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In Australia, markets for common goods and services like groceries, banking, telecommunications and air travel tend to be dominated by a small number of firms. It’s partly about nostalgia – families may remain loyal to supermarkets or banks across generations. Some large firms, such as the Commonwealth Bank, Telstra and Qantas, also benefit from large customer bases developed when they were publicly owned. However, customers’ trust in these institutions is not guaranteed. When the major banks allowed large-scale financial advice scandals to occur under their watch, the community anger was palpable, ultimately leading to a royal commission. And when the major supermarkets faced concerns about how they were dealing with suppliers such as dairy farmers, community concerns led to a mandatory code of conduct for the grocery industry. More recently,…
CHOICE CEO Alan Kirkland has announced that he will be leaving the role later this year after 11 years with the organisation. Kirkland has been appointed as a Commissioner to the corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). “In his 11 years at CHOICE, Alan has been a fierce advocate for Australian consumers,” says CHOICE Board co-chair Anita Tang. “This includes expanding our work on financial services, supporting renters’ rights, and focusing on communities most likely to be exploited including First Nations people. We are proud of the great team at CHOICE that will continue this work.” Kirkland says the decision to leave CHOICE was one of the toughest he has ever had to make. “This job has challenged, surprised and delighted me every single day. It has…
Last month, a coalition of advocates, including CHOICE, went to Parliament House to call on the government to provide people with affordable home and contents insurance as the climate crisis worsens. The government recently announced an inquiry into insurers’ responses to the 2022 floods which will investigate the claims experience for policyholders, the affordability and accessibility of insurance, the impact of land use planning, mitigation measures and insurer preparedness for future flood events. This is a great first step to tackling this problem, but there’s a long way to go. If you’d like to read our report or sign our petition for fair and affordable insurance, head to choice.com.au/InsurancePetition.…
A particularly devious scam has been making the rounds in recent months, targeting Chinese Mandarin speakers and aiming to obtain their personal or financial information. Callers and emailers posing as representatives from a telco or the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) tell the people they contact that illegal activity has been linked to their phone numbers and that the police or another government agency will disconnect the number and start investigating unless they cooperate. “These calls and emails may look as if they are coming from an actual ACMA phone number or phone service provider’s email address,” says the real ACMA. “They may also mention genuine contact phone numbers or websites and include realistic looking attachments. This is a trick used by scammers to convince you the call or…
Recently, we’ve seen a growing number of suspected scam websites advertised on the social platforms Google, Facebook and Instagram. When you click through, many of the websites look almost identical to official websites, but have some tell-tale red flags such as steep discounts and URLs that are slightly different to the legitimate URL. We believe that digital platforms need to do more to combat these scams and should have strong protections in place to protect consumers. If you’ve seen any suspect ads on these platforms, we’d like to hear from you. Share your experience with us by emailing campaigns@choice.com.au, , and you’ll be helping us show the government that digital platforms need strong consumer protections to ensure that people using their services aren’t being targeted by scammers. If you suspect…
Sydney-based business Burst SMS has breached SMS anti-scam rules by allowing scammers to send messages impersonating Australian banks, financial institutions, telcos, ride-share services, couriers and ticketing companies. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) says Burst SMS didn’t check whether free trial customers sending out text messages on its service were actually the well-known businesses they were claiming to be. ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin says text-based Sender ID scams, where scammers pose as legitimate organisations, can be hard to spot. “Scammers will take advantage of any small crack in the system, and on this occasion, they took the opportunity opened up by Burst’s free trial offer,” she says. “Every text that contains a link should be treated with caution until you are sure it is legitimate. If there is any…
