Australians tipped to lose $4b to online scammers in 2022

The number of increasingly sophisticated online scams targeting Australians has exploded throughout 2022, with fears the situation will only worsen as the tally of lost cash spirals into the billions.

Australians will lose about $4 billion to scams this year as reports of investment, romance and remote access-related fraud soar amid fears law enforcement are only seeing the “tip of the iceberg”.

Criminals are pushing small businesses and individuals to financial ruin with increasingly sophisticated scams targeting Australians already suffering during a growing cost-of-living crisis.

It can be revealed losses reported to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch website this year have doubled, compared to the same period in 2021.

Scamwatch has received more than 146,700 reports totalling more than $381.2 million as of August 31.

The top three most reported scams were phishing, false-billing and online shopping, while more than a quarter of people reported loss of personal information.

Australians have reported more scams in 2022 than ever before, with the ACCC recording double the number of complaints it received in 2021.

About 1,200 small businesses reported $6m in total losses.

The Scamwatch reports combined with estimates from other agencies and the expected under-reporting of crimes has lead the federal government to project $4bn in total will be lost to scammers this year.

An example of a scam text that claims to be from the ATO or myGov. Source: scamwatch.gov.au

Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones told News Corp scammers were seeing Australians as an “easy target”.

“Most Australians are connected to the internet and use a mobile phone and they’re relatively wealthy, which creates a honey pot for scammers here and internationally,” he said.

“And our systems are relatively weak.”

Mr Jones said about a third of victims do not report to Scamwatch at all, making it difficult for law enforcement agencies to properly dedicate resources to prevent it.

Only a third of scam victims report the incident to law enforcement.

“We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, but we know it’s much bigger,” he said.

ACCC data showed about seven per cent of scam victims so far in 2022 were Australians with a disability, while 10 per cent were citizens who are “culturally and linguistically diverse”.

The most common methods used by scammers to contact victims were phone calls, followed by SMS and then email.

Mr Jones said all individuals and businesses needed “greater awareness of their vulnerabilities” such as not clicking links in texts and ensuring invoices are emailed safely.

At the same time he said the government was “actively considering” the types of information businesses request and store.

Assistant Federal Treasurer Stephen Jones.

“The privacy review goes to that,” he said.

Mr Jones said the government is also looking to improve protections for consumers by working with banks and telecommunications companies to quickly alert and shut down new scams.

“This means moving quickly when we see something in the system, putting flags in the banking system and take down notices for social media platforms,” he said.

Mr Jones said the government’s $10m investment to establish a National Anti-Scam Centre would co-ordinate those efforts.

Labor has also doubled funding for identity recovery services to $2m in the recent budget.

“Australians enduring cost of living problems can’t afford to be losing $4bn a year to economic criminals,” he said.