Dishonest garage
suppliers make news headlines.
QUEENSLAND police and the Office of Fair Trading are investigating a Brisbane company accused of abandoning its offices and customers after collecting large sums of money for garage and shed kits.
Consumers in Western Australia, South Australia and NSW also have complained to consumer affairs officials about online orders with Quicksheds Australia Pty Ltd.
More than 30 complaints have been received about the firm since November. They said that despite a written contract and full payment, the garage never arrived.
Apparently Quicksheds vacated its office at 57 Pinelands Rd, in Brisbane's Sunnybank, without notice after six months.
Customers who checked with the supposed manufacturer of the garage material found that no orders had been placed by Quicksheds.
Attempts to reach the company's operations manager (name deleted) on his mobile and home phone were unsuccessful.
- Reproduced from an article in the Queensland Courier Mail newspaper, Jan 2006.
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A plethora of shed and garage companies making spurious advertising claims are causing concern for legitimate traders, according to a spokesperson from an Australian trade association.
It appears small franchise owners of undisclosed buying groups are trying to give the impression they are large, long-standing and reputable suppliers of sheds.
Some of these businesses, often operating from a rented office, aggressively advertise sheds for sale in magazines, newspapers and on the Internet. Their advertisements claim there are only a limited number of particular building left in stock at a special price. In most cases, the sheds are really not in stock at all and are made to order.
It gets worse. A few of these $2 companies word their advertisements so it appears they have multiple factories located all over the place. Others have different phone numbers for different states to give the impression they have local staff or contacts. The truth is, the so-called factories are actually the locations of unrelated component suppliers and the phone numbers usually originate from or redirect to one central location.
Then there is the issue of erection of the buildings. Most of these mail order operators have no local assembly teams and no worthwhile erection instructions. The customers gets a bundle of steel and a box of bolts then have to sort it out for themselves, according to the spokesperson.
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