Consumer Protection in Business Activities

Running head: BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND POLICY
Business Society and Policy
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

1BUSINESS SOCIETY AND POLICY
Introduction
In this essay the need for consumer protection in business activities has been discussed in
relation to a case related to the specific topic. The risks of ignoring consumer rights have further
been discussed. For the maximization of profit many businessmen adopt unfair trade practices
for exploiting the customers, such as adulteration, boarding and black marketing. These practices
result in the customers not getting the value for their money. For this reason there are various
federal and state laws for consumer protection that are specifically designed for the protection of
the customers from deceptive, fraudulent or unfair business practices. Violation of these laws can
be seen to be subjecting in various lawsuits, penalties and negative publicity towards the
companies. In Australia laws like Trade Practices Act 1974 and the Australian Consumer Law
under the schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 are introduced for the
protection of the customers from unfair trade practices.
Presentation of views
A consumer is seen to be defined under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 as any
person acquiring goods or services that are of the price less than $40,000 (Consumerlaw.gov.au,
2019). For ensuring the protection of the customers and for the practice of fair trading in
Australia the Australian Consumer Law under the Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer
Act 2010 was introduced. The Australian Consumer Law could be seen to be replacing 17
existing consumer laws including federal, state and territorial consumer laws. It is jointly
enforced by the State and Territory consumer protection Agencies and the Australian
Competition and Consumer Commission. In the Australian Consumer Law the areas relating to

2BUSINESS SOCIETY AND POLICY
the misleading or deceptive conducts such as silence, puffery, disclaimers, predictions and
opinions, small prints, false representations like consumer guarantees, sale or grant of land,
testimonials, offers of rebates, prizes, gifts and other free items, wrongful acceptance of
payments for goods and services, unconscionable conducts, false representations regarding the
country of origin that includes the claims for the country of origin, production and manufacture
costs, made in claims, claims regarding the use of the logo prescribed, product of claims and
substantial transformation, information standards including the business responsibilities
(Kariyawasam and Wigley 2017). According to the Australian Consumer Law every consumer
has certain rights. These rights are the right to privacy which includes the right for refusing
unwanted marketing like calls, messages, email spams or letters, the right to honest and fair
dealings, right to production selection, the right to receive warnings on facts and nature of risks
that can be seen to be possible in near future, rights towards warranties, product monitoring for
safety issues and damage claiming regarding injuries that have been caused by unsafe or
defective products (Orton et al. 2017).
Under the ACL certain rights of the consumers are set out known as consumer
guarantees. The rights of a consumer under the Australian Consumer Law introduced under the
schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 are the rights to repair, right to
replacement or refund, right to damage compensation and right to cancel a faulty service
(Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2019). The reasons for the need of this act
for the protection of customer rights are promoting a marketplace relating to consumer products
and services that can be regarded as fair, sustainable and easily accessible, establishing consumer
protection norms and standards in a national level, prohibition of unfair business practices and
marketing, providing for an improvement of standards of the information relating to the