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As Australia moves towards new cross-sector regulations to fight scammers, new research has found that teenagers are among the most likely victims of social media scams.
This month, new research commissioned by Australian bank Westpac found that one in four (26 percent) 13 to 17 year-olds in Australia have fallen victim to a social media scam.
E-commerce scams were the most common, affecting one in ten teenagers.
The findings are based on a survey of 1,037 Australian parents with teenagers at home conducted by Lonergan Research.
Westpac, one of Australia’s "big four" banks, said the research highlights the vulnerability of young people online and the lack of scam prevention controls from social media companies.
In addition to questions about their personal experiences of scams, the survey asked respondents to give their views on how to prevent future scams targeting teenagers.
Half of parents whose teens use social media said the minimum age for social media use should be raised from 13 to 16. Just over half of Australian teenagers took the same view.
Carolyn McCann, group executive for customer and corporate services at Westpac, said protecting young people from scams will require a joint effort from both parents and industry.
"It's incredibly concerning how prevalent scams are among under-18s,” she said. "Social media gives scammers a platform to target younger Australians. It’s time these companies took the safety of their users seriously and did something to stop scams.”
Among parents whose teenagers use social media, 97 percent of respondents said their child uses social media for an average of almost three hours a day.
The lack of scam controls implemented by social media means that prevention currently falls to parents, many of whom are ill-equipped to recognise social media scams.
For example, among teenagers who fell victim to a scam, 98 percent told someone about it, with almost two-thirds (60 percent) telling their mums.
However, only one-fifth of parents (19 percent) said they educated their child on social media scams after discovering that their child was scammed.
McCann said that Westpac offers a range of parental controls and safety features to keep children and their money safe, including daily and weekly spending limits, and notifications to parents on account activity.
Parents can also impose online payment blocks and, for account holders under 14, mandatory payment sign-offs.
However, scammers that operate under false identities are still able to contact teenagers and strike up what appear to be friendly relations with them.
For example, two in five teenagers said they allow people they do not know to follow them on social media or have accepted a friend request from someone they do not know.
Cross-sector regulations on the horizon
Westpac’s research was published shortly before Australia’s Treasury released draft legislation on a new Scams Prevention Framework.
As covered by Vixio, the framework aims to protect consumers by forcing designated businesses to uphold mandatory minimum standards for scam prevention, detection, reporting, disruption and response.
It will first target three key sectors — banks, telcos and digital platform service providers — before potentially expanding to other sectors in the future.
Social media platforms would be included in the latter category, as would instant messaging platforms and paid search advertising platforms.
Examples of obligations for all entities under the framework include regularly training staff in scam identification and response, and regularly assessing the effectiveness of existing anti-scam policies and procedures.
Sector-specific obligations include measures such as ID verification for advertisers on social media and paid search platforms, and obligations to investigate all reported scam advertisements within 48 hours.
Banks will be required to verify payee details before transferring funds, and social media and paid advertising platforms will be required to remove reported scam content within 24 hours.
The Australian Banking Association (ABA) has welcomed the framework, noting that a cross-sector approach will be essential to stopping scams at source.
“Australia has made progress, with scam losses falling,” said ABA CEO Anna Bligh. “However, holding all parts of the scams chain to account is the only way to properly protect the community.
“These codes must address the core problem of people being exposed to scams in the first place. That means ensuring telcos and the social media platforms have strong protections in place to stop scams reaching Australians.”
