Returning Christmas gifts in New Zealand: your rights without the receipt

If the gift is faulty, you're covered, receipt or not. The Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 applies to products and services "bought or gifted to you" from a business, so the person who received the present has the same rights as the person who paid for it.

If you just don't want it, it's up to the shop. There is no legal right to swap an unwanted present. Many retailers offer exchanges after Christmas as a policy, and their rules apply.

Unwanted gifts: store policy and exchange cards#

A business "usually doesn't have to let you return an item you have simply changed your mind about", Consumer Protection says. Where it does, expect conditions:

• proof of purchase, which for a gift usually means the giver's receipt, a gift receipt or the order email
• an exchange or credit note rather than money back
• sale items excluded, which retailers are allowed to do for change of mind

The practical fix is the exchange card, sometimes called a gift receipt, which Consumer Protection suggests asking for when you buy a gift. It lets the recipient take the item back to the shop and exchange it without the giver's receipt.

Faulty gifts: the Consumer Guarantees Act#

A present that breaks, does not work, or is not what it was described as is a Consumer Guarantees Act problem, not a change-of-mind one. The recipient can go to the business that sold it and ask for a repair, replacement or refund, depending on whether the failure is minor or substantial.

The shop can ask for proof that the item came from them. For a gift, that can be:

• the receipt or gift receipt
• the giver's bank or card statement showing the purchase
• an order confirmation email, for anything bought online

See returning something without a receipt for how minor and substantial failures differ.

Online gifts#

Gifts bought online from a New Zealand business are covered by the Consumer Guarantees Act like any other purchase from a business. Things bought from private sellers, including on Trade Me or Marketplace, are not.

For a gift bought from an overseas website, New Zealand consumer law may not help you in practice, whatever the site's returns page says. Check the returns terms before you buy, and keep the order email: it is often the only proof of purchase there is.

A summer checklist for givers#

• Ask for an exchange card when you buy, especially for clothes and anything with sizes.
• Keep the receipt, or a photo of it, until well after Christmas. For electronics and appliances, keep it for as long as the item could fail within a reasonable time.
• Note the exchange card's expiry date and tell the recipient.