The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO) is calling for policy changes to improve digital platforms’ dispute resolution processes.
Ombudsman Bruce Billson said there had been a noticeable increase in complaints and disputes involving digital platform providers, and since July 2020, his Office had taken on more 236 cases involving small and family businesses.
“We’re arguing for a policy change and for dispute resolution agency support like what we provide, to equip small and family businesses with the tools to protect themselves,” Mr Billson said.
“When small businesses turn to us for assistance, our contact with the digital platforms is generally constructive and most have provided us with a direct human contact to enable these disputes to be escalated and a satisfactory outcome achieved quickly,” he said.
“However, the need for a government body to step in to resolve every small business dispute is not the answer and should be the exception.”
Mr Billson said he had outlined the problems and solutions in a submission to the Senate inquiry into international digital platforms.
He said more needed to be done to combat scams and fake reviews, calling for the implementation of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) recommendation of a mandatory ‘notice-and-action’ mechanism.
“This would allow anyone to notify digital platforms of potential illegal content on their service and require them to take action,” the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman said.
“We’ve heard about cases of small businesses being held to ransom over fake reviews, with scammers only removing them once they receive payment,” he said.
“Most disturbingly, there are commercial service providers that help new players break into a market by generating hostile contrived reviews for existing providers.”
Mr Billson said existing laws were not well suited for dealing with this.
He called for the creation of a ‘super-complaints’ mechanism to allow the ASBFEO and other credible dispute resolution agencies to refer cases directly to the ACCC for guaranteed investigation and, where necessary, enforcement.
