Scams costing Aussies in excess of $2bn: ACCC

Criminals have defrauded Aussies out of a fortune over the past year, with the consumer watchdog sounding the alarm on one particular type of scam.

Criminals are turning to cryptocurrency to defraud Australians out of their hard-earned cash, the consumer watchdog has warned.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission estimates Australians have lost in excess of $2 billion to scams in the last year.

Fraudsters pretending to provide legitimate investment opportunities were responsible for the bulk of the losses, scamming victims for $701m in total.

Scams cost Australians $2bn in the last year.

A further $227m was lost to payment redirection scams, where people are tricked into paying accounts which look legitimate, and romance scams ($142m).

ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard said inheritance and lottery scams were on the decline as criminals look towards other methods of tricking consumers.

“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,” she said.

“If an investment opportunity seems too good to be true, we urge all Australians to not go anywhere near it.”

Cryptocurrency has become the preferred method of payment across scams.

Ms Rickard said if it seemed too good to be true, then leave it.

An ACCC report said “urgent work” was required to combat cryptocurrency investment scams.

Ms Rickard said she was “hopeful” government consultation on approaches to regulation, which began prior to the election, could slow the growth of such scams.

The consumer watchdog’s analysis found while women reported the most scams, men were more likely to lose more money.

Men’s losses to investment scams were double women’s.

People aged 65 and over reported the highest losses, and reported losses steadily increased with age.

But Ms Rickard noted the “worrying trend” of losses reported by “people experiencing vulnerability”.

People with disability made twice as many reports compared to 2020, while reports made by First Nations people increased by 43 per cent.

Men are twice as likely to lose more to investment scams.

People from culturally and linguistically diverse communities experienced an 88 per cent increase in losses last year compared to 2020.

“Everyone from government, to banks and digital platforms needs to do more to address this,” Ms Rickard said.

Despite the ACCC increasing its work with government agencies, domestic and international law enforcement, major banks and telecommunications providers, Ms Rickard acknowledged there are “still too many gaps” in the system.

“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,” Ms Rickard said.

Originally published as Scams costing Aussies in excess of $2bn: ACCC