Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb highlighted the importance of collaboration in the fight against scams and outlined the regulator’s three-pronged approach to make Australia the world’s hardest target for scammers.
In a speech to Law Council of Australia’s 2022 Consumer Law Forum in Sydney on Tuesday, Ms Cass-Gottlieb said the three areas of focus for the regulator are stopping scammers from reaching consumers, educating consumers to stop scams and avoid becoming victims, and stopping funds from reaching scammers.
Ms Cass-Gottlieb also revealed that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) are currently trialing an automated website takedown trial.
The regulators are working with United Kingdom-based Netcraft to remove scam websites reported to the ACCC’s Scamwatch and to ASIC. According to the ACCC chair, in the last three weeks dozens of malicious websites targeting Australians have been taken down with dozens more pending. The United Kingdom government’s National Cyber Security Centre over the last four years.
Ms Cass-Gottlieb said she believes that victims of phishing scams are not to blame for their own losses and that organisations are expected to be monitoring their own platforms, services, and transactions for scams.
“First, we need to stop scammers reaching consumers by…
