How consumer watchdog boss deals with scam calls
The boss of Australia’s consumer watchdog has revealed how he deals with pesky scam callers.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims says he has been inundated with calls since working from home during COVID-19.
In a speech at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Mr Sims told how he gets a little revenge.
“Since I am working from home three days a week now … I’m getting these calls quite a lot,” he said.
“Sometimes I do take enjoyment out of keeping them on the phone for a fair time.”
Mr Sims was asked if he ever said “Do you know who you are talking to?”
“That wouldn’t occur to me to do,” he said.
“But I do like to waste their time occasionally.”
Mr Sims said it was hard to launch legal action against scammers because most were overseas.
Instead, the ACCC is dedicating more resources to tackle scammers and working with banks, digital platforms and the federal police.
“We’re working with banks to get them to stop, work out when someone is sending money overseas to someone they have met online and say, ‘Hang on, you’re getting scammed’,” Mr Sims said.
“We are working with the digital platforms and others to try and minimise these things, working with the federal police to try and work out an intercept.”
Mr Sims also addressed the dominance of Facebook and Google, saying competition regulators could not have stopped their growth.
He said it was “extraordinary” the digital platforms kept denying what was obvious to everyone else – that they had market power.
“Their take-it-or-leave-it attitude to dealing with news media businesses over many years is damaging journalism and has damaged journalism,” Mr Sims said.
“The digital platforms don’t produce news, rather they are vehicles for the dissemination of news.”
He remains confident the news media bargaining code legislation, which will make platforms pay for content they use, will be introduced before the end of the year.
However, Mr Sims said the inclusion of ABC and SBS in the code was a decision for politicians.
“We will get to a sensible outcome on these issues in the not-too-distant future,” Mr Sims said.
“The other battleground is data.
“Allowing consumers to have their data, collected by one company who they have a relationship with, to be transferred to another.”
Mr Sims said the consumer data right reforms would initially apply to banking, then energy, telecommunications and the wider economy.
“Once the foundations are laid, this is going to move really quickly in my view,” he said.
Scams can be reported to ACCC Scam Watch.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/hacking/how-consumer-watchdog-boss-rod-sims-deals-with-scam-calls/news-story/733c58958374d0c2ece124130eac3656
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