When businesses use tricks and traps on customers

You might have heard of the terms “unfair trading”, “unfair trading practices” or “unfair business practices”, but what do these terms actually mean for you in your day to day life at the shops or accessing services like a mechanic?

In many countries around the world, unfair trading is a legal term used to put limits on how businesses can treat you.

Essentially the Government sets an expectation of what fair behaviour looks like when businesses engage with you. If businesses don’t act in a fair way, they can be forced to refund you, fix what’s wrong or potentially face major fines.

In a broad sense “unfair trading” describes the behaviours and tactics of businesses intentionally being unfair to you, their customer.

“Unfair trading is where a business uses its power, its knowledge or its resources to trick or trap you” says Erin Turner, CEO of the Consumer Policy Research Centre.

Businesses shouldn’t rely on tricks and traps to make money. They should be all about selling you a great product, a great service and treating you well. These are the businesses we want to reward and that’s the standard we should expect from all businesses.

Turner says Australians face problems with unfair trading practices every day.

Unfair trading is things like businesses tricking you into buying something by luring you in with a competition that realistically no one will win, it’s selling an extended warranty that gives you no extra protections above and beyond the Australian Consumer Law, it’s failing to have a customer service contact on a website, so that once a business has sold you something, they ghost you. All of these things add up to create a very unfair experience for consumers.

Ever found it tricky to cancel a gym contract, a delivery service or streaming subscription?

Consumer Policy Research Centre says “subscription traps” are one of the most pervasive forms of unfair trading with 75% of Australians reporting they’ve been stuck in one.

It’s about businesses using design against their customers.

What can we do about unfair trading?

Consumer advocates like the Consumer Policy Research Centre conduct important research to help define what unfair trading looks like, so Governments and regulators can act when businesses do the wrong thing.

Places like the UK, US, Singapore and Europe define unfair trading practices under law and penalise businesses who do the wrong thing.

If you think you’ve experienced an unfair trading practice, it’s important to tell your local consumer regulator or political representative so they can act to protect others from experiencing the same in future.

Learn more about unfair trading: