The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) latest Small Business in Focus report has revealed that micro and small businesses made 7000 complaints and enquiries from 1 July to 31 December 2016.
[quote]“Over 60 per cent of business contacts were from micro enterprises of four or under employees, which isn’t surprising given that micro firms are the biggest group of businesses in Australia,” said ACCC Acting Chair, Dr Michael Schaper.[/quote]
[quote]“In the past six months, the SME sector has been particularly concerned about misleading conduct and false representations with 735 complaints, consumer guarantees issues with 329 complaints, followed by misuse of market power concerns with 95 complaints.”[/quote]
According to Dr Schaper fewer franchisees have been reporting issues to the ACCC since the introduction of the new Franchising Code in January 2015.
“After an initial spike averaging 52 franchising complaints in the first six months of 2015, complaints have fallen to 32 a month by the end of 2016,” he said.