Report Archives - Page 3 of 20 - Consumers' Federation of Australia

29 May , 2024

Passing the Buck: Scam Victims Carrying Unfair Burden

A survey of 280 scam victims by consumer group CHOICE has found they are left carrying the burden of scams after big businesses like telcos, tech platforms and banks fail to step up and protect them. 61% of respondents said they had lost confidence in doing financial transactions online. The survey results, detailed in CHOICE’s…

23 May , 2024

Consumer Representative Opportunity – SafeAge Project

The SafeAge Project is a 3-year collaborative academic research project funded by theAustralian Research Council. The project aims to generate contemporary knowledge of the roleof consumer products in injuries and deaths for older Australians. This knowledge benefits: Context:There are significant consequences of unsafe consumer products on population health. Whilstthe government estimates there are around 780…

20 May , 2024

ASIC Report Highlights Industry Hardship Failures

Some home loan lenders have made accessing financial assistance so difficult that more than one in three (35%) Australians dropped out of the application process at least once, according to a new ASIC report. The report, Hardship, hard to get help: Lenders fall short in financial hardship support (REP 783) outlines findings from ASIC’s review of 10…

8 May , 2024

Customer Owned Banks Urged to Continue Improving Reporting Practices

A rise in reported breaches of the industry Code of Practice indicates better reporting from customer-owned banking institutions but also a sign of the need for improvements in reporting and remediation. The Annual Data Report from the Customer Owned Banking Code Compliance Committee (COBCCC), which covers the 2022-23 reporting period, shows that the number of customer…

7 May , 2024

Insurers Continue to Struggle Meeting Claims Timeframes

The general insurance industry continues to struggle meeting claims handling timeframes according to the latest report from the General Insurance Code Governance Committee (CGC). The Annual Data and Compliance Report, published today, highlights more than 45,000 claims handling breaches of the industry Code of Practice in the 2022-23 reporting period, an increase of 16%. Chair…

7 May , 2024

US Consumer Protection Body Publishes Research Finding Higher Price Complexity Leads to Consumers Paying More

The United States of America’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has published a new report, Price Complexity in Laboratory Markets, which indicates that complex pricings, or costs separated into various sub-prices, are typically more expensive and harder to compare – leading to consumers paying more. Based on the CFPB’s previous research, this increased complexity and…

1 May , 2024

Consumer Research on Defining Communication

Researchers from Deakin University and the Victorian University of Wellington are conducting an Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) funded project and are looking for participants. The goal of the project is to understand how ‘communication’ is understood by diverse consumers, with the view to better inform the regulation of digital communications technologies. Participation will…

25 April , 2024

Global Experiment Reveals a ‘worrying margin of harm’ in AI Chatbots

23 April 2024 Last month we brought together a powerful cohort of consumer advocate groups, international organisations, business, government and civil society to call for Fair and Responsible AI on World Consumer Rights Day Friday March 15. AI is changing how millions of us experience the online world. Within just five days of the release of ChatGPT last…

18 April , 2024

CALD Communities in need of urgent supports for energy transition

A new report released today has found improvements are needed to the quality of advice and supports, and to the service provided by retailers and other energy service providers, or culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) consumers risk being left behind in the energy transition. The joint Insights Report by Energy Consumers Australia (ECA) and Sydney Community Forum (SCF) is…

3 April , 2024

13 Years of ACMA Telecommunications Enforcement

Below is the Centre for Media Transition’s website post on The Enforcement of Telecommunications Consumer Protections and the accompanying media release on the report by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN). The website posts were released on 3/04/2024 and are available here (https://www.uts.edu.au/research/centre-media-transition/projects-and-research/enforcement-telecommunications-consumer-protections) and here (https://accan.org.au/media-centre/media-releases/2288-uts-enforcement-report). As noted by both the report and ACCAN,…

15 March , 2024

Australians Want Regulation But Consumer Voice Missing in AI Debates

In light of World Consumer Rights Day and the 2024 theme, CHOICE and the Consumer Policy Research Centre (CPRC) have both released articles on artificial intelligence (AI) and the importance, and absence, of consumer voices when discussing use and regulation. Based on CHOICE’s recent research, almost 4 in 5 Australian’s think that business’s should be…

5 March , 2024

‘From Surviving to Thriving’ ICAN’s Report on Holistic Financial Counselling

In 2020, the Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network (ICAN) set out to widen the scope of its financial counselling services by looking at how it could deliver a holistic financial counselling framework that could better meet the financial and well-being needs of its service users. Over the past three years, ICAN has been developing a practice framework for its financial counselling services that embeds elements of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. Today ICAN has released the report: From surviving to thriving: Embedding a well-being framework into financial counselling practice that shares the learnings from this significant organisational undertaking.