Closed petition: Review the rules on complaint escalation to Ombudsmen/ADR in all industries

Closed on 4 August 2025

We think the review should consider whether businesses with "No resolution" offered to customers should pay a lumpsum for complaint escalation to the Ombudsman/ADR; and whether the time frame for businesses for complaint handling should be reduced to 4 weeks.

The review should also consider and whether the rule of rejection of repeat complaints should be demolished.

We feel some businesses take large advantage on the existence of Ombudsmen/ADR and do not properly deal with complaints, leaving customers in a disadvantageous position with a lot of distress. We think the timeframe for businesses’ complaint handling, which is usually 8 weeks, is also very unreasonable to wait for "no viable outcomes". Currently if a problem is a repeat issue, Ombudsmen/ADR would reject dealing with the complaint, which we think causes further distress to customers. With a lumpsum paid to the Ombudsman/ADR by businesses each time, we think they would think twice.