Dealing with AFCA

Australian Financial Complaints Authority

Greg Williams 31 March 2026

Let's get one thing straight. AFCA is not quite what you think from it's title. Banks will send you to AFCA at the drop of a hat if you have money stolen from your bank account by scammers. That's because they know exactly how AFCA works, they have been there loads of times. But you and I, when we go to AFCA to lodge a complaint as invited by our own bank you will be astonished to find that AFCA does not actually directly support your complaint against your bank. Yes, that is astonishing. Their main role is to try and bring the Bank and their customer together to negotiate a deal, either before AFCA gets involved or as the first step once AFCA does get involved through somethiung called a Conciliation Process. Thta process is a tele-conversation between you as the customer, a coupld of AFCA representaives and a couple of Bank representatives. Everyone else in the conversation knows exactly how it works, but you as the customer will be a like a kangaroo caught in the headlights. I have now been there one time and my next time will go a lot better having some insight in to how the AFCA process works and how to approach them on behalf of a Bank customer

Getting Started GW 31/3/26

If you are going to do this by yourself, you just sign up with AFCA and make a Complaint
If it is your first time and you decide to ask someone to assist you you need to complete an Agent Authority Form
This person will then be able to deal directly with AFCA on your behalf

If you would like Greg to assist you GW 31/3/26

Download the Greg version of the Agent Authority Form
Fill out the bits marked in red and sign the form
Scan the form and save as PDF and email to greg@lcc.com.au
Or take a photo of the form and SMS to Greg 0476 523 798
Greg will sign & date the form when he receives it
All of the notes below assume Greg is assisting you but you can use all of the advice below even if you are doing it yourself, or someone else is assiting you

AFCA agent-authority-form.pdf

You are going to need a bunch of notes GW 31/3/26

If you are not keeping a detailed diary already, start now
Go back to the moment you were contacted by (or contacted) the scammer
Record the following
Dates
Times
Who you spoke to
What they said
What you did
Do this for every interaction with the scammer or as a consequence of advice from the scammer
It does not matter if you don't have a good recollection, just get as much down as possible
Once you have a (rough) chronological sequence, you can flesh it out as you remember other details along the way
It is very important to record what your bank said
AFCA will take all of this into account when assessing your case

Lodging the Complaint with AFCA GW 31/3/26

I will do this for you
Whatever notes you have at this time will suffice
It's just a matter of registeriung the complaint as soon as possible given the customer-friendly changes introduced on 12 March 2026

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