Mediaboss Marketing

In the offices of Magellan Logistics in outer Melbourne, workers spend their days helping people import and export goods all over the world.

But late last year, the company started getting calls every day from people about shipping containers they had bought.

The thing is, Magellan Logistics has never sold shipping containers.

"We are in a lovely office with lots of desks and people working away, phones, computers, all of that," Melissa Wraith said.

"We don't have a container yard, we don't handle freight, we don't handle containers."

It soon became obvious scammers were posing as the company, and running multiple Facebook pages under variations of Magellan Logistics's name.

The scammers were offering shipping containers to eager buyers.

Magellan employees reported the pages to Facebook, but even when they were taken down, they would pop back up again the next day.

"I've lost track of the number of times I've reported these pages. Whenever I go to look at them, I report them again," Ms Wraith said.

Social media is delivering a healthy return for scammers in Australia.

According to the ACCC's Scamwatch, it is a much better way to make money than scamming on the phone, email or text messaging.

In the past year, Australians have been fleeced more than $21.5 million from scams running on social networking sites.

It has prompted the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to call for urgent government action which could potentially lead to a world-first digital platforms ombudsman.

"Consumers and small businesses find it almost impossible to have their disputes resolved with digital platforms when problems arise," chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.

While the ACCC works with social media companies to take content down, the commission has no power to force the company to act.

Now, Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) Cynthia Gebert has told the government she wants the gig as the country's and the world's first digital platforms ombudsman, helping people with problems like dealing with scams and being locked out of their accounts.

The aim is for the new ombudsman to officiate in disputes between platforms and usersand, based on the prevalence of smartphone use, there are plenty of areas it could help.

"We have the expertise to help consumers and the digital platforms find resolution with complaints and highlight systemic improvements that can create meaningful change," Ms Gebert said.

In her current role, Ms Gebert helps thousands of people deal with disputes with telcos and internet providers, but she is unable to assist if people are having trouble with social media companies and messaging apps.

"At this point, there's a limited amount that we could do and this is really the opportunity to improve consumer protections and build trust and confidence," she told the ABC.

"We'd generally be referring you to a local, state-based consumer affairs organisation.

"If we refer you to the ACCC, that'd be useful data for them, but they're not going to be stepping in on an individual level to get complaints resolved.

"Customers just feel like they're hitting a brick wall."

While the ACCC would like to see an independent umpire appointed, it worries the job is too big for the telecommunications ombudsman on top of her current role unless resources are significantly boosted.

"We recommended the role should be undertaken by a new digital platform ombuds to be appropriately resourced to deal with a high volume of complaints and disputes and with the technical expertise to meaningfully assist," Ms Cass-Gottelieb said.

Professor Derek Wilding, co-director of the Centre for Media Transition at the University of Technology Sydney, has conducted research about the need for a new dispute-handling scheme.

"In our research, we didn't come across any similar scheme that provides an obvious point of comparison.

"We didn't find any in other jurisdictions an ombudsman of this kind," he said.

"We all know Australia has led the way in developing other interventions to deal with problems arising from digital platforms."

Professor Wilding pointed to other important Australian world-firsts, like the establishment of an e-Safety commissionerand the Online Safety Act.

"[The e-Safety Commissioner] deals with aspects like image-based abuse and child exploitation material in the online environment."

The proposal for a digital platforms ombudsman is likely to receive pushback from the industry.

Peak bodythe Communications Alliance, whose members include Facebook, Apple and TikTok, says mandatory rules could have unintended harmful consequences and self-regulation should be allowed to continue to develop so the industry can resolve the issues.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said in a statement the government was considering its options, following the ACCC's fifth Digital Platform Services Inquiry (DPSI) report, released last year.

"Submissions to the public consultation process are being reviewed by the Treasury and will inform the government's response to the fifth DPSI report," the minister said.

"The issue of how best to have consumer disputes considered is also one that agencies within the communications portfolio, along with industry and academia, are actively engaged in examining."

In the meantime, innocent companies remain caught in the middle between scammers and their victims.

For Magellan Logistics, the situation got so bad the company had to hold training sessions for staff who had to explain to people they had lost thousands of dollars.

"It's not what you expect in the normal course of your day to sit with people, I guess, while they go through a range of emotions, as they discover some pretty bad news," Ms Wraith said.

"Usually they were just ordinary citizens, private citizens.

"They wanted a container for a storage shed or as part of a construction project [it was] a variety of different people, not large corporates, people that can ill-afford to lose the money."

She said one of the most frustrating things for the company was the lack of response from Facebook.

"You imagine the wheels are turning in the background, but you're just not sure what's happened," Ms Wraith said.

Despite contact from both the victims and Magellan, the Facebook pages only came down earlier this week when the ABC contacted Facebook's parent company, Meta.

The company said in a statement:

"Scammers present a challenge in any online environment, and social media platforms are no exception. We're committed to safeguarding the integrity of our services, and dedicate substantial resources and technology solutions to protect our community from fake accounts and other inauthentic behaviour.

"We have a dedicated reporting channel to take in all content that the ACCC is concerned about."

Read more:
Who do you turn to when you're scammed on socials? - ABC News