Consumers & money
A quick guide
June 2003
A S I C
Australian Securities & Investments Commission
Consumers & Money: A quick guide
©Australian Securities & Investments Commission, July 2003
i
Acknowledgments
The content of this "quick guide" was provided by ASIC to the Legal Information
Access Centre to produce an issue of the series Hot Topics: legal issues in plain
language.
Hot Topics 41: Consumers & Money, a 24 page magazine, is available for $17.60
(incl. GST) from the Legal Information Access Centre (LIAC) and is also distributed
to every public library in New South Wales.
LIAC is a joint initiative of the State Library of NSW and the Law & Justice
Foundation of NSW. For more information visit the LIAC website
http://liac.sl.nsw.gov.au or contact:
Cathy Hammer
Editor - Hot Topics
Tel (02) 9273 1645
Fax (02) 9273 1250
Consumers & Money: A quick guide
©Australian Securities & Investments Commission, June 2003
ii
Contents
Section 1: Consumer protection...............................................4
Section 2: Key organisations.................................................... 7
Section 3: Consumer protection laws.................................... 10
Section 4: Self-regulation....................................................... 17
Section 5: E-commerce.......................................................... 21
Section 6: Credit..................................................................... 25
Section 7: Insurance...............................................................30
Section 8: Superannuation ....................................................34
Section 9: Indigenous consumers.......................................... 37
Section 10: Scams................................................................... 41
Section 11: Costs: fees, charges and commissions.................44
Consumers & Money: A quick guide
©Australian Securities & Investments Commission, June 2003
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Section 1: Consu