The Albanese Government is making Australia the hardest target for scammers – sending a clear message that this harmful practice won’t be tolerated here, and making sure victims know we have their backs.
Today, the government is announcing further steps by providing $14.7 million over two years to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) to establish a clear single pathway for scam victims to seek compensation.
The Government has already announced its intention to nominate AFCA to operate the external dispute resolution scheme for the first three designated sectors under the Scams Prevention Framework – banks, telecommunication service providers and digital platforms providing social media, paid search advertising and direct messaging.
Scams victims will be able to seek compensation through a single door if they have been unable to reach a satisfactory outcome through internal dispute resolution, even if the complaint is against multiple regulated industries.
This means if a person is the target of a scam on social media and loses money from their bank account, both the bank and the social media platform could be liable if they failed to put adequate protections in place.
Currently social media companies have no internal or external dispute resolution mechanism and redress is close to impossible.
This is a major uplift in consumer protections for scam activity.
Today’s announcement will support the significant expansion of AFCA’s remit involved with, adding scams complaints against telcos and certain digital platforms.
AFCA receives more than 100,000 complaints about financial firms each year. In 2023–24, approximately 11,000 of these were scam‑related complaints.
AFCA will continue to operate its existing EDR jurisdiction for non‑scam complaints in relation to financial services, as will the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman in relation to non‑scam complaints about telecommunications service providers.
This funding announcement builds on the government’s landmark Scams Prevention Framework legislation. The Framework creates core obligations designed to prevent, detect, disrupt, and respond to manipulation tactics used by scammers to target Australians.
Initially banks, telcos, and some digital platforms will be subject to mandatory sector‑specific codes and face significant penalties for non‑compliance.
Consultation on the exposure draft of the Framework legislation concluded on 4 October 2024. The Government is considering the feedback provided during consultation to inform development of a final bill for introduction to Parliament this year.
Quotes attributable to Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones
“Our scams crackdown will cut off the avenues scammers use to target Australians by setting a high bar for what businesses must do to prevent them.
“Scam victims will have a clear pathway for redress.
“We want victims of scams to know the Government has their backs, and we want businesses to understand that they have a responsibility to protect Australians from these often devastating scammers.”