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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-07-01 Daily Xml
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BUSINESS SCAMS

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:20): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Consumer Affairs a question about business scamming.

Leave granted.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: From time to time, businesses as well as consumers can get caught up in a scam. One small business owner of my acquaintance—and she is no slouch; she built her business up from scratch and is as shrewd and as hard-headed in business matters as most—got stung by a smooth-talking shyster who sold her a telephone contract at competitive prices with a great deal of free incentives in the way of electronic equipment.

As it turned out, the so-called free equipment came with some very costly strings attached and, as it turned out, the freebies were actually billed to her in some sort of hire-purchase agreement costing many multiples of what it would cost retail. Even the smartest of businesspeople can be caught out by scammers. Will the minister advise what scams businesses need to look out for in the present day?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (15:21): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. Indeed, it appears that unscrupulous people never seem to run out of new and novel ways to rip people off. I would like to alert the chamber to a fairly recent scam that is occurring relating to a fax that is being sent by an international company claiming to be Yellow Pages.

I am advised that Sensis, the company that owns the Yellow Pages directory, has received reports about the fax that requests businesses to pay money for a free submission to the Google website. So far, companies in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia have all been in receipt of this fax.

I understand that the scam involves a series of websites that have been disguised to look like sites affiliated with Yellow Pages. I understand that they do it very successfully and that there are a range of visual cues that are used. They adopt certain aspects of the site so that it looks to all intents and purposes like the official Yellow Pages site when in fact it is not—it is just a scam. Businesses should keep their eye out for this particular fax and, if they suspect anything untoward, I would urge them to contact either the ACCC in the first instance or our Office of Consumer and Business Affairs, which will be able to assist them with lodging a complaint.

I can also advise that Sensis has put in place a process to deal with the scam fax as quickly as possible, including attempting to close the websites involved, so they have made attempts to address that as quickly as possible. Unfortunately this is not the first time that rogue overseas businesses have conducted scams falsely claiming to be, or be associated with, Yellow Pages. I encourage businesses to be vigilant about their details, such as the ABN and the names of the business owners and directors, particularly when requesting to renew their existing advertisements.

OCBA has consistently pursued a strategy of seeking to inform and educate the public about scams of this type and the hidden dangers they present. This strategy also involves regular media releases, radio interviews, brochures, community talks, information on OCBA's website and advice offered through personal contact with OCBA officers.

While many consumers and businesses recognise such offers as scams, many still participate, I have been told, for fun, but they do not recognise the real motive behind the scam, which is actually to secure identity and financial details, which are then used for other fraudulent purposes. A great resource I will alert members to is the Scam Watch website, operated by the ACCC. The website was created to help recognise, report and protect consumers and businesses from scams. The website is located online and allows consumers and businesses to report scams online.

The ACCC is also a member of the international consumer protection enforcement network, composed of almost 40 companies. Its members share information and intelligence on consumer protection issues and, through an internal mechanism, members can report scams perpetrated by cross-jurisdictional traders.

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