Action on scams, spam and telemarketing: October to December 2024

We have 2 compliance priorities for the 2024–25 financial year for unsolicited communications and scams:

1. Targeting misleading spam messages – Our priority is to enforce spam rules to stop commercial messages being misleadingly sent as ‘service’ or non-commercial messages. 
2. Disrupting SMS impersonation scams – We will work to disrupt the distribution and impact of these scams by:

• enforcing rules that telcos need to follow to identify and prevent SMS scams
• sharing intelligence with fellow regulators in Australia and internationally.

Targeting misleading spam messages

Key actions and outcomes in our focus on misleading spam messages include:

• We announced enforcement action against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, including a $7.5 million penalty, after we found it sent more than 170 million marketing messages in breach of spam laws. This is one of the largest penalties paid by a business for breaches of spam laws.
• We gave 1,071 compliance alerts to businesses that had telemarketing complaints made about them. Our compliance alerts are a highly effective compliance tool. In the 2023–24 financial year, we had an 80% success rate in receiving no further complaints about businesses that were given a compliance alert.

Disrupting SMS impersonation scams

Key actions and outcomes in our focus on disrupting SMS impersonation scams include:

• Telcos reported blocking more than 857.4 million scam SMS since July 2022, to the end of this quarter. The ACMA and telcos use blocking statistics to identify trends to help inform disruption activities. 
• We expanded the pilot SMS Sender ID Register by adding new alpha tags. This helps prevent business SMS headers from being impersonated by scammers.
• We gave consumer alerts about telco impersonation scams.

We worked alongside telcos, government agencies, international regulators and big brands to disrupt phone scams by providing data and information.

Key actions and outcomes in our focus on disrupting other types of phone and SMS scams include:

• Telcos reported blocking more than 2.3 billion scam calls since December 2020, to the end of this quarter. The ACMA and telcos use blocking statistics to identify trends to help inform disruption activities. 
• We directed telco provider NetSIP to comply with the Reducing Scam Calls and SMs Code after we found monitoring, information-sharing and reporting obligations. Our investigation uncovered that NetSIP failed to share information about nearly 47,000 scam calls with other telcos and approximately 500,000 scam calls with the ACMA. 
• We gave anonymised scam call data to telcos to inform their blocking activities.
• We entered a strategic partnership with Ofcom, the UK’s regulator for broadcasting and telecommunications. This will facilitate mutual assistance and information-sharing to combat scams.
• We issued a consumer alert about holiday season shopping and delivery scams.

We collaborated with the National Anti-Scam Centre to share information, disrupt scams, and promote awareness.

We are receiving some complaints from consumers about emails from businesses that not only confirm shipping details but also advertise other products or services. The emails sometimes wrongfully claim they are ‘service’ messages and do not include an option to unsubscribe. 

Communicating with customers to tell them important shipping information may be an essential part of business. However, if that factual communication also offers, advertises or promotes a product or service, it is commercial and must comply with the spam rules. This includes where the message contains an advertisement, a promotional banner or a direct link to advertising content.

Under the spam rules, businesses must have consent from the recipient to send commercial messages, and must include accurate sender information and a way to easily unsubscribe.

To avoid the risk of non-compliance, businesses should consider making a rule to keep shipping confirmation emails separate from messages promoting products or services. 

Learn more about the spam rules. 

The ACMA’s statement of expectations about use of consumer consent is available to assist businesses.

At the end of this quarter, we have:

• finalised 2 anti-scam and 2 spam investigations (all with breach findings)
• progressed 4 anti-scam investigations and 4 spam investigations
• monitored compliance with 20 court-enforceable undertakings in force.

For the 12 months to the end of the quarter, we took an average of 4.3 months to complete spam investigations and 4.5 months to complete anti-scam investigations. All investigations were completed within 6 months.

View our enforcement actions for breaches of spam and telemarketing laws.

View our enforcement actions for breaches of scam laws.

Finalised investigations

In this quarter:

• we received more than 5,700 complaints from consumers about alleged breaches of telemarketing and spam laws
• retail, solar and electricity were the most complained about industries
• we received historically low levels of complaints about scams.

Complaints received by financial year

Note: We have received 19 complaints about commercial instant messages so far in 2024–25.

Complaints received about scam calls and SMS

Note: These are a subset of all complaints shown in the ‘Complaints received by financial year’ graphic.

Where we receive enough information to identify the alleged caller or sender, we alert businesses about potential compliance issues raised in complaints. One alert can relate to several issues or complaints. 

Compliance alerts given to businesses

Find out more about scam, spam and telemarketing rules, including how to make a complaint. 

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Access the data from charts in this report

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Accessibility file: Action on scams spam and telemarketing Oct to Dec 2024