ABA CEO Simon Birmingham on Boxing Day scams: transcript of interview on Sky News with Reuben Spargo

E&OE
TV Interview
Sky News Afternoon Agenda
26 December 2025.

Topics: Boxing day shopping scams; Tips to avoid scams

Reuben Spargo (Host): Welcome back. Nearly two thirds of Australians say they’ve been exposed to some form of shopping scam. The Australian Banking Association commissioned new research and it’s warning Australians to be on high alert. Joining me live now is the Association’s CEO, Simon Birmingham. Simon, thanks for your time. What are the scams we should be wary of over the holidays?

Simon Birmingham (Guest): Hi Ruben, thanks for the opportunity. Well, many Australians are, of course, out for a bargain at this time of year, but the scammers are out for a steal, quite legitimately or quite genuinely. That is what scammers are after, a steal of your money, of your cash. And the way they go about this is especially through online shopping or through different digital channels, and that’s why Australians should be taking a lot of care at this time of year when they’re engaging in online shopping to make sure they are using legitimate websites and not spoof websites that have been set up as scams, as fakes, to rip them off from their money.

They should be taking care when they are engaging with any sort of unsolicited emails, text messages or the like, and never to click on those links. And they should also be taking real care when it comes to messages they might be receiving about the delivery of goods. If you’ve paid for your goods up front then there’s no reason to expect that you should be being asked again to pay more or to provide your payment details again. Really taking those steps can help to protect many of the people who report that they have seen, or, even worse, experienced a scam.

Reuben Spargo: Yeah, you touched on it there, what are the some of the signs that websites not real, or an email or a message for that matter?

Simon Birmingham: So, for people – and we know Australians, through the Boxing Day sales, will spend around $4 billion, we also know through marketplace scams, buying and selling, trading, indeed, they will lose potentially around $40 million in scams – and so for people in there, online in those environments, the first thing is, check the website is legit. Look at that URL or the website address and make sure that it’s actually the right one, the genuine one. If in doubt, Google, start again. Use your search engines to make sure that you are going through to the right address in that circumstance, but also if you’re not sure and it all seems too good to be true, then the sales might be on. But that old adage probably still holds true, that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Reuben Spargo: If retailers are caught by the ACCC misleading customers what are the consequences they may face?

Simon Birmingham: Well, indeed, there are serious penalties for retailers or for anybody who engages in misleading and deceptive conduct in any way, and it is for every Australian business to make sure they are upholding the laws and the ACCC and Australian regulators do a serious job in putting them in place. You know, on behalf of the banking industry, our members, our banks in Australia, are investing billions of dollars to prevent fraud, scams, cyber-crime and all sorts of thefts.

And the reality is, we need to make sure, though, that as big as that effort is through new technology, new tools that consumers see or operate at back of house to slow down payments, to check and confirm the payee details as you’re logging through that ideally, we stop scams at the source, and it’s why, as an industry, we’re also working closely with the Australian Government on Australia’s world leading Scam Prevention Framework that won’t just hold banks to account to do what we can to prevent scams, but critically, will bring in telecommunications companies and digital payments platforms to hold them to account, to know who their advertisers are, and to shut down scammers when they become aware of them.

Reuben Spargo: Simon, you remember vision of Aussies waiting in front of shops on Boxing Day, it looked like a crowd crush was about to happen as those doors open. Have we seen the end of in person shopping on Boxing Day? Do you think is it all moving online?

Simon Birmingham: No, it’s not all moving online. And indeed, to support Australian retailers is a great thing, and many Australians will still get out there today, on Boxing Day and in the days to come to grab that bargain. And it’s totally understandable, given the cost of living pressures people face, why people want to grab a bargain and do that at this time of year, and of course, being out there supporting Aussie retailers, doing it face to face, where you can pick up the product, feel the product, see the product, that’s a pretty safe way of still going about your shopping.

It is predominantly in that online world, or when you’re getting something delivered that you might have ordered through a shop that you just need to take care because with AI tools at their disposal, scammers are getting ever more sophisticated in impersonating legitimate shops, in intercepting legitimate deliveries and trying to trick you into handing over details of your bank account, of your credit card or to make payments when you shouldn’t. And, so if there’s any doubt around any of those things, then stop, check, verify to protect your details before you provide them.

Reuben Spargo: Simon, some good advice. Thank you so much for your time today.

Ends