Australians falling victim to this popular scam

The number of Australians falling for scams is on the rise, and one particular ruse is top of the list when it comes to catching people out.

Scams in Australia are on the rise, with more than two million Australians falling victim to a particular type of scam.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show more than two million Australians experienced card fraud in the last financial year.

The ABS said this involved a credit, debit or EFTPOS card transaction to make a purchase or a cash withdrawal without the victim’s permission.

The number of Australians falling victim to scams is on the rise. Picture: NewsWire / Nicholas Eagar

A further 675,000 people responded to a scam message.

According to the ABS, a person experiencing a scam is defined as someone who replied to a message that asked for further information, provided money or personal information or accessed links associated with the scam.

ABS head of crime statistics William Milne said the number of Australians falling victim to scams rose over the last 12 months.

“We found that 9.9 per cent of Australians aged 15 years and over were victims of card fraud in 2023-24. This is up from 8.7 per cent in the previous year,” he said.

Despite the ABS showing more Australians have fallen victim to a scam, separate figures released by ASIC’s Scamwatch showed combined losses fell in the last 12 months.

In 2023, Australians lost $2.7bn to scams compared with $2.0bn lost last year.

While the number of Australians falling victim to scams is on the rise, the majority of victims are getting their money back.

‘We found 72 per cent of card fraud victims were fully reimbursed by their card issuer,’ Mr Milne said.

According to the latest figures, over 2 million Aussies were scammed over the last financial year. Picture: NewsWire / Nicholas Eagar

“Collectively, the net loss to all victims after any reimbursements were paid out was $477 million.”

Mr Milne said 3.1 per cent of the population were victims of a scam in 2023-2024, up from 2.5 per cent this time last year.

“Buying or selling scams, which includes things like false billing and online shopping scams, were the most common, experienced by about 308,000 Australians,” he said.

“This was up from the 200,000 victims in the previous financial year.”

The reporting of scams to a social media or selling site also rose to 14 per cent, up from 9.7 per cent in 2022-23.

Originally published as Australians falling victim to this popular scam