Despite the government, law enforcement, and the private sector disrupting more scam activity than ever before, ACCC’s latest Targeting Scams report revealed that Aussies lost a record amount of over $2 billion to scams in 2021.

The report revealed losses to all organisations totalled almost $1.8 billion but as one-third of victims do not report scams, the ACCC estimated that actual losses were well over $2 billion.

Investment scams were the highest loss category, followed by payment redirection and romance scams.

“Scam activity continues to increase, and last year a record number of Australians lost a record amount of money,” ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said.

“Scammers are the most opportunistic of all criminals: they pose as charities after a natural disaster, health departments during a pandemic, and love interests every day.”

In 2021, Scamwatch received record levels of reports and losses from Australians that may have been experiencing vulnerability or hardship. Reports losses from people with disabilities increased by 102 per cent to $19.6 million, while those aged 65 and over reported the highest losses.

Likewise, reports by Indigenous Australians increased by 43 per cent between 2020 and 2021. People from culturally and linguistically diverse communities also experienced an 88 per cent increase in losses last year compared to 2020.

“The increasing number of reports by people experiencing vulnerability is a very worrying trend. Everyone from government, to banks, and digital platforms needs to do more to address this,” Deputy Chair Rickard said.

“The ACCC is particularly wanting banks to match payee information in pay anyone transactions. This has been shown to have a real impact in countries that have done so.”

ACCC’s research showed that scams are almost ubiquitous in Australia, with 96 per cent of respondents having been exposed to scammers in the previous five years. Out of the 20 per cent that had fallen victim to scams, 56 per cent were unable to recover any of their wealth.

In 2021, the ACCC increased its work with government agencies, domestic and international law enforcement, and major banks and telecommunications providers to share intelligence, disrupt scams and raise awareness in the community.

An international effort involving the Australian Federal Police led to the Flubot scam being stopped earlier this year. In 2021, the telecommunications sector’s new Reducing Scam Calls Industry Code resulted in more than 357 million scam calls being blocked.

“The public and private sectors have introduced a number of new counter-fraud initiatives over the last couple of years, but there are still too many gaps in the system that scammers are able to exploit,” Deputy Chair Rickard said.

“We have seen a marked decline in some of the older, low-end scams and an enormous increase in more sophisticated ‘white-collar’ fraud, such as cryptocurrency investment scams.”

Deputy Chair Rickard stated that there was a spike last year in scams relating to pyramid and ponzi schemes due to the emergence of some sophisticated ponzi investment scam apps. She further advises Australians to not go near any investment opportunity if it seems too good to be true.

Source: ACCC Media Release. Content has been edited for style and length.

Eliza Sayon

Website | + posts

Eliza is a content producer and editor at Public Spectrum. She is an experienced writer on topics related to the government and to the public, as well as stories that uplift and improve the community.

• Developing an effective data ecosystem
• The journey of building an ecosystem through data
• NZ government strengthens data privacy laws against third parties
• eSafety Commissioner issues legal notice against Twitter