Adventure Ausrama Blog

People are throwing tantrums about being refused addictive pills from pharmacists. This comes at a time when the federal government is setting up a system of "policing" morphine based medications. If patients are frustrated by over the counter tablets what are they going to do when refused prescriptions? Codeine is the drug of choice for most. Because it is freely available and not officially restricted one can understand the frustration when a sale is refused. It is not much use for pharmacists to call police. Giving people police records is going to make them more antisocial. Telling people not to use Nurofen Plus for a headache is stupid. The public thinks, "Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot take?" - and rightly so! Pharmacists are not trained to deal with the public. They only learn chemistry, mostly irrelevant at that in today's prepacked world. Monitoring purchases is a silly idea. It is another layer of costly bureaucracy ...

This country has longer "proving" times for consumers. It means that a product must do what it expected to do for longer than in other countries. The public is well protected here. Fisher & Paykel a New Zealand company recently lost a court battle because it did not exchange faulty goods. Clearly, businesses do not like the protection laws. It is not only foreign firms like Apple that are ignoring or trying to circumvent Australian consumer laws. Harvey Norman, a large chain of franchises, has had five of its stores fined for not abiding by the law. Companies continue to fight to the High Court where all cases so far have been lost. The law is very clear - a product must serve its primary function for a decent period of time. If it doesn't, a refund or exchange for a new item must be given. Because firms are wasting court time the fines are increasing. They have reached $32,000. Besides the fines, stores are ordered to display signs setting out co...

The quality of customer service is getting worse. Being left on the phone while the answering device takes a break is common. Being told they will fix it later when you inform the bank that the ATM is not working is also the usual way of things. Having no one on checkout duty at a supermarket is another complaint. Another "con" doing the rounds is couriers not delivering parcels. On many occasions they don't even leave a contact number on your phone. They just leave you waiting. You eventually find a contact number and they tell you they couldn't find the address, when normal mail deliveries continue with no problems. They are lying - they haven't been out. Think of the money they are pocketing by not sending someone out. It is easy for them to tell you to pick it up at the office, but what about the inconvenience and cost of taking a day off work to pick up a parcel? Putting it bluntly - they are stealing! They have already been paid to provide a service, usu...