Businesses don't do enough to protect customers from scammers: Choice

In a survey of 280 scam victims, 61 per cent of respondents said they had lost confidence in doing financial transactions online.

The survey results, detailed in Choice's new report Passing the Buck: how businesses leave scam victims feeling alone and ashamed, also revealed four out of five of the victims said their banks did nothing to flag a scam before they transferred their money to the perpetrator; about half of these scam victims say any support they received from their banks was sorely lacking and in over half the cases we documented, the scammer first made contact with their victim on a website or social media platform.

Australians lost $2.7 billion to scams last year, most of it stolen from older people. The 2022 numbers were worse - $3.1 billion spirited out of bank accounts and into the pockets of scammers.

"Our research highlights that scam victims are left feeling alone, ashamed and carrying the burden of scams, while the businesses enabling the criminal activities of scammers face virtually no consequences," said Choice director of campaigns, Rosie Thomas.

"After a scam is identified, the banks play an important role in helping to recover money and providing appropriate support. However, our data shows that it's a real roll of the dice as to how a scam victim is treated by their bank, and whether they get the support they need," Ms Thomas said.

"Only half of our respondents said the bank helped try to recover the money and one third told us they didn't get immediate action from their bank."

Read more from The Senior

She said businesses including banks, telecommunication companies and social media platforms aren't moving fast enough to protect and support their customers from scams, even though they have the technology and resources to detect, prevent and respond to them.

"We've welcomed the Government's commitment to strong, mandatory obligations that provide a baseline of support - that way consumers can expect basic protections no matter who they bank with or what platform they're on."

The Choice report said consumers should be reimbursed for scam losses in most cases, consumers should have a fair, simple, fast and effective pathway for reporting scams and obtaining redress and there should be strong, mandatory and enforceable rules for businesses, particularly for banks, telecommunications platforms and digital platforms.

You can sign a petition for stronger scam regulations: www.choice.com.au/ScamsPetition