"No refunds": the shop signs in Australia that aren't legal

Walk through enough Australian shops and you will see the same handful of notices. Most of them are wrong, and several are unlawful — not merely unenforceable, but conduct the ACCC has taken action over.

The common thread is that all of them try to do the one thing the Australian Consumer Law does not allow: exclude a consumer guarantee. Guarantees apply automatically, and no sign, policy, receipt footer or checkbox can remove them.

The signs, and what's actually wrong with each#

That last row matters as much as the rest. The problem is not shops having policies — it is policies written so broadly that they read as cancelling rights the business cannot touch.

Why "misleading" and not just "wrong"#

This is the part that surprises people, including business owners who put the signs up in good faith.

The sign does not need to succeed in taking your rights away to be unlawful. The harm the law is concerned with is that a reasonable consumer reads it and gives up. A sign that causes someone with a valid faulty-goods claim to walk out without asking has done its damage regardless of what a court would have said about the underlying entitlement.

That is why these get treated as misleading conduct rather than as unenforceable contract terms. The offence is the impression created.

It's enforced, and recently#

Two examples worth knowing, because "technically unlawful but nobody acts on it" is the usual assumption.

Twenty-one AFL and NRL clubs, 2018. Nine AFL and twelve NRL clubs changed their returns policies after the ACCC took issue with terms requiring goods to be unworn, at full price, returned within a set time, and accompanied by the original proof of purchase. The ACCC's position was that remedies under the consumer guarantees are not limited by time, price or condition, and that an original receipt is not mandatory. Then-Chair Rod Sims: "Consumers have rights under the Australian Consumer Law guarantees which cannot be excluded, restricted or modified."

Over 2,000 retail websites, February 2025. An ACCC sweep of Australian online retail found widespread problems — time limits on faulty returns, blanket "no refund" rules on sale or specialised items, remedies limited to the manufacturer's warranty, non-refundable delivery fees on faulty goods, restocking charges, and bans on refunding opened items. Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe: "Our sweep has found numerous examples of practices that could potentially mislead or deceive consumers regarding their rights." Most businesses amended or removed the statements after warning letters.

Note what the 2025 sweep implies. If a regulator reviewing 2,000 sites found "numerous examples", the base rate of unlawful returns wording in Australian online retail is high. Assume the policy you are reading is wrong until it demonstrates otherwise.

Online stores play by the same rules#

A returns policy on a website is the same thing as a sign on a wall. The 2025 sweep is the ACCC saying so at scale.

Two wordings worth flagging specifically, both found in that sweep:

• "Items that have been opened and used cannot be exchanged or refunded." You generally cannot establish that something is faulty without opening it.
• Restocking fees and non-refundable delivery charges on faulty goods. Where the goods are faulty, you should not be out of pocket for the return of a product that was never of acceptable quality.

Overseas sellers are a genuinely harder case. The Australian Consumer Law can apply to businesses selling into Australia, but enforcing it against a seller with no Australian presence is a different problem from being right about it.

What a business is allowed to refuse#

Being accurate about this matters — overstating your rights is the fastest way to lose an argument you would otherwise win.

A business can lawfully say no when:

• You simply changed your mind, and it has no change-of-mind policy
• You misused the product or caused the damage
• The fault was disclosed to you before you bought it
• It is ordinary wear and tear
• You asked for a repair and it is a minor problem — then the business chooses the remedy, and it may reasonably choose repair over refund

And if a business advertises a change-of-mind policy, it has to honour the terms it advertised. Not doing so is itself misleading conduct — the voluntary policy becomes binding once it is promised.

If you're standing in front of one#

The sign has no effect on your rights, so treat it as noise and raise the guarantee directly. The wording, the escalation path and what the business actually owes you are set out in it broke just after the warranty ran out.

Two things worth doing beyond your own claim:

Photograph the sign. If this ends up with a consumer protection agency, the sign is evidence — of what you were told and of the business's general practice.

Report it to the ACCC. It will not resolve your individual dispute, and it is important not to expect that. But it decides what to investigate based on the reports it receives, and both examples above started as patterns visible across many complaints.

Where this leaves you#

A sign is a business's opinion about your rights. The Australian Consumer Law is the source of them, and it says guarantees cannot be excluded, restricted or modified — by signage, policy, terms and conditions, or a sticker at the counter.

The practical skill is telling the two systems apart in the moment: a voluntary returns policy governs "I changed my mind", and the consumer guarantees govern "it's faulty, wrong, or not as described". Nearly every unlawful sign in the table above works by blurring that line — which is covered in consumer guarantees vs warranty.