00:01Diane Walker is an 81-year-old woman who was involved in a minor car accident just before
00:08Christmas last year where she said another driver swerved into her lane and their mirrors
00:13just touched.
00:15Now they both pulled over and exchanged details and then about a week later the other car's
00:20insurer, Amy, which is part of the major Suncorp insurance group, contacted Diane Walker looking
00:27to recover costs.
00:29Now, Diane Walker pushed back and said, well, can you provide me with some evidence and
00:35we'll take it from there?
00:37And instead of doing that, Suncorp engaged its debt collector agency, Armour Group, who basically
00:44spent the next four months intimidating and harassing Ms Walker and her son, Scott Walker,
00:51who stepped in as his mum's representative on the case and sending really serious legal
00:58threats with language like you've been found liable, threatening court action and saying
01:04if we go to court, you could be found liable of court fees as well.
01:09And all this time, Diane and Scott Walker are both asking for evidence to show the causation
01:15of damage if there is any damage.
01:17And that was never provided.
01:19Instead, it was a debt collection notice of nearly $1,200, a final notice of the same amount
01:26before another notice of a different amount, now nearly $1,400, before Scott Walker then
01:33received his own debt collection notice, despite not being involved in the accident at all.
01:40Now, after about four months of this back and forth threatening behaviour, Scott Walker contacted
01:48the Suncorp CEO, basically explaining what happened and eventually the case was dropped.
01:55Diane and Scott Walker both got an apology and Suncorp acknowledged that Armour Group was
02:03engaged prematurely and Ms Walker received $1,500 in a goodwill compensation fee for the
02:11distress caused.
02:12But she does say if she didn't have her son involved, who says he spent hundreds of hours
02:17trying to make sense of this language, the outcome could have looked very different.
02:21I probably would have just given them my insurance details or paid whatever they asked me to do.
02:27It is worrying.
02:28It's in the back of your mind all the time.
02:30I was quite relieved when I did get a letter to say that it had been completed.
02:36The legal experts that I have spoken to are absolutely appalled.
02:41And the former chair, the former ACCC chair, Alan Fells, has actually likened this conduct
02:47to that of the devastating robo-debt scheme that we saw that led to a Royal Commission back
02:54in 2022, and that's because in this case, Armour Group uses automatic processes.
03:02Its website says that processes are AI driven and actually boasts about having a smart payment
03:09plan set up in less than two minutes without any manual intervention required.
03:15And Steph Tonkin, who is the chief executive of the Consumer Action Law Centre, has said this is very
03:22concerning when you have automatic processes in place without any possible human oversight,
03:29because every debt collection case is different if the debt is even valid to begin with.
03:35And you're often dealing with people who are in a very vulnerable position.
03:40It appears automated decision making has been used with little or no, frankly, oversight or
03:48checks and balances in place.
03:50Now, if Armour Group, one of the very large debt collection agencies, is using these kinds
03:56of processes, we can be sure that many other debt collection companies are also using similar
04:01practices and technology.
04:02I am really worried about the future of this industry and the lack of consumer-centred design
04:13and the lack of safeguards that businesses are putting in to ensure that consumers aren't
04:21harmed.
04:22There are possibly thousands of other Australians who have been sent misleading debt collection
04:28notices.
04:29So, as well as Diane Walker, the ACCC has taken Armour Group and another company called Force
04:38Legal, who are both owned by Credit Clear Limited, to court over sending 320,000 allegedly misleading
04:47debt collection notices.
04:49Now, this is obviously still before the court.
04:51It will be back in court in October.
04:53So, we don't have an outcome yet, but this case was sparked by the fact that the ACCC was
05:00getting a number of different complaints from consumers about debt collection notices from
05:06a range of different industries, from telecommunications, from the medical industry, from gyms even, streaming
05:13platforms with confusion around the language and whether it's fair.
05:18And so, the ACCC has obviously started an investigation and found, well, this could actually be much
05:24bigger than what they initially first thought.
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