Refund Policy

Who this policy is from

This refund policy is issued by The Fine Food Commons Australia Pty Ltd, ABN 71 691 868 103, of Shop 8, 130 Scarborough Street, Southport QLD 4215 (referred to below as "we", "us" and "our").

You can reach us by email at commons@thefinefood.com. We handle returns and refunds by email so that there is a written record of what was agreed, and we reply within 2 business days.

We sell to Australia, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. The first part of this policy applies to everyone. After that there are separate sections setting out the extra rights that buyers in South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have. If your country has its own section, read the general part and your country's part together. Where your local consumer law gives you more than this policy does, your local law wins.

Damaged, faulty or incorrect items

If something arrives broken, leaking, past its best before date, not what you ordered, or not of the quality you were entitled to expect, tell us and we will put it right. Send us your order number, a short description of the problem, and photographs of the item and the outer packaging if you can take them.

We do not put a deadline on this. Your rights for faulty or wrongly supplied goods are not cut off by any time limit we invent. Those rights last for a reasonable period, which depends on the product, its price and its best before date. Telling us early does help, because carriers only accept damage claims for a limited window and early photographs make it much easier for us to chase the carrier, but a late report does not take away your rights.

We do not ask you to return an unsafe, spoiled or leaking food item before we help you. In most cases photographs are enough. If we do need the item back, we arrange and pay for that (see "Who pays return postage" below).

Allergens and ingredients

Five of our six products contain propolis, which can cause allergic reactions in some people, and the Native Bee Propolis Extract also contains soy, in the form of soy lecithin. The full ingredient list for every product is on its product page and on the pack. If a product you received was not what its ingredient list said it was, or an allergen was not declared, that is a fault, not a change of mind, and the sections above apply in full. Please contact us straight away.

Your rights in Australia under the Australian Consumer Law

The following wording is required by law and cannot be watered down by anything else on this page:

Our goods come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. You are entitled to a replacement or refund for a major failure and compensation for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. You are also entitled to have the goods repaired or replaced if the goods fail to be of acceptable quality and the failure does not amount to a major failure.

Nothing in this policy excludes, restricts or modifies those consumer guarantees. Anything in this policy that would have that effect does not apply to Australian consumers.

Who chooses the remedy

• Major failure: you choose. A failure is major where, for example, the goods are unsafe, they are significantly different from their description or sample, or a reasonable person would not have bought them had they known the problem. In that case you choose between a refund and a replacement, or you can keep the goods and ask us to compensate you for the drop in their value. You can also claim any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage caused by the failure.
• Minor failure: we choose. For a problem that is not major, we may choose between repairing the goods, replacing them or refunding you. Food cannot sensibly be repaired, so in practice this means a replacement or a refund. If we do not fix the problem within a reasonable time, you can treat it as a major failure and choose for yourself.

Who pays return postage

• Faulty, damaged, unsafe or incorrect items: you are not out of pocket. The Australian Consumer Law entitles you to recover the reasonable cost of returning goods that are not of acceptable quality, and requires us to collect them at our expense where returning them would be significantly costly or difficult. That is your right, not a concession from us. In practice, for Australian customers we send a prepaid Australia Post returns label. For customers in South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan we cannot issue an Australian prepaid label, so we reimburse your return postage against a receipt. We treat standard tracked post as the reasonable cost, and if that is not enough in your case, tell us and we will look at it.
• Overseas returns. Do not send anything back until we have confirmed the address and the method. Food sent back internationally without the right paperwork can be seized or destroyed in transit, and we cannot refund an item we never receive. Approved returns from all four markets come back to our Australian address, Shop 8, 130 Scarborough Street, Southport QLD 4215.

How to make a claim

• Email us at commons@thefinefood.com with your order number and what went wrong.
• Attach photographs where the item is damaged, leaking or incorrect.
• We will reply within two business days and tell you what happens next, including whether the item needs to come back and who pays for that.
• Keep the item and its packaging until the claim is settled, unless we tell you it is unsafe to do so.

Cancelling an order before it ships

If your order has not been packed yet, email us and we will cancel it and refund you in full. Once a parcel has been handed to the carrier we cannot recall it, and the sections above apply instead. You can cancel at any time before we send you the dispatch email.

Refunds: method, currency and timing

• Refunds go back to the original payment method. We cannot refund to a different card, account or person.
• Refunds are issued in the currency you were charged in. If your bank or card issuer applied its own exchange rate or foreign transaction fee, the amount that lands in your account may differ slightly from the amount you paid, and we cannot make up that difference. Our base currency is Australian dollars, and our prices for South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan are set in Korean won, Singapore dollars and New Taiwan dollars rather than converted from Australian dollars at checkout.
• We issue approved refunds within three business days. Your bank, card issuer or payment provider may take longer again to show the money in your account.
• Where an item has to come back to us first, we issue the refund after it arrives and we have checked it.
• Import duties, import taxes and customs handling fees that you paid to an authority in your own country are not ours to refund. You may be able to claim those back from that authority directly, and we will supply paperwork to help you do it.

International parcels held, refused or destroyed by customs

Customs authorities can hold, return or destroy a parcel, and their decision is outside our control. How we handle it depends on why it happened.

• Our error. If the parcel is refused because of something we got wrong, such as incorrect paperwork, a wrong declaration or a packing fault, we refund you in full, including the delivery charge.
• Missing or mismatched customs information. Korean parcels need a valid Personal Customs Clearance Code that matches the recipient, and Taiwanese parcels need EZ WAY real name verification with the consignee name matching their Taiwanese identification. If a parcel is held, returned or destroyed because that information was missing, wrong or not completed in time, we refund the price of the goods if and when they come back to us, less our outbound shipping cost and any return or handling charges the carrier passes on.
• Refusal to pay duty. If a parcel is returned because the duty or tax due on it was not paid, the same applies: we refund the goods once they are back with us, less shipping and any charges the carrier bills us.
• Destroyed and not returned. Where customs destroys a parcel and it never comes back to us, we refund the value of the goods but not the shipping. The one exception is where clearance failed because of information you supplied, for example a Personal Customs Clearance Code that was wrong or registered to someone else, or a recipient name that does not match that person's identification, in which case no refund is due.

None of this limits your rights if the real problem was that the goods were faulty or not what you ordered, and none of it limits your rights under the consumer law of your own country.

South Korea: your additional rights

If you bought from us as a consumer in the Republic of Korea, the Act on Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce gives you a right of withdrawal (청약철회) on top of everything above.

• Seven days. You may withdraw from the purchase within seven days of receiving the goods, or within seven days of receiving the written terms of the contract if those reach you later, without giving a reason.
• Longer where the goods do not match. If the goods are different from how they were advertised or from the terms of the contract, you may withdraw within three months of receiving them, or within thirty days of the day you became aware, or could reasonably have become aware, of the difference.
• Return cost. If you withdraw simply because you changed your mind, you pay the cost of returning the goods. If you withdraw because the goods were different from the advertisement or the contract, or because they were faulty, we pay that cost.
• Refund timing. Once the returned goods reach us, we refund you within three business days. If a payment provider is involved, we will ask it to stop or reverse the charge without delay.

Opened products. Korean law allows a seller to refuse withdrawal in defined cases, including where the value of the goods has markedly decreased because the buyer used or partly consumed them, but only if the seller gave the buyer clear notice of that restriction beforehand, in an easily visible place on the packaging or by another equally clear method, or gave the buyer a trial product. We do not give that notice, so we do not rely on those provisions. Your right of withdrawal applies in full, including where a jar, bottle or pouch has been opened or partly consumed.

Taiwan: your additional rights

If you bought from us as a consumer in Taiwan, Article 19 of the Consumer Protection Act gives you a rescission right on distance sales, on top of everything above.

• Seven days. You may return the goods or rescind the contract in writing within seven days of receiving them, without giving a reason and without bearing any cost or price.
• The clock depends on being told. If we did not give you the required notice of this right, the seven days do not start until we do, and the right remains available for up to four months from the day you received the goods.
• Returning and refunding. After you rescind, you return the goods to us and we return your money, each within fifteen days. Any agreement between us that leaves you worse off than the law does is void.

Exceptions. Taiwanese regulations allow certain categories of goods to be excluded from the seven day right, but only where the seller tells the buyer about the exception before the sale and the buyer agrees at that point. The categories that could touch our products are goods that spoil easily or are close to their expiry date, goods made to the buyer's order, and personal hygiene goods once unsealed.

We do not give that pre-sale notice and we do not ask for that acknowledgement, so we do not rely on any of those exceptions. The seven day right applies to Taiwanese orders in full, including to products that have been opened, and we will honour it.

Singapore

Singapore does not give buyers a general cooling off right for ordinary online purchases, and we do not offer a change of mind return, so if you are in Singapore and change your mind, we are not able to take the goods back.

Where goods do not conform to the contract at the time of delivery, the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act gives you the right to ask for a repair or a replacement, and if that is not possible or not done within a reasonable time, a reduction in price or the return of the goods for a refund. If the problem appears within six months of delivery, it is generally presumed to have been there at delivery unless that is inconsistent with the nature of the goods or the defect.

Singapore orders are posted from Australia, so returns come back to our Australian address. Please contact us before sending anything back, so we can confirm the return address and make sure your refund is not delayed.

If you are not happy with how we handle your claim

Tell us first. Reply to our email and ask for the matter to be looked at again, and we will review it and give you a written answer.

If you are still not satisfied, you can take it further, and using this policy does not stop you doing so at any time:

• Australia. The Queensland Office of Fair Trading handles consumer complaints about Queensland businesses. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is the national regulator for the Australian Consumer Law. You may also be able to take a claim to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
• South Korea. You can seek counselling or mediation through the Korea Consumer Agency and the consumer counselling network.
• Taiwan. You can complain to your local government's consumer service centre or consumer ombudsman, and ask for mediation before the consumer dispute mediation committee.
• Singapore. You can seek help from the Consumers Association of Singapore.

Language and updates

This policy is written in Australian English. Korean and Traditional Chinese versions of all four of our policies are published alongside the English versions. If the versions differ, the English version governs, except where your local consumer law requires otherwise, in which case your local law and your local rights come first.

We may update this policy. The version that applies to your order is the version published when you placed it.

Last updated: 6 August 2026