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What is Consumer Complaints?
Consumer Complaints strives to be New Zealand's official website where consumers can submit, view and resolve complaints. Any person residing in New Zealand can submit a complaint against any NZ business or organisation. Consumer Complaints does not get involved in resolving complaints. But submitting a complaint gives the complainant huge leverage in getting the problem sorted.
Consumers can also browse complaints and learn what to be aware of when dealing with certain businesses. Find out exactly how Consumer Complaints helps New Zealand consumers.
Consumers can also browse complaints and learn what to be aware of when dealing with certain businesses. Find out exactly how Consumer Complaints helps New Zealand consumers.
How it all started?
The founder of Consumer Complaints (Mike) has had his fair share of issues when dealing with certain businesses - who hasn't? But there was this one business that drove him to register this domain name and to finally develop this website.
Fastway Couriers (Onehunga, Auckland) was the culprit. The problem started when Mike and his wife had their first child. They had bought top-end UK made cloth nappies from an exclusive importer based in Tauranga. The company had mistakenly sent a set of wrong sized nappies. So they posted Mike a pre-paid Fastway Courier bag so he could return the wrong nappies. It was all meant to be straightforward until Mike rang Fastway to pick the courier parcel up.
Mike rang Fastway six times over ten days. Each time the operator apologized for not having the parcel picked up at the last booking. After the third call, each operator Mike spoke to promised to get the manager to call him in order to apologize. But Mike only wanted the parcel to get picked up. It never happened. Irate, Mike tried arranging pickup with another company at his expense. But the nappy importer was based in a semi-rural area and Fastway was their only main courier. Hmmm.
Mike and his wife had just spent four days in hospital since there were complications with the delivery of their child. His wife had a major operation and he also had a 3-day-old baby to look after. Plus, they badly needed to use those right sized nappies. But for whatever reasons Fastway just kept letting him down. Mike finally drove to Onehunga and delivered the parcel at the Fastway courier depot. It took over an hour in the heavy traffic. The really sad part is that he told his story to the supervisor at the depot and she promised to get the manager to call Mike. Years later he is still waiting for that phone call.
How hard can it be for a courier company to pick up a parcel that's located within 15kms of its main depot? And how hard can it be for a manager to call and sort out a problem so pathetic that it should not have happened in the first place? It's a courier company for Pete's sake! All they do is pick stuff up and drop them off. That's how they make their living. Also, how can a company live with itself when there a clearly six repeated logs for the one job and the job still does not get done?
The only good news is that Mike's situation led to the birth of this site. And now businesses can no longer treat their customers like they treated Mike and expect to get away with it - not without getting their name tarnished in front of millions of Kiwis.
Fastway Couriers (Onehunga, Auckland) was the culprit. The problem started when Mike and his wife had their first child. They had bought top-end UK made cloth nappies from an exclusive importer based in Tauranga. The company had mistakenly sent a set of wrong sized nappies. So they posted Mike a pre-paid Fastway Courier bag so he could return the wrong nappies. It was all meant to be straightforward until Mike rang Fastway to pick the courier parcel up.
Mike rang Fastway six times over ten days. Each time the operator apologized for not having the parcel picked up at the last booking. After the third call, each operator Mike spoke to promised to get the manager to call him in order to apologize. But Mike only wanted the parcel to get picked up. It never happened. Irate, Mike tried arranging pickup with another company at his expense. But the nappy importer was based in a semi-rural area and Fastway was their only main courier. Hmmm.
Mike and his wife had just spent four days in hospital since there were complications with the delivery of their child. His wife had a major operation and he also had a 3-day-old baby to look after. Plus, they badly needed to use those right sized nappies. But for whatever reasons Fastway just kept letting him down. Mike finally drove to Onehunga and delivered the parcel at the Fastway courier depot. It took over an hour in the heavy traffic. The really sad part is that he told his story to the supervisor at the depot and she promised to get the manager to call Mike. Years later he is still waiting for that phone call.
How hard can it be for a courier company to pick up a parcel that's located within 15kms of its main depot? And how hard can it be for a manager to call and sort out a problem so pathetic that it should not have happened in the first place? It's a courier company for Pete's sake! All they do is pick stuff up and drop them off. That's how they make their living. Also, how can a company live with itself when there a clearly six repeated logs for the one job and the job still does not get done?
The only good news is that Mike's situation led to the birth of this site. And now businesses can no longer treat their customers like they treated Mike and expect to get away with it - not without getting their name tarnished in front of millions of Kiwis.
Our philosophy
Our aim is to provide consumers leverage in getting their complaints sorted. We believe that all businesses make mistakes. But businesses should have a procedure to handle such incidents and "put things right". Businesses should learn from the complaints made by their customers and try and avoid making them in future. But the sad fact is that most businesses are too shortsighted and are in business only for the next quick transaction. Catering to a complaining customer's needs is not their priority. Sadly a lot of businesses have adopted this attitude and have been getting away with it for years. The poor customers have had no way to properly voice their concerns until now.
We believe that once Consumer Complaints website becomes well known in New Zealand, businesses will start to focus a lot more at meeting customer expectations. This will not only benefit New Zealand consumers but also help businesses improve their bottom line. Our site will also help highlight those chronically dodgy businesses that have been exploiting consumers to their heart's content. Businesses should not stress about having complaints against their name. But they should worry about complaints that they cannot resolve or if they start to get a huge number of complaints relative to their customer base.
We believe that once Consumer Complaints website becomes well known in New Zealand, businesses will start to focus a lot more at meeting customer expectations. This will not only benefit New Zealand consumers but also help businesses improve their bottom line. Our site will also help highlight those chronically dodgy businesses that have been exploiting consumers to their heart's content. Businesses should not stress about having complaints against their name. But they should worry about complaints that they cannot resolve or if they start to get a huge number of complaints relative to their customer base.
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