Online Shopping and Private Sellers: Your Rights
🛒 Who you buy from decides your rights
When something goes wrong with an online purchase, the single most important question is not what you bought, it is who you bought it from. Buying from a New Zealand business gives you strong, automatic rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act and the Fair Trading Act. Buying from an overseas business puts you largely outside those laws, so you lean on the platform and your card instead. Buying from a private seller on an auction or social marketplace strips away most of the consumer law entirely and moves you closer to buyer beware. The same faulty phone can leave you fully protected, partly protected or barely protected depending only on the seller. This guide explains each situation, how a card chargeback can rescue a bad purchase, and how to buy safely so it does not come to that.
The three situations at a glance
| You buy from | Main protection | If it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| NZ business | Consumer Guarantees Act and Fair Trading Act | Repair, replace or refund from the retailer |
| Overseas business | Platform policy plus your card chargeback | Seller's return policy, then chargeback or the platform |
| Private seller (not in trade) | Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017 | Goods must match the description, or you can cancel or claim |
Buying from a New Zealand business
This is the strongest position. Any business selling to you in New Zealand, whether it has a shop or is online only, must meet the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 (CGA). Goods must be of acceptable quality, fit for purpose, match their description and last a reasonable time for their price and type. These rights are automatic and cannot be signed away by fine print or a "no returns" sign.
- Repair, replace or refund: For a minor fault the retailer can choose the remedy. For a major fault (unsafe, does not work, or very different from what was described), you choose.
- The retailer is your first contact, not the manufacturer. A shop cannot simply tell you to "go to the brand".
- The Fair Trading Act 1986 bans misleading claims, fake "was" prices and bait advertising, and it applies fully to NZ websites.
- Reasonable durability beats the warranty: a $1,200 appliance that dies at 18 months is very likely still covered by the CGA even though a 12-month warranty has ended.
A .co.nz web address or prices in dollars does not prove it. Check for a New Zealand company name, a physical address and a GST number. Some sites that look local are overseas sellers using a marketplace. If the goods ship from overseas and there is no NZ entity behind the sale, you are in the overseas situation covered next, not the CGA.
🌏 Buying from an overseas business
Sites like large global marketplaces and direct-from-overseas retailers can be cheap and convenient, but New Zealand consumer law is very hard to enforce against a seller that has no presence here. You are not without options, they are just different ones.
GST is collected at the border, usually at checkout
Since 1 December 2019, overseas businesses that sell low value goods to New Zealand shoppers generally have to register for and charge GST. A low value good is a physical item valued at NZ$1,000 or less (excluding GST). In practice this means:
- Goods NZ$1,000 or less: the overseas seller or marketplace usually adds 15% GST at checkout, so there is nothing extra to pay when it arrives.
- Goods over NZ$1,000: New Zealand Customs collects GST, and any duty, at the border, plus an import entry transaction fee and a biosecurity levy, before the goods are released.
- Watch combined orders: multiple parcels from the same supplier arriving the same day can be treated as one shipment and tip over the $1,000 line.
Being charged GST does not make an overseas purchase a New Zealand sale. It is just tax. Your repair, replace and refund rights still depend on the seller's own policy and the platform, not the CGA.
Returns and warranty are the seller's policy
With an overseas purchase, whatever the seller offers is what you get. Read the return window, who pays return shipping (often you, and it can cost more than the item), and any warranty terms before you buy. There is no CGA backstop if the policy is stingy.
Your real protections: the platform and your card
- The marketplace's buyer protection: big platforms run their own dispute and money-back schemes. Open a case within their time limit and keep all messages on the platform.
- A card chargeback: if you paid by credit or Visa or Mastercard debit and the item never arrives or is badly not as described, your bank can reverse the charge. This is often your strongest tool against an overseas seller. Section 3 explains how.
The Disputes Tribunal and the Commerce Commission deal with sellers connected to New Zealand. Taking action against a company in another country is usually not realistic for a single online order, which is exactly why paying by card and using the platform's protection matter so much.
🤝 Private sellers, safe buying and chargebacks
Buying from a private seller
When you buy from an individual selling their own used gear on an online marketplace, the Consumer Guarantees Act and the Fair Trading Act do not apply. This is closer to buyer beware, but you are not completely unprotected.
- The goods must match the description. Under the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017, a private seller must have the right to sell the item, and it must match the description or any sample given.
- Misrepresentation is actionable. If the seller made a false or misleading statement that persuaded you to buy, you may be able to cancel the sale or claim compensation.
- Sellers can exclude those terms. A private seller is allowed to state that the Contract and Commercial Law Act does not apply, for example "sold as is, no returns", which narrows your rights further, so read the listing carefully.
If someone is really running a business, selling regularly or buying stock to resell, they are "in trade" even on a marketplace, and the CGA and Fair Trading Act do apply to them. A one-off sale of a personal item is a private sale; a high-volume seller is not. When it is unclear, look at how many items they sell and how they describe themselves.
Safe-buying steps that keep you protected
- Check the seller: look at feedback, ratings, how long they have been a member, and whether the story of the item makes sense.
- Use traceable payment: pay by card or through the platform. Paying with a marketplace's own payment system means the platform holds the money and the seller never sees your card or bank details.
- Never bank transfer to a stranger: once money leaves your account by direct bank transfer it is gone, and there is no chargeback. It is the payment method that appears in most marketplace scams, and the one platforms are steadily moving away from.
- Keep it on the platform: a seller pushing you to finish the deal off-site, by bank transfer or a "cheaper direct price", is a classic warning sign.
Marketplace buyer protection
Where a marketplace runs its own payment system, it usually comes with a buyer protection scheme that can cover you if your item does not arrive, is not as described, or arrives broken. Each platform sets its own cover limit and conditions, so check what yours actually offers before you rely on it. That protection is one of the main reasons to pay through the platform rather than off to the side, and it generally applies whether the seller is a business or a private individual.
Delivery and payment scams to watch for
- Fake courier or customs texts: a message claiming a small fee is needed to release your parcel, linking to a fake payment page. Real couriers do not collect random fees by text link.
- Overpayment tricks: a "buyer" sends too much and asks you to refund the difference, then the original payment reverses.
- Too good to be true: a brand new item far below market price, a seller in a hurry, or a request to pay quickly to "hold" it.
- Off-platform pressure: being moved to email, text or a bank transfer removes every protection the platform gives you.
How a card chargeback works
A chargeback is your bank reversing a card payment under Visa or Mastercard rules. It is separate from your CGA rights and is especially useful for overseas sellers and businesses that vanish.
- Grounds: goods not delivered, goods significantly not as described, an unauthorised charge, or a merchant that closed down.
- Act fast: you generally have up to 120 days from the transaction, but many banks apply a shorter window of around 60 days, so raise it as soon as you can.
- How: contact your bank, say you want to raise a "chargeback" (not just report a problem), and give the date, amount, a description, and proof you tried to sort it with the seller.
- Limits: you cannot chargeback simply because you changed your mind or found it cheaper elsewhere.
If a New Zealand business or a NZ-based private seller will not put things right, the Disputes Tribunal hears claims up to $60,000 (raised from $30,000 on 24 January 2026). Filing fees are $62 for claims under $2,000, $124 up to $5,000, $248 up to $30,000 and $496 above that. No lawyers are involved. For free advice first, call the Citizens Advice Bureau on 0800 367 222.
🔢 Worked Examples
These four New Zealand examples show how the same kind of problem plays out very differently depending on who you bought from. The people are made up; the rules and figures are real and hand-checked.
Situation: Priya bought a $1,199 dishwasher online from a New Zealand retailer. It failed at 18 months. The 12-month manufacturer warranty had ended, and she had declined a $199 extended warranty at the till.
Situation: Tom bought headphones for NZ$260 from a large overseas marketplace. GST was added at checkout.
Tom paid by credit card, so a chargeback was available. Had he paid by a method with no chargeback, his only route would have been the seller's own policy, which offered him far less.
Situation: Aroha bought a used laptop for $700 from a private seller on an online marketplace. The listing said "battery holds a full day, no faults". The battery was dead and would not hold charge.
Situation: Hemi paid $450 by Visa credit card to an overseas online store for a bike part. The store took the money, sent no tracking, and stopped answering emails.
Paying by card and acting quickly turned a total loss into a full refund. A bank transfer to the same store would have left Hemi with no way to get the money back.
🎯 Test Your Knowledge
A 10-question quiz on your rights when shopping online in New Zealand
Related guides and tools
- Consumer Guarantees Guide - your full CGA and Fair Trading Act rights with NZ businesses
- Chargebacks Guide - how to reverse a bad card payment step by step
- Avoiding Scams Guide - spotting online buying and selling scams
- Recovering Money After a Scam Guide - what to do once money has gone
- GST Calculator - work out the 15% GST added to an overseas order
- Selling Online and Tax, a related guide in the same area.
Sources: verified July 2026 against Consumer Protection, MBIE (consumerprotection.govt.nz) for private sales, online shopping rights and the Consumer Guarantees and Fair Trading Acts; Consumer NZ (consumer.org.nz) for chargebacks; Inland Revenue and New Zealand Customs (ird.govt.nz, customs.govt.nz) for GST on low value imported goods from 1 December 2019; the Disputes Tribunal (disputestribunal.govt.nz) for the $60,000 limit and filing fees; and the Citizens Advice Bureau (cab.org.nz). This is general information, not personalised legal or financial advice.