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CX news · Regulation and trust

Scam complaints get one ombudsman: what it means for customer journeys

By BREME · · 4 minute read

In short

Since 1 September 2026, banks, telcos and digital platforms designated under the Scams Prevention Framework have had to be members of AFCA. AFCA consulted on its proposed Scam Rules from 31 August to 28 September, and on 22 October confirmed the Australian Scams Ombudsman will take complaints from 31 March 2027. For customer teams, the scam journey (warning, reporting, complaint) now has a deadline and an independent referee.

Who this is for: CX leads, complaints and operations managers, and executives in banks, telcos, digital platforms and the organisations that partner with them on payments and customer contact.

What changed, and when

On 1 September 2026, banks, telcos and digital platforms designated under the Scams Prevention Framework (SPF) had to become members of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). Cyber Daily reported in June that the federal government had appointed AFCA as the sole external dispute resolution scheme for scam complaints under the framework, covering telcos and digital platforms as well as financial firms.

On 31 August, AFCA opened consultation on its proposed Scam Rules, which set out how it will handle these complaints. Submissions closed on 28 September 2026.

Then on 22 October, releasing its 2025-26 Annual Review, AFCA confirmed the name and start date. The Australian Scams Ombudsman, operated by AFCA, will begin accepting complaints about banks, telcos and digital platforms from 31 March 2027.

What the proposed Scam Rules say

Financial Standard reported that the Scam Rules form a separate division of AFCA's rules, covering the complaint process, excluded complaint types, monetary limits and definitions. Material changes need approval from AFCA's board and ASIC.

The most important change for customer journeys is the multi-party complaint. Finance Magnates reported that the draft would let AFCA bring several regulated entities into one complaint, add or remove them at any point, and divide the award between them. A scam that started with a fake text, moved through a social media ad and ended in a bank transfer can be looked at as one story.

AFCA also proposed raising the cap on direct scam losses to A$1.263 million, double the current A$631,500, applied once per scam regardless of how many companies are involved. The rules cover conduct on or after the later of 31 March 2027 and the sector's designation date. AFCA plans to weigh submissions in November, seek approvals by late December and publish final rules in early 2027.

The scale behind it

AFCA received almost 120,000 complaints in 2025-26, a record. Scams, with 6,580 complaints, and unauthorised transactions, with 6,038, were the top two issues in banking and finance.

Chief Ombudsman David Locke said, 'With our expanded scams role starting in less than six months, preparations are well underway.' Organisations should be preparing on the same timeline.

What it means for the customer journey

The draft SPF codes and rules that Treasury consulted on in June 2026 include several obligations customers will feel directly. As Corrs summarised them, banks must let customers see payee names before a transfer and flag mismatches. Platforms must warn users assessed as higher risk of a scam. Businesses must tell customers which channels they use to contact them, so impersonators are easier to spot. Each entity must give a statement of compliance within 21 calendar days of receiving a complaint. These were drafts, so the final wording may differ.

Read through a journey lens, that touches four moments:

  • Joining. The first chance to tell a customer how you will and will not contact them. Most onboarding is silent on this.
  • Paying. Warnings and payee checks sit in the most time-sensitive step a customer takes. Badly placed, they become friction everyone clicks past.
  • Reporting. A worried customer needs one obvious way to say 'I think I have been scammed' and a clear next step, at any hour.
  • Complaining. The internal process has to be fast, documented and ready to sit beside another company's records in one AFCA file.

Where we would start before 31 March 2027

The scam journey crosses teams that rarely sit together. Fraud owns detection, the contact centre owns the call, complaints owns the dispute and marketing owns the messages that scammers copy. The framework judges the whole thing. So we would put all four teams in one room and walk a real scam report from first contact to final letter.

Then check each step against what the customer needs at that moment: to be believed, to know what happens next, and not to repeat themselves. Write down who owns each handover. Where nobody does, that is the first fix.

The other reform on the horizon

Scams are not the only journey change coming. The unfair trading practices law, which had passed Parliament by early July 2026, starts on 1 July 2027. McCullough Robertson notes it requires key subscription terms before sign-up, renewal and end-of-discount notices, and online cancellation wherever online sign-up is offered, alongside drip pricing rules and a general ban on manipulative conduct. Both reforms ask the same question: can a customer see what is happening and get out of trouble easily?

Sources

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