Results of the Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce online Australia surveys 2008 and 2009

• Carolyn Budd, Jessica Anderson
• Australian Institute of Criminology

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08 March 2011Consumer fraud is not a new phenomenon, however, the expansion of the Internet and the increased capacity for spam email has seen a rise in the number of fraudulent requests sent to internet users across the globe. Spam is the electronic equivalent of paper ‘junk’ mail, in which unsolicited, bulk transmission emails are sent to email account holders (AIC 2006). The primary motivation for sending spam emails is the lure of obtaining financial returns far in excess of the sender’s outlays. Nowadays, however, spam can be sent simultaneously to millions of potential victims in just seconds and at negligible cost.

Unsolicited spam emails comprise a major component of how consumer scams are sent to potential victims. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2008: 5) defined consumer scams as a fraudulent invitation, request, notification or offer, designed to obtain someone’s personal information or money or otherwise obtain a financial benefit by deceptive means.

Consumer fraud can incorporate, among other things, fraudsters selling a non-existent item that requires an advanced payment (known as advance fee, or AFF schemes), persuading consumers to buy an unwanted product through deceptive marketing techniques and using someone else’s personal details for their own benefit (see Smith 2007). Common scam types in Australasia include:

• AFF (such as Nigerian or 419 scams);
• phishing;
• lottery and prize scams;
• inheritance scams;
• financial investment scams;
• work from home scams; and
• dating/relationships scams.

Since 2006, the Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce (ACFT) has participated in the fraud prevention and awareness-raising activities undertaken each year by members of the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network. An annual awareness campaign has been conducted in Australia and in New Zealand since 2007. In 2008, the campaign ran for a fortnight under the title Fraud Fortnight, with the theme Seduction and Deception Scams. By comparison, the 2009 campaign lasted only one week and was called the National Consumer Fraud Week. Key phrases used in the 2009 promotional material were Scams Target You: Protect Yourself, Don’t Be a Victim of Scammers and Fight the Scammers. Don’t Respond.

The campaign has been reduced from one month in 2007 to one week in 2009. The aim in reducing the length of the campaign was to deliver a more focused, compact message that would raise awareness more forcefully than could be managed over a longer period. Since 2007, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has hosted the ACFT online Consumer Fraud Surveys. These surveys were designed to examine the types of consumer frauds that respondents were exposed to during the previous 12 months. The surveys sought to identify:

• the extent of consumer scams;
• the types of frauds or scams that attracted the most victims;
• the factors that influence becoming a victim of scams; and
• what affects reporting of scams.