Returns, refunds and your consumer rights

Who you deal with

Dad Gifts Australia does not sell, stock, pack, ship, bill or refund anything. When you click a link you leave this site and buy from that retailer under their terms. They take the payment, they own the contract, and they handle the return.

So the first step is always the retailer’s own returns process. Their policy will be linked in their footer, and their order confirmation email is usually the fastest route to it.

The rights they cannot write away

Australian Consumer Law gives you consumer guarantees that apply automatically to almost everything sold to a consumer in Australia. They exist independently of any warranty, any receipt condition and any policy the retailer publishes. A sign or a term saying otherwise does not remove them, and the ACCC treats claims that it does as misleading conduct.

The guarantees include that goods are of acceptable quality, match their description, are fit for a purpose you made known, and match any sample or demonstration model.

• A major failure, meaning the item is unsafe, significantly different from its description, or would not have been bought by a reasonable person aware of the fault, entitles you to choose a refund or a replacement. The choice is yours, not the retailer’s.
• A minor failure entitles the retailer to choose: they may repair it, replace it, or refund you, within a reasonable time.
• You are also entitled to compensation for any reasonably foreseeable loss caused by the failure.
• There is no fixed expiry on these guarantees. What counts as a reasonable period depends on the price, the nature of the item and what a reasonable person would expect from it.

Change of mind is a different thing

Consumer guarantees cover faults, not regret. If a gift simply is not wanted, a retailer is not legally required to take it back, and many Australian retailers still will as a matter of policy, often within a set window and with the packaging intact.

This is the single most useful thing to check before you buy a gift, because the recipient sees it weeks later. Look for the retailer’s change-of-mind window and whether it extends over Christmas. Several extend it deliberately, and several do not.

Gift cards and experience vouchers

Gift cards sold in Australia must carry a minimum three-year expiry from the date of supply, and most post-supply fees are banned. The retailer that issued the card is bound by those rules, and their terms are the ones that apply.

Experience vouchers are the ones to read carefully. Height, weight, age, licence and health restrictions are common on driving, flying and adventure experiences, and a voucher that cannot be redeemed because of one of them is the worst outcome a gift can produce. Where an experience on this site publishes restrictions, they are printed on the card here rather than left on the merchant’s page.

If something on this site is wrong

A price that has changed, a product that is no longer available, or a description that does not match what arrived. Those are our problem even though the sale is not.

Email hello@dadgifts.com.au and it gets fixed. Prices here are read off the retailer’s live page and dated on the card, so if a date looks old the number probably is too.