What’s a reasonable refund?

A complainant approached us to complain that their business had been impacted by a change to their postal operator’s practice in relation to late payment fees. The business had been using the same postal operator for delivery services for several years. The business let us know that in 2022 they had been late in making payments to the operator.

The operator wrote to the business to advise them that there had been a change in their late payment fees with the introduction of a new policy in 2017. The business complained to us, as the postal operator’s decision would see them pay more in late fees than the postal operator’s pre-2017 policy.

We looked at the complaint and noted the postal operator had technically followed the terms and conditions of their revised Late Payment Fees policy. However, we were concerned that the outcome was still not reasonable for the business.

We expressed our concerns with the postal operator, particularly about the ambiguity of the wording in its new policy. While the postal operator noted they had followed their processes and updated terms and conditions correctly, they acknowledged their terms and conditions had unintended consequences for the business.

As a result of our investigation, the postal operator:

• agreed to arrange for a part-refund amounting to $75,000 from the fees charged in 2022 to the business
• suspended their Late Payment Fees policy while a review of the policy was conducted
• implemented a new Late Payment Fees policy as of 1 May 2024, with reduced late fees and administration fees.

2024