Results of its annual review have been released
There has been a notable decline in the monthly average of scam complaints from 2023 to 2024, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority’s (AFCA) annual review has revealed.
According to its report, the ombudsman service received 104,861 complaints from consumers and small businesses in 2023-2024. For every 10 complaints, one pertained to scams.
AFCA CEO and chief ombudsman David Locke (pictured) noted that the ombudsman service had resolved about 10,440 complaints which involved consumers being scammed out of money. Around 70% of such cases were resolved within a period of 60 days.
“Although AFCA received on average 900 scam complaints a month in 2023-24, that tells only part of the story, because we saw much lower figures over the last three months of the year. Pleasingly this trend continued into the new financial year, with AFCA receiving an average of 500 complaints a month, significantly lower than in the same period last year,” said Locke.
“But there is still a long way to go, and we welcome the Government’s announced Scams Prevention Framework, with strong mandatory codes of conduct,” he added, noting the impact that came with the government’s National Anti-Scams Centre and other steps taken by some banks.
A call to protect consumers
While the AFCA is prepared to deliver external dispute resolution services across the sectors of banking, telecommunications, and digital platform should the Parliament endorse so, Locke encouraged firms to work towards protecting their consumers further.
“Much more needs to be done to reduce the operational risk associated with digital payment platforms. We are being required to transition to digital banking; it is the responsibility of the banks to ensure it is safe for us to do so and that the systems properly protect our money,” said Locke.
He also called on firms to take on complaints with a resolution mindset instead of an adversarial position as the treatment of banks to victims of scams is a matter of great importance.
“In many cases consumers would never have been scammed were it not for the actions or inactions of telecommunication companies and digital platforms,” said Locke.
“We will never tackle the scourge of scams and the human misery that scams cause unless all these sectors are required to take robust action to prevent, detect and disrupt scams, and to provide redress to consumers where that is appropriate,” he added.
