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The competition regulator has found scams and unfair contracts are among the core issues affecting small business clients so far in 2018, and said the sector should expect compliance action to be made public soon.
According to the ACCC’s latest Small Business in Focus report, unfair contract terms investigations are a priority in the small business sector.
This follows changes to Australian Consumer Law which, among other things, work to ensure small business loan contracts are fair and reasonable.
“We have many more investigations under way and further actions on unfair business-to-business contracts will take place soon,” said ACCC deputy chair Mick Keogh in a statement released this morning.
Sophisticated scams are also hurting small business, with losses of about $2.3 million reported to the ACCC’s Scamwatch so far this year.
“Small businesses continue to lose money to sophisticated scams. Businesses need to be very careful about business email scams,” Mr Keogh said.
“These are where scammers pretend to be a supplier of a small business, or even someone within the business like the CEO or CFO, and intercept payments by emailing new payment details,” he said.
Accountants and financial advisers have told Accountants Daily they’ve come close to being stung by a scam in the last 12 months, given how advanced the strategies of cyber criminals are. You can read more about their experiences here.
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