Caterer Ruined Your Event? Letter of Demand for a Refund

You paid $5,000 for catering for 80 guests. The food arrived 90 minutes late, cold, and there was enough for 50. The vegetarian option was a bowl of salad. Three guests got sick. The caterer sent an invoice for the balance the next day, as if nothing happened.

You cannot redo the party. But you should not pay for what you did not get, and you can claim for what it cost you.

What the caterer owed you

Under the Australian Consumer Law, catering is a service that must be:

• Provided with due care and skill (section 60): safe, properly prepared food, served as agreed
• Fit for purpose (section 61): if you said “80 guests, sit-down, 7pm,” that is the purpose
• Delivered on time (section 62)

The food itself is also “goods” that must be of acceptable quality (section 54). Food that makes people sick is not.

If they failed on a major point, you can refuse to pay the balance, claim back what you paid, and claim any reasonably foreseeable loss (section 267).

What you can claim

1. Refund of the deposit or the whole fee, depending on how bad it was. Late, cold and short is major.
2. Emergency food you had to buy on the night. Twenty pizzas at $25 is $500. Keep the receipt.
3. Venue overtime or other costs caused by the delay
4. Refusal of the balance. If they invoiced you for the remaining $2,500, you do not have to pay for a service they did not deliver.

You cannot claim for hurt feelings or “a ruined day” as such. Stick to dollars you can prove.

Evidence: gather it now, while people remember

• The quote, menu and any run sheet with times and quantities
• Photos of what arrived, and when (phone metadata shows the time)
• Messages on the day: “where are you?” texts are perfect
• Short written statements from two or three guests
• Receipts for emergency food
• If anyone got sick, a doctor’s note and a report to your local council’s environmental health team

The Letter of Demand

Set out what was agreed, what happened, the sections of the ACL breached, your losses with receipts, and what you want (refund, waiver of balance, or both). Give 14 days. Warn that you will file at NCAT, VCAT or QCAT, and, if there was a food safety issue, report to the council. Caterers are licensed food businesses and a council complaint can trigger an inspection. They know this.

If they are chasing you for the balance

Do not ignore their invoice. Respond in writing, dispute it, and send your own demand. If they send a debt collector, a formally disputed debt cannot be pursued as if it were undisputed. Your letter is your protection.

Move fast

Guests forget. Photos get deleted. The caterer’s staff move on. Your evidence is strongest in the first two weeks. If you paid $5,000 and got half a service, the value of what you did not get is what you claim. That is worth an hour of your time today.

Claim Done drafts your Letter of Demand for $49. Done in about 5 minutes. You approve it before it is sent.