The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)’s latest Small Business in Focus report reveals the number one complaint from WA small businesses last year related to misleading conduct.
According to the ACCC, Australian micro and small businesses made 7000 complaints and enquiries from 1 July 1 to 31 December 2016.
These included 733 from WA small businesses including 583 complaints and 150 enquiries.
The top three complaints related to false representations; consumer guarantees or complaints concerning faulty products and services; and wrongly accepting payment.
Wrongly accepting payment involved complaints about businesses accepting payment for goods and services and not supplying them within a reasonable time or at all.
ACCC Acting Chair Dr Michael Schaper says the Australian SME sector has been particularly concerned about misleading conduct and false representations with 735 complaints; consumer guarantees with 329 complaints; and misuse of market power concerns with 95 complaints.
More than 60 per cent of business contacts were from micro-enterprises of four or under employees.
The ACCC also received 185 complaints from small businesses in the agriculture sector, a substantial increase from the previous six months.
Schaper says fewer franchisees have been reporting issues to the ACCC since the introduction of the new Franchising Code in January 2015.
