Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

Scammers are the scum of the earth. Scammers target vulnerable Australians, but make no mistake: they come after every Australian. Scammed Australians are not stupid; they are victims. I want to start with those statements of principles because I fear that, in the debate about scams, vulnerable Australians—victims—are ignored and, in fact, sometimes insulted by their banks. I fear that the debate on the Scams Prevention Framework Bill 2024 and in the scam space is all about the banks and people who hold shares in banks and not about their customers, the victims, the vulnerable Australians.

They are vulnerable Australians like 82-year-old widow Emily, from Mildura in my electorate, who lost her husband in June last year. Shockingly, just a few weeks later, a message popped up on her computer screen that she was being scammed. The message told Emily to call a 1800 number to speak with Microsoft. A voice at the end of the line said they were trying to track down the scammers and wanted her help with a sting operation asking for her account details so they could put money in her account to transfer to the scammers to assist with the police operation. Instead, these scumbags were the true scammers and helped themselves to $157,000 from her bank account. And how much did her bank agree to reimburse her? You won't believe this, Deputy Speaker. It was just $22.36.

I spoke to Emily during the final sitting week of last year, and she told me how she felt so ashamed at being scammed, so embarrassed, that she didn't want to tell her adult children. This is so wrong. Emily should never have felt ashamed. No-one who has been scammed should feel ashamed. And if you have been scammed, I want to make this clear: you have been manipulated, disempowered and gaslit by people who intended nothing but evil towards you.

I met with Emily's bank representatives here in Canberra soon after speaking with her about this situation because I felt it was fundamentally wrong, and I told them as much. After some discussion, I am pleased to say that a settlement was reached. This is what Emily had to say about the outcome:

I was getting nowhere going through the bank fraud people. So I thought, it's a lot of money, I want to try as hard as I can to be recompensed for something. So I went to my member of Parliament, who I vote for and always will!—

I will say that's always a lovely message—

I've been astounded at the result. I didn't know members of parliament had such contacts.

In my view, it is my job and my privilege as a parliamentarian to help Emily and people like her, but why does it have to come to this? Why do members of parliament end up being ombudsmen and clearing houses for sensible decision-making that simply should have been appropriately handled in the first place?

Emily is an intelligent woman. I dare anyone in this place to call Emily stupid. I don't believe anyone in this place would call Emily stupid. Emily's family told me that she is computer savvy, creates invoices on the computer and does a lot of internet banking, and, as they say:

She's not easily fooled and has been caught at a moment of vulnerability.

I reiterate: Emily is not stupid, but that is the implied message that sits behind the banks' collective treatment of victims like Emily and, I am sorry to say, behind this legislation in its current form. Investment scams are a big portion of Australia's scam losses. Emily's story—and I'm about to share more—falls outside the approximately $1.3 billion in Australian investment scam losses. Surely, if there is concern about what a mandatory reimbursement of customers might mean for banks and their shareholders, the primary group for protection should be everyday Australians who are not trying to invest money but are tricked into handing over personal details.

Let me give some of those personal stories. The wife of one of my staff bought tickets to go to a museum on a state government website. Their credit card details were taken, and a scammer helped themselves to buy some Armani goods in Asia. That family only got their money back by threatening legal action. They have since changed banks, something banks would do well to remember. As I prepared to speak on this bill late last year, while discussing Emily's case with her bank, another of my staff was here in Canberra and put her husband on speakerphone. His home computer was frozen, and he was on another line to a 1800 number—which the on-screen message had directed him to—claiming to be Microsoft. Here we go again. It wasn't Microsoft; it was scammers. They would most likely have asked for personal information to access his finances, just like Emily. However, there were several of us in the office at the time who told him to hang up immediately, shut the computer down and invest in some reputable computer security protection. It's a really good idea; if you don't have it, I would strongly recommend that you get some.

I have another story: a publican in my electorate thought he was ordering beer for his pub from his regular website. He wasn't. He said goodbye to tens of thousands of dollars. I won't name him, but good luck telling him he's stupid. The Maryborough District Advertiser newspaper in the south-east of my electorate told the sad story of Janet, who lost $30,000 she had saved for her children. Janet got a call from someone claiming to be Telstra and saying her phone had been hacked. She was unwell at the time with a punctured lung and pneumonia and was taken to hospital the next day, so she was convinced the so-called technicians were there to help her. In the circumstances, would you call Janet stupid? I don't think so. Janet was vulnerable, and the scammers are scumbags. But it gets worse. Janet later found her money in her bank was gone. Janet was initially relieved to hear from her bank that she was going to get some money back. What did she receive? $3.66. That would ease the burden, wouldn't it? $3.66—there must be some one per cent rule the banks are using to recompense victims. My word to them is thanks very much on behalf of everyone who is being scammed!

Seventy-six-year-old Vietnam war veteran Danny McIver, another Mallee constituent, lost $70,000. We're not talking peanuts here; we're talking about people's life savings. He lost it from the life insurance payout he got from the death of his son, Robert, who died two weeks after Danny lost his daughter, Sharon, to motor neurone disease. The scam? Another Microsoft impersonation scam, last September. Danny told news.com.au that he couldn't believe it took the bank nearly two hours to discover that funds had been taken out of his bank account four times. None of these were investment scams—just people caught out by scammers that target the vulnerable.

In the United Kingdom, prior to the new 7 October mandatory obligation, the majority of banks were voluntarily reimbursing their customers 72 per cent of the time. In contrast, in Australia, the voluntary bank reimbursement figure is less than five per cent.

The Global Anti-Scam Alliance say that in the most recent reporting year scammers have taken a whopping $1 trillion. As they note, that rivals the GDP of some nations. In countries like Pakistan, their scam losses are equivalent to 4.2 per cent of their GDP. It's 3.6 per cent in Kenya and 3.4 per cent in South Africa. The Global Anti-Scam Alliance said in their latest report Australians lose US$1,452 per capita per year to scams, well below US$3,500 in the United States and US$1,800 in the UK. The Global Anti-Scam Alliance report found that globally, when survey respondents were asked who they expect to ensure scam victims are reimbursed, they answered the online platform used by the scammer, the website they used or the bank.

This legislation we have before us today doesn't seem to be drafted to protect Emily, Janet, Danny, my staff, their families or vulnerable Australians but rather to protect banks. The new United Kingdom legislation—introduced by the now former Conservative government, I might add—relates to so-called authorised push payment, or APP, scams. Britain mandated that banks must compensate scam victims 99.9 per cent of the time. Further, the UK system defines some customers as vulnerable and does not require them to exercise a standard of caution. That is, other customers are required to show they have not demonstrated gross negligence. Vulnerable customers are also not required to carry the 100 pounds excess on their reimbursement. Britain's maximum reimbursement is 85,000 pounds. The banks at either end of the transaction must pay half that cost each.

Let me ask you this. Who is best placed to protect bank customers from scammers: vulnerable customers like Emily, the recently bereaved widow, or the banks themselves? Who is best placed to go chasing social media companies or internet platforms for responsibility: widows like Emily or Janet, with her punctured lung and pneumonia, or the banks? Clearly the United Kingdom have decided that, no matter what role social media or internet platforms have played, the fairest and best outcome for victims is for them to be reimbursed. The banks can go hunting the platforms after that.

I am furious—and I have been furious since last year—that vulnerable Mallee constituents are being scammed. And now let me disclose my own interest. I too have been scammed. I bought tickets to a big hotel in Melbourne, only to discover afterwards the ticket website that they had moved me onto was fake, and money was taken from me—$9,000, in fact. My pathway to getting reimbursed by the bank was not straightforward. I'm not embarrassed by being scammed. I'm angry, but I'm not embarrassed. I've had private conversations with members here, and they admit they have been scammed as well. It is becoming far too common. Over $2 billion is lost to scams in Australia every year, with around $2.74 billion dollars lost in the 2023 year. That contrasts with over one billion pounds per annum being scammed in the United Kingdom across their population in recent reporting years. Yet they've gone all in, compelling banks to reimburse customers.

Australians were the victims of around 601,000 reported scams in the last reporting year, up 18.5 per cent, and both the number of reported scams and the amounts lost are just that—reported. There could be a whole lot more from embarrassed people who don't want to admit that they've been scammed. Are Australians stupid? Are my constituents stupid? No. Yet the implied message in this bill is we need to protect the banks, not vulnerable Australians. Labor's solution in this bill is not immediate reimbursement; it is handing vulnerable Australians a snakes-and-ladders board where they roll the dice and move up and down the ladders and slip down the snakes. Internal dispute mechanisms, external dispute mechanisms, legal action against the bank—really? Is this the best the government can do?

I hasten to add in this banking regulation space that more than half of Australian ATMs have closed in the last six years, and many of my constituents who rely on cash can't get to an ATM in their town or anywhere near where they live. It's well and good for the government to be talking about mandating the use of cash in essential service contexts, albeit with potential small-business exemptions, but, if regional Australians can't withdraw cash, what then? I urge anyone watching or reading to go to www.scamwatch.gov.au for the latest information on scams and on how protect yourself and to discuss sensible protective behaviours.

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