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Over the weekend, firmly entrenched underneath a ceiling fan as I slowly baked inside my living room, I asked myself the age old question: which is best, summer or winter? As a pale, pasty Scotsman with borderline ginger hair, you’d think I’d hate summer with a passion, but the truth is I sort of love it. Despite being burned to a crisp more times than I care to count, I still love to slip slop slap and go for a swim at the beach, or cook up a ridiculous amount of snags on my barbecue with an ice-cold ginger beer glued to my hand. Winter has its moments, but I think at the core of my being, I’m a summer guy. But in Australia, summer is a season you have…
New crypto rules on the horizon? In October, the government announced it was getting serious about reining in the cryptocurrency sector. The government’s proposal paper charts a course for making crypto exchanges and digital asset platforms abide by Australian financial services laws, and requiring platform operators to hold an Australian financial services licence. The paper also recommends that minimum standards be enforced for holding and transacting in tokens. These moves would amount to a sea change for an industry that’s long been devoid of any such regulations. In 2022, a CHOICE national survey revealed that more than half of us don’t know whether cryptocurrency trading comes with consumer protections similar to those that apply to the stock market. About the same number of Australians said they thought such protections should…
The federal government has extended the temporary scheme to support members of the collapsed Youpla funeral fund. The scheme, which provides funeral funding support for former members of the funeral fund which went into administration last year, was due to expire in November, but will now be extended until 30 June 2024. First Nations consumer advocates welcomed the announcement as a way of relieving pressure on the looming deadline, but reiterated calls for an enduring permanent resolution that includes all victims of the financial collapse of Youplaand a culturally appropriate and fair resolution for those with claims against the company. “We have cautious optimism about yesterday’s announcement from Ministers Linda Burney and Stephen Jones, with hopes that this will be the final extension before the federal government’s enduring resolution is…
A national survey conducted by CHOICE earlier A this year found nine in 10 people in Australia (88%) support closing legal loopholes to ensure buy now, pay later (BNPL) loans are regulated like credit cards. While the Australian government is considering how to regulate BNPL providers, consumer organisations and financial counsellors are calling on them to ensure any new legislation requires BNPL providers to verify people’s income and list basic liability information. Verifying a person’s income before issuing them a loan is essential, as this information is required to assess whether repayments will be affordable. It is also essential that BNPL providers list basic credit liability information, which means they, and other lenders, will be able to see the full amount of all loans that a consumer has signed up…
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has directed two more telcos to comply with anti-scam laws after it found they had failed to properly protect consumers and allowed criminals to send text messages impersonating major brands. The communications watchdog issued the directions to Twilio Inc. and Vonage Business Inc., alleging the latter had allowed scammers impersonating the Commonwealth Bank, Apple Pay and Australia Post to send more than 3000 text messages through its system. “We continue to find telcos allowing scammers to send SMS messages impersonating businesses,” says ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin. “We know these types of scams are hard for people to spot and can be particularly devastating for victims.” Following an investigation, the regulator found the two companies had allowed users to send bulk SMS messages using…
In 2019, the ACMA issued a formal warning to Ticketek to cease and desist breaching the Spam Act. But it seems the market-dominating ticketing business didn’t take the warning to heart. In October this year, Ticketek paid a $515,040 fine to the ACMA after the regulator found it had sent around 41,000 marketing texts and emails without the consent of recipients, and around 57,000 texts and emails to people who had previously unsubscribed. Ticketek claimed that some of the emails were exempt from the Spam Act because they contained event information for ticket holders, but the ACMA’s investigation found they also contained advertising and promotional material for upcoming events, meaning the Spam Act applied. “Australians are fed up with these types of intrusions on their privacy and Ticketek has no…
