.

Step Two: If you paid with a credit or debit card, submit a chargeback request.

You may be eligible for a chargeback if you paid with a credit or debit card. A chargeback acts like a reversal of money – the money you paid to the seller’s account will be reversed and paid back into your account. Check out our guide to chargebacks here. Unfortunately, you cannot claim a chargeback for an EFTPOS or online banking transaction.
Act quickly if you plan to submit a chargeback request. If you were promised a refund but have not received it yet, you have 120 days to submit a chargeback. If you bought a faulty item, you have 90 days. If you bought an item or service, you have 120 days from when you were expecting that item /service to be provided to submit a chargeback.

Step Three: Leverage the power of social media

Say what you want about social media, you can’t deny that the ability to post public reviews and drum up public sentiment against an awful company is a win for the consumer. If you have a bad experience with a product or service that you bought, or if you had a poor experience with the seller when you tried to get your money back, consider posting online reviews. You could also post about your experience on forums like Twitter and Facebook to pressure an uncompromising seller to respond to you. While you may feel a bit uncomfortable publicly calling out sketchy sellers, there is a high chance that the seller will be more willing to work with you if their reputation is at stake. You are also doing the public a service by helping other consumers avoid the same headache you are experiencing.
If you think your experience was particularly appalling or bizarre, you could even contact Fair Go. Fair Go investigates interesting consumer affairs disputes on its television show, ranging from transactions worth less than a dollar to those in the six-figures. It could be worth a shot to see if the Fair Go team would be interested in putting their resources to helping you settle your issue. Submit a request here.

Step Four: Get legal advice

If you are still struggling to solve the problem with the seller, it may be time to get help with settling you dispute. Consumer law can be tricky, so it is worth enlisting the help of a legal advisor. For most issues between consumers and sellers, the amount in dispute will be lower than the cost of seeing a lawyer about the issue. The Citizens Advice Bureau and Community Law are two cost-effective options. These organisations may help you and the seller to reach a mutual solution, or help you prepare to take this issue even further (which we elaborate on in Step Five).
The Citizens Advice Bureau is a free service, powered by volunteers. Start with browsing the CAB website’s handy database of questions and answers, with an extensive section on consumer affairs. If you cannot find an answer, you can contact the CAB to ask for personalised advice. The CAB are able to offer advice on consumer rights in person, over the phone on 0800 367 222, or online.
Community Law provide legal advice through community law centres across the country, and online. You can search the Community Law Manual’s Consumer Protection chapter for an answer to your legal question. Community Law also offers free, one-on-one legal advice to New Zealanders who do not have much money. It could be worth visiting your local Community Law Centre to see if you qualify and if one of the Community Law Centre’s lawyers can help you out.

Step Five: Escalate your Dispute

If you have taken all the previous steps but you are still not getting anywhere, it may be time to get out the big guns. The last option is to take your dispute to someone who the seller will have no choice but to listen to.
Report misleading behaviour to the Commerce Commission. The Commerce Commission is a regulatory body, with one of its responsibilities being to ensure everyone in business sticks to the Fair Trading Act. If the seller has given you false information (like saying they would give you a refund in certain circumstances but then going back on this promise), they may have broken the law. In this case, the Commerce Commission may investigate your complaint. Submit a complaint online, or call 0800 943 600.
Settle the dispute by going to the Disputes Tribunal. The Disputes Tribunal is a quicker and cheaper alternative to going to court for settling claims under $30,000, with $180 being the maximum fee for a hearing. A referee will work with you and the seller to reach a solution, or the referee can make a decision that you and the seller must follow. There are no lawyers or judges involved, though you can receive assistance in preparing for the Disputes Tribunal.
Before you file an application for a hearing, let the seller know that you will take matters to the Disputes Tribunal if they continue refusing to play ball. The threat of legal action may make the seller more willing to co-operate. You will also need the seller to confirm some of their details so you can file a claim later. Not sure how to do this? We have created a template you can use.
If the seller ignores your notice or you are still unhappy with their response, file your Disputes Tribunal application. You can apply online here.

What Should I do If the Seller Has Gone Out of Business?

If the seller’s business has been sold to new owners, you could try and get in contact with the new owners. Whether the new owners are willing to settle your claim may depend on whether the new owners are responsible for the previous seller’s liabilities.
If your item was on order or you already paid a deposit for it, you should contact the receiver, liquidator or administrator. They may be able to help you get hold of the item you ordered or help you get your money back. If the seller is a registered New Zealand company, you can search the Companies Office to see whether the company is still in business, and who the liquidators, receivers or administrators may be.
You could also go to the manufacturer if going to the seller is not an option. You could ask the manufacturer to refund part of the purchase price, keeping in mind that your purchase price includes the seller’s mark up. If there is a manufacturer’s warranty stating they will repair or replace faulty products, then you must allow the manufacturer to act on this warranty before asking for a refund.

Take Action Using Our Templates

While many of our readers do want to exercise their consumer rights, they find the idea of writing an assertive email to be quite daunting. We have put together two templates to make it easy for you to:

To use the templates, replace any text in [red square brackets] with the necessary details. We have used (blue italics) for instructions to guide you through using the template – remember to delete these instructions before you hit “send”.

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