Consumer advocacy group CHOICE has called out social media giant Meta for not doing enough to protect Australians from scams, as part of its annual Shonky Awards.
The awards aim to put a spotlight on the "shonkiest products and companies" in 2024, by naming five 'winners'.
"We'd actually love to not have to give awards like this out, but sadly, that is not the case," CHOICE Chief Executive, Ashley de Silva said.
"We want to warn consumers about those products, also putting the spotlight on the practices of retailers and manufacturers, asking them to do better," he said.
So, without further ado – here are this year's winners:
Meta
CHOICE says Meta has won a Shonky for failing to protect Australians from scams.
Figures released in March by the federal government's ScamWatch service, show between 2020 and 2023 – reported losses from scams increased by 249 per cent.
In 76 per cent of the reported scams, contact occurred on Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp – all Meta platforms.
"It seems like something such a massive company like Meta could get on top of, if they really wanted to," Ashley de Silva said.
The Acerpure Clean Lite stick vacuum
CHOICE has labelled the Acerpure Clean Lite stick vacuum as the worst they've ever tested.
"We do tests with these products, where we look at how effective they are at dealing with corn flakes, potting mix, flour," CHOICE's chief said.
"We could only give this a score of 10 per cent — which is a pretty poor result, considering its costing nearly $200.
"It was such a stand-out, in terms of being so bad, the team said this has got to go on the list," he said.
NIB
CHOICE says insurer NIB has won a Shonky for charging single parents more than couples for insurance.
"Our insurance team has dug pretty deep in to policies in this space," Mr de Silva said.
"NIB aren't the only one, but we consider they are the worst of the bunch.
"If you're a single parent, and you want to add your child to a particular policy, that'll almost double your premiums.
"Whereas that same increase for a couple would only be a 4 per cent increase in their premiums."
Daily Juice Co
CHOICE has awarded Daily Juice Co's 'Green Mix' a Shonky -- because it is made green with food colouring.
"When you look more closely, you'll learn that there is actually no green vegetable included in this product," Ashley de Silva said.
"We actually went to the effort of recreating this in our kitchen labs, and it looks and tastes a lot more like orange juice.
"There is absolutely nothing green until you add food colouring," he said.
GroundingWell grounding socks
GroundingWell has received a Shonky for its 'grounding socks' which claim health benefits, which could not be detected by CHOICE.
"We couldn't discern it in the two weeks that we were testing these," Mr de Silva said.
"This is also a really poorly made product.
"You have to plug it into the wall to use them – and that broke within just two attempts using these socks," he said.
So is there any evidence behind the practice of 'grounding'? Here's what science says.
Social media under the spotlight
CHOICE said during its investigations into Meta platforms they reported three suspicious Facebook ads – one remained live for at least four days.
The consumer group said one account was also later allowed to quickly re-post an almost identical ad.
"Meta have told us that they don't want scams occurring on their platforms," Mr de Silva said.
"But the reality is, based on the level of investment and steps that they're taking – we're seeing 76 per cent of those reported scam losses are occurring on their platforms.
"Clearly, whatever they're doing isn't producing the result they want, or claim to want," he said.
Meta said it was investing more than $20 billion in teams and technology, since 2016, to enhance safety and security on its platforms.
It said it had about 40,000 people working on the issue, across the company.
Chris Sheehan is the head of group investigations at National Australia Bank – his team helps investigate scams affecting customers, many of which happen on social media.
"Scams are the curse of the digital age," he said.
"It's been called out as an epidemic … and I think that's correct.
"We need to see more work, more effort, out of the technology companies."
Mr Sheehan said huge teams of hundreds are employed at NAB to try and prevent social media scams -- looking for an estimated 18,000 – 20,000 scam payments over the course of a year.
"Some typical things that we've seen are WhatsApp scams," Mr Sheehan said.
"People are getting WhatsApp messages: 'Hey, mum, I've lost my phone. Can you send me some money? Because I've got to pay for my groceries or my rent?' People fall for those.
"Recently, you've seen Taylor Swift and Coldplay in Australia – and lots of fake ticket scams operating on platforms like Facebook, Marketplace, Gumtree, Google and others," he said.
In October, Meta announced it was testing the use of facial recognition technology to help protect people from so-called celeb-bait scams – where criminal pose as high-profile individuals, like David Koch, Dick Smith, or Andrew Forrest.
The social media giant also announced in June, it would require new advertisers to have a verified phone number associated with their ad before publishing. It said in the second quarter of 2024, 322 million pieces of spam content were removed from Facebook -- the vast majority before they were reported. Chris Sheehan, who also spent close to three decades with the Australian Federal Police, has simple advice for those on social media.
"Don't believe anything that you see in a digital environment," he said
"If it's presented to you in a digital environment, including email, text messages, WhatsApp messages, other messaging services there — conduct your own inquiries.
"And think twice before you commit to sending any money."
