Personal trainer not delivering? The s60 'due care and skill' guarantee

You signed up for a block of personal training sessions, paid upfront, and now the trainer keeps cancelling, turns up unprepared, or isn't delivering anything close to what was promised. Maybe they claimed to specialise in rehabilitation and then gave you a generic program that made an existing injury worse. Maybe they sold you a 12-week transformation package and disappeared after week four. Whatever happened, you're out of pocket and wondering whether you have any real options.

Often, yes — and the legal ground is stronger than most people realise. When a business supplies you a service as a consumer in Australia, the Australian Consumer Law automatically guarantees that the service will be rendered with due care and skill. That guarantee doesn't disappear because you signed a contract with a cancellation clause, or because the trainer's terms say "no refunds on packages."

Quick answer

How serious the failure is decides the remedy. Under section 60 of the Australian Consumer Law, every service a business supplies to a consumer must be rendered with due care and skill. If your personal trainer failed to meet that standard — through repeated cancellations, poor technique instruction, a program that caused injury, or simply not delivering what was promised — you may have a statutory right to a remedy: for a major failure, cancelling and getting a refund for sessions not yet delivered, or claiming compensation; for a non-major failure that can be remedied, requiring the business to fix it first. A contract term that tries to exclude those rights is void to that extent (though a recreational-services waiver may validly limit injury liability, see below), and a "no refund" policy can't override them.

What the law actually says

The Australian Consumer Law is Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, and its consumer guarantees apply where you acquire services as a consumer under section 3 of the ACL from a business acting in trade or commerce. Personal training is a service. The moment a business takes your money to provide it, a set of consumer guarantees automatically attaches to the transaction.

The two guarantees most relevant to personal training disputes are:

• Section 60 — Due care and skill. The service must be performed with the care and skill that a competent person in that field would bring to it. A trainer who programs exercises that are contraindicated for an injury you disclosed, who fails to correct dangerous technique, or who repeatedly doesn't show up may not be meeting this standard, and may also be in breach of your contract.
• Section 61 — Fitness for purpose and achieving a result. If you made known the purpose — "I want to train safely around a lower back condition" — or the result you wanted — "I need to prepare for a specific event" — the service must be reasonably fit for that purpose, and of a nature and quality that might reasonably be expected to achieve that result. Neither applies if the circumstances show you didn't rely, or it was unreasonable to rely, on the trainer's skill or judgment. You also can't take action for a section 61 failure if it happened only because of someone other than the trainer (or their agents or employees), or a cause independent of human control after the service was supplied.

When a guarantee is breached, your remedies come from sections 267 to 270 of the ACL. The remedy depends on how serious the failure is:

• Major failure, or one that can't be remedied: You can cancel the contract and get a refund for the part of the service not yet consumed (section 269), or keep the contract and claim compensation for the drop in value. Under section 268, a failure is major if a reasonable consumer fully acquainted with the nature and extent of the failure wouldn't have acquired the service; the service is substantially unfit for a purpose services of that kind are commonly supplied for, unfit for a particular purpose you made known, or not of such a nature, or quality, state or condition, that it might reasonably be expected to achieve a result you made known, and can't easily and within a reasonable time be remedied; or it creates an unsafe situation. Two or more failures that aren't major on their own are together a major failure if a reasonable consumer fully acquainted with them, taken as a whole, wouldn't have acquired the service (section 268(2)).
• Non-major failure that can be remedied: You can require the business to fix it within a reasonable time — re-deliver the sessions, provide a substitute trainer, or otherwise remedy the issue. If it refuses or doesn't do so within a reasonable time, you can have the problem fixed elsewhere and recover the reasonable cost, or cancel the contract (section 267(2)).

You can also claim other reasonably foreseeable loss, such as medical costs from an injury (section 267(4)), if you can evidence it, took reasonable steps to limit it, and don't claim the same loss twice. A waiver in a recreational-services contract, or state law, may limit injury claims (see Common mistakes).

It's also worth knowing that if the trainer made specific claims about their qualifications, specialisations, or the results you'd achieve that turned out to be false, section 18 of the ACL on misleading and deceptive conduct may also apply. Claiming to be a certified rehabilitation specialist when you're not, for instance, is exactly the kind of conduct section 18 is designed to address. You can read more about how that plays out in practice in our guide to services that go wrong under the ACL.

When this applies (and when it doesn't)

The section 60 guarantee applies when:

• You paid a business for personal training services. This includes sole traders operating as a business — most personal trainers qualify, whether they work at a gym or independently.
• You acquired the service as a consumer under section 3 of the ACL: it cost $100,000 or less, or is of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use (either is enough). Check how section 3 applies to you; section 63 takes some services, such as insurance, out of the guarantees.
• You can show the service wasn't performed with due care and skill, or wasn't fit for the purpose you made known.

The guarantee is less likely to help you when:

• You're claiming a change of mind. If the trainer delivered exactly what was agreed and you simply decided you don't want to continue, the ACL doesn't require a refund. Check whether the contract has a cooling-off period or cancellation clause — that's your avenue in this situation.
• The result you expected was unrealistic or never made known. General fitness improvements are hard to guarantee. If you never made a specific result known to the trainer, and they delivered competent sessions, a failure to reach your personal goal isn't a breach of the guarantees.
• The guarantees generally do not apply to purely private arrangements where the person is not acting in trade or commerce. However, most personal trainers operate as a business (even as sole traders), so the ACL will usually apply.
• The problem comes down to your own conduct — for example, you didn't follow the program or attend sessions, and now the results aren't there.

If you're unsure whether your situation crosses the threshold, the services that go wrong under the ACL guide walks through the framework in more detail.

What to do today

Acting in a structured way from the start makes a real difference if the dispute escalates later. Here's the order of operations:

1. Document everything now. Gather your contract or terms and conditions, receipts or bank statements showing what you paid, any written communications (texts, emails, social media messages) with the trainer, and a clear record of which sessions were cancelled, rescheduled, or delivered poorly. If you suffered an injury, get a medical assessment and keep those records too.

2. Ask about a chargeback early. If you paid by card, ask your card issuer now whether a chargeback is available; if you used buy now pay later, ask the provider about its dispute process. Both follow the card scheme's or provider's own time limits, not the ACL's.

3. Write down what was promised. Before you contact the trainer, write a clear account of what was represented to you at the time of sale — qualifications claimed, results promised, session frequency, program type. This is the baseline against which the actual service is measured.

4. Contact the trainer or business in writing. A phone call is easy to deny later. Send an email or message that states: the date of purchase, the amount paid, what was promised, what actually happened, which consumer guarantee you believe has been breached (section 60 is the key one), and what remedy you're seeking (refund of unused sessions, compensation for injury-related costs, or both). Give a specific deadline — 14 days is reasonable for most disputes (a practical default, not an ACL requirement).

5. Be specific about the remedy. If you've had four sessions out of a ten-session package and the trainer has been cancelling the rest, you're seeking a refund for the six undelivered sessions. If you suffered an injury due to negligent instruction, you may also be seeking compensation for medical costs, if they were reasonably foreseeable, you can evidence them and you took reasonable steps to limit them. Separate these out clearly.

6. Keep using the service cautiously, or stop if it's unsafe. If continuing sessions poses a risk to your health, stop and say so in writing. If the issue is cancellations rather than safety, document each one as it happens.

If drafting that letter feels daunting, fairgo can help. Generate a free demand letter — the tool identifies the relevant ACL sections based on what happened and produces a letter you send under your own name.

What if the business refuses

If the trainer or their business ignores your letter or refuses to provide a remedy, you have several escalation paths.

Your state or territory consumer protection body may help, for example by contacting the business or conciliating, if your complaint meets its criteria. Most expect you to have tried to resolve the matter with the business first, and eligibility rules vary by state and dispute type (in the ACT, for example, statutory conciliation applies only where the remedy you seek is worth $5,000 or less). These bodies don't make binding orders in ordinary consumer disputes and can't make the business settle. Contact details are at /agencies.

A tribunal or court with jurisdiction is the binding option if conciliation fails or the business won't engage. In NSW, Victoria, Queensland, the ACT and the NT, a tribunal (NCAT, VCAT, QCAT, ACAT or NTCAT) hears many consumer claims within its limits; in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, ordinary consumer claims go to the Magistrates Court. Jurisdiction depends on each forum's enabling legislation, the type of claim and the amount, so confirm the forum and its current thresholds on the official site before filing. You can usually run a claim without a lawyer, though some forums restrict legal representation (QCAT, for example, requires permission). Check current filing fees on the official site, and ask about fee exemptions, waivers or deferrals if cost is a concern. Our guide to choosing the right tribunal or court has more.

For injury-related claims, if the trainer's negligence caused you physical harm and your losses are significant, a consumer tribunal may not be the right forum — a personal injury claim through the courts may be more appropriate. This is a situation where getting specific legal advice matters, and your state or territory consumer protection body can point you in the right direction.

One thing worth knowing: a well-written demand letter that cites the ACL by section number and makes clear you know your escalation options often resolves disputes before they reach a tribunal or court. Businesses — including sole-trader personal trainers — generally don't want a formal hearing on their record.

Common mistakes

These are the errors that most often weaken a personal trainer refund claim:

• Relying only on the contract. Many trainers include "no refund on packages" clauses. These clauses cannot override your statutory rights under the ACL. Under section 64 of the ACL, a term is void to the extent it excludes, restricts or modifies the consumer guarantees or your remedies. (For services not of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use, section 64A may let a contract limit liability to supplying the service again or its cost, unless you show relying on that limit isn't fair or reasonable.) One exception may matter for fitness services: under the Competition and Consumer Act, a contract for recreational services (sport, or activities involving significant physical exertion or risk undertaken for recreation, enjoyment or leisure) can exclude or limit liability for death or personal injury under the services guarantees, though not for significant injury caused by the supplier's reckless conduct. Whether personal training, especially rehabilitation work, counts as recreational services depends on the facts. State laws can also limit liability for some services.

• Waiting too long. The ACL doesn't set a single fixed expiry for consumer guarantee claims, but deadlines for bringing a claim also apply under state and territory limitation laws and forum rules, and the longer you wait, the harder it becomes to prove what was promised and what went wrong. Act as soon as you identify the problem.

• Claiming for results rather than conduct. The section 60 guarantee is about how the service was performed, not whether you achieved your fitness goals (unless you made a specific result known, under section 61). Frame your complaint around what the trainer did or didn't do — cancelled sessions, unsafe programming, misrepresented qualifications — rather than "I didn't get the body I wanted."

• Accepting a credit instead of a refund without thinking it through. If the business offers you a credit for future sessions with the same trainer who already let you down, you're not obliged to accept it. For a major failure, you can cancel and get a refund for undelivered sessions, or keep the contract and claim compensation. Don't accept a lesser remedy under pressure without considering whether it actually fixes the problem.

• Going straight to a review platform. Leaving a negative Google review might feel satisfying, but it doesn't get your money back and can complicate your legal position if the business responds aggressively. Write the demand letter first.

• Confusing the ACL with the gym's membership contract. If your personal training sessions were bundled with a gym membership, the two contracts may be separate. Your rights against the gym for the membership are covered in our gym membership cancellation rights guide, while the personal training component is governed by section 60. Keep the two issues separate in your correspondence.

Also worth reading: our hair salon service ruined guide covers very similar territory — a service provider who didn't meet the due care and skill standard — and the approach to documenting and escalating is directly applicable here.

Related reading

• Services that go wrong under the ACL — the full framework
• Hair salon service ruined — your ACL rights explained
• Gym membership cancellation rights in Australia
• Wedding photographer refund Australia: your ACL rights
• Business refused your refund? Here's what to do next

This article is general information about Australian Consumer Law, not legal advice. It also touches on complaint and escalation pathways (state and territory consumer bodies, tribunals and courts, personal injury claims, and card chargebacks), limitation laws, the Competition and Consumer Act's recreational-services rule and state liability laws, whose scope, rules, thresholds and processes sit outside the ACL or can change. Confirm the current position with the relevant body before lodging. For advice on your specific case, see your state or territory consumer body — full list at /agencies.