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Wouldn't it be great to lock in your customers to a 12 month contract which:

  1. Automatically renews every 12 months without needing to tell the customer that the contract is coming to an end
     
  2. Contains an early termination / exit clause where the customer has to pay 92.5% of the remaining payments to end the contract early
     
  3. Where the customer needs your permission to share the benefits with someone else
     
  4. Where you have 28 days to remedy a breach of contract but the customer has only 14 days

The 'phone words' contract used by 1300 Australia contained all these clauses ... until last Friday when the consumer and small business watchdog, the ACCC, ‘persuaded’ 1300 Australia to remove these clauses from their contracts.

The ACCC used the Australian Consumer Law (the ACL) to force 1300 Australia to remove these clauses. The ACL makes unfair clauses in a contract void, which means they are treated as if they were never in the contract in the first place.

If you are a business which has standard contracts with unfair clauses, you may have a rude awakening when you find that your early termination clause is not legally enforceable. It's worth reviewing and replacing the unfair contract clause with a fair clause.

For more information click on my article 1300 Australia to remove unfair contract terms from its phone word agreements. At the end of the article is a marketing analysis by Michael Field which explains why 1300 Australia inserted those clauses.