Australians are losing less money to scammers, the latest figures from the National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC) have revealed, which recorded a 13.1 per cent drop in the dollar value of scam losses last year.
Losses from scams dropped from a peak of $3.1 billion in 2022 to $2.7 billion last year, according to the report, which aggregates data from multiple scam reporting services, including the ACCC’s Scamwatch service, ReportCyber, IDCARE, ASIC, and AFCX. It is the NASC’s first report since its formation in mid-2023.
However, while financial losses from scams are down overall, individual reports of scams surged by 18.5 per cent last year. The NASC recorded more than 601,000 reports collected by the five reporting agencies, showing both increased awareness from the public of what constitutes a scam as well as less reluctance from victims to report that they have been scammed.
Text messages remain the most common contact method for scammers, with Australians reporting more than 109,000 instances of text scams last year – a 37.3 per cent increase from 2022 figures.
Scam calls, however, resulted in the highest reported financial losses, totalling $116 million, despite a drop from $141 million in the previous year.
Scams in which contact occurred via social media resulted in the second-highest reported losses, increasing by 16.5 per cent to $93.5 million. Losses from email scams also increased slightly, up from $77.3 in 2022 to $80.0 million last year.
Investment scams remain the most harmful scam type, with Australians reporting $1.3 billion in losses (down from $1.5 billion in 2022), followed by losses to remote access scams ($256 million, and up from $229 million in 2022) and romance scams ($201.1 million, down from $201 million last year).
Elder Australians were found to have suffered the greatest financial harm from scammers.
Losses for people over the age of 65 increased by 13.3 per cent in 2023 to $120 million. Seniors were disproportionally impacted by investment scams, with significant losses recorded in February ($13.7 million) and May ($11.2 million) last year. Many elder Australians also reported significant losses to scams resulting from contact initiated on social media.
People over the age of 65 were the only age group to experience an increase in reported losses.
Commenting on the results, Australian Banking Association (ABA) chief executive Anna Bligh noted that despite the surge in reports, the drop in financial losses “shows Australians are alert to the risks” with the “collective efforts from Government, banks, telcos and other industries are making a difference”.
Bligh added: “The banking industry’s Scam-Safe Accord is a major step-up in protections from banks to shield consumers from scammers. It’s a set of world-leading safeguards by banks to help keep the money of Australians safe.
“Banks are now regularly stopping payments to crypto exchanges used to syphon money out of Australia as well as detecting and blocking transfers to dodgy bank accounts.
ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe said she was encouraged to see the coordinated efforts of the anti-scam agencies in stemming the flow of funds to criminals and protecting consumers.
“We are optimistic that our combined efforts will continue to reduce scam losses. We will continue this important work because losses remain too high and behind the numbers are real people who have lost money, often every last cent, to scams.”
Lowe added that the forthcoming Scams Code Framework with its “strong, mandatory and enforceable obligations on banks, telcos and digital platforms will be central to” continuing the fight against scammers.
“Good data and intel sharing is also key and we will be adding to the number of parties sending data into the National Anti-Scams Centre having made good progress on sending data out.”
