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Techly.com.au are leading with a story about Valve falling foul of Australian legislation:
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has commenced a lawsuit in the Federal Court of Australia against Valve Corporation, alleging that Valve made “false or misleading representations” regarding consumer guarantees by its popular online games service, Steam.
The ACCC’s case alleges that Valve has failed to comply with Australian Consumer Law by refusing to refund games purchased through the network, for any reason.
The very fact that they refuse to refund purchases "for any reason" contravenes Australian consumer protection legislation.
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Australian Consumer Watchdog Sues Valve
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It's not reality that's important, but how you perceive things.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Sunday August 31 2014, @12:11AM
Does Australia have this same rule for other consumables like movies?
We don't even really have that rule. According to the herald [smh.com.au]
"It is a breach of the Australian Consumer Law for businesses to state that they do not give refunds under any circumstances, including for gifts and during sales. Under the Australian Consumer Law, consumers can insist on a refund or replacement at their option if a product has a major fault," Mr Sims said.
In my opinion it has nothing to do with the cost of returns, it's just that it once was expensive to ship things here, staff and offices are expensive, until the internet there was SFA we could do about it, and now we have a lot of income others feel they are entitled to it. Of course, any economist will tell you something is worth what people will pay.
There's this strong concept of "a fair go" in Australia, and I'd suggest many wouldn't return the game even if it wasn't working just because they feel that they bought it "fair and square" and it's not the shop owners fault so why should he pay for it? I certainly don't hear people I know saying "I don't like it, I think I'll return it" the way I see people discussing PC components online.
The gouging is really against our national ethos. To be fair though, there are Australians doing it too, like Gerry Harvey and Frank Lowy.
OTOH, when the drug companies justify gouging us on the basis that they distribute stuff in africa at cost, I usually think they're lying but at least its a reasonable argument.
(Score: 1) by sjwt on Sunday August 31 2014, @01:21AM
I got a return for LOTR online, I bought it fro $20 well after it came out, and the updates where 80+gigs, or I could download the latest DVD bundle at 18 gig and just the latest updates at 20gig..
totally unacceptable with out forewarning for back when we still had 20 gig ADSL internet accounts, and a refund was issued after a call to State manager.