More than 100,000 Australians lodged complaints with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) last year, an annual jump of eight percent.
AFCA CEO and Chief Ombudsman David Locke said a record 104,861 complaints from consumers and small businesses were received in 2023-24, but a downward trend in scam complaints was encouraging.
Mr Locke said the AFCA had resolved 10,440 complaints where consumers had been scammed out of money, with 70 percent of those scam cases resolved within 60 days.
He said while a surge in scams complaints was one of the most worrying trends in the past financial year, the AFCA saw a downward turn in the last quarter of 2023-24.
“Although AFCA received on average 900 scam complaints a month in 2023-24, we saw much lower figures over the last three months of the year.
“Pleasingly this trend had 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.
“This is encouraging, but definitely not a cause for complacency.”
Mr Locke said it appeared initiatives such as the National Anti-Scams Centre and steps like account name checking by some of the banks were starting to have an impact.
“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.”
