Real estate and retailers our most despised companies

Amy Bainbridge
Aug 25, 2016, updated Aug 25, 2016

The charged pair worked for LJ Hooker Real Estate. Photo: ABC

New South Wales has become the first state to launch a complaints register publicly listing the companies which receive the most complaints to authorities, with real estate agent LJ Hooker topping the list.

Each year, NSW Fair Trading receives 50,000 complaints, but the data has not previously been made public.

The first list — of 20 companies — features real estate agent LJ Hooker with 31 complaints, retailer Harvey Norman with 29 complaints, and airline AirAsia with 25 complaints.

Only complaints that are deemed by case workers to be genuine and not vexatious are included.

NSW Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe said all companies that received 10 or more complaints in a month would be named.

“It’s open data, so it’s information that has not been manipulated in any way and information I think the public are really deserving to know, in terms of the track record of businesses,” Mr Stowe told the ABC.

“If you work in fair trading — as I have for over 20 years now — there’s a whole lot of businesses you wouldn’t want to engage because we know their track record.”
Rod Stowe

“I think it’s only appropriate the public also have that information available to them.”

NSW Parliament last year passed legislation to make the information publicly available in monthly reports released online.

“We’ve engaged with all the traders we thought were likely to be on the list, those with a track record of large numbers of complaints over recent times,” Mr Stowe said.

“Had we published the list in March when we issued the guidelines, we think there would have been about 30 businesses with 10 or more complaints.

“Interestingly, that list is only 20 because a whole lot of businesses have taken steps to improve their performance.”

See the complete complaints below