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It appears no one is safe from the shocking rise in the number of scams hitting everyday Australians, with the head of the country’s financial watchdog revealing he was recently scammed out of thousands of dollars.
Justin Untersteiner, chief operating officer of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), said he was a victim of bank fraud this week and lost $4000 in pocket money.
“I received a message from my bank app that my account had been debited for $4,000,” Untersteiner said. Recent happenings.
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“I thought this was very strange. I went to my internet banking and saw that my account had received four payments of $1,000 from an unknown provider.”
A watchdog official said he tried calling the bank about the transaction, but it took an hour and 15 minutes to get through.
“I don’t think that’s enough. I think when people get scammed, it’s a really traumatic experience. They should be able to contact their bank immediately,” he said.
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Untersteiner said that while on hold, she worried that more money would be taken out of her account and panicked about whether she would ever get her money back.
Untersteiner said while $4,000 is a significant amount, he noted that AFCA has seen cases in which more than $1 million has been lost to fraud.
“We want banks to do more to prevent fraud. [and have] Faster implementation of initiatives and technologies. ” he said.
Mr Untersteiner said he is currently “at a loss” as he waits for results from the bank, but is hopeful he will get his money back.
Fraud complaints double
The increase in the number and variety of fraud has resulted in a record number of complaints to AFCA, reaching more than 100,000 last year.
AFCA’s chief ombudsman and CEO David Locke said complaints were growing at an “unsustainable” pace, with fraud-related complaints expected to double to nearly 9,000 from 2022 to 2023. He said he is doing so.
“We’re also seeing the impact of rising interest rates and cost-of-living pressures, and we’re also seeing a significant increase in complaints about financial hardship,” Locke said.
“As we move into the new year, we hope that 2024 is the year that industry and government anti-fraud efforts finally stop this serious organized crime.”
Last November, the banking industry launched a new Fraud Safety Agreement that outlines the actions banks must take to protect Australians from fraud. The government also established a new National Fraud Control Center in July last year.
Australians lost more than $3 billion to fraud in 2022, an 80% increase from 2021.
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