Australia

In the national survey people aged 45 to 54 were the most likely to have responded to a scam and those aged 15 to 24 the least, men and women were hit at similar rates, and people with a disability almost twice as often as others. Older people lose the most: those aged 65 and over reported A$88.8 million to Scamwatch in 2025, 26.5% of the losses from 17.2% of the population, with a median loss of A$716. People aged 35 to 44 filed the most reports with a loss. For those aged 18 to 24 the costliest scams were threats, among them sextortion and callers posing as foreign police who tell migrants and international students they face arrest or deportation. Reporters who speak a language other than English had a median loss of A$750, against A$400 overall.

Scammers now mostly reach victims online, through websites, social media and apps: 19,169 Scamwatch reports with a loss and A$158.5 million in 2025, a third more reports than in 2024. Email is the most reported channel, but only 5% of those reports involve a loss. Phone calls are rarer and dearer, with a median loss of A$3,800. Reports of scam calls are 73.7% below their 2021 level and reports of scam texts fell from 77,365 to 29,058 in a year.

Many scams are run from abroad. Raids on call centres in Manila and Bangkok found romance and investment scams aimed at Australians, and about 7,000 people were warned afterwards. Fake investment advertisements use AI-made videos of politicians and finance commentators.

Cryptocurrency has overtaken bank transfer as the main way money leaves. Of the losses reported to Scamwatch in 2025, A$121.3 million (36%) went through cryptocurrency or a digital currency exchange and A$118.1 million by bank transfer, far ahead of cash, cards and gift cards. Australia has over 2,000 cryptocurrency cash machines, and the financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC estimates that 85% of their heaviest users were scam victims or money mules. It has capped cash deposits at A$5,000.

The centrepiece of the banks' Scam-Safe Accord is Confirmation of Payee, a A$100 million system that checks the account name against the account number before a transfer and warns of a mismatch. The accord also brought biometric checks for new online accounts, extra questions and delays on payments to new payees, limits on payments to some cryptocurrency platforms, and membership of the AFCX's Fraud Reporting Exchange, through which banks ask each other to hold and return money. Two major banks let customers lock their own accounts instantly. The major banks stopped about 24% of scam payments in early 2024, up from 13% in 2021-22.

Telephone companies blocked 492.7 million scam calls and 153.5 million scam texts in 2025. Since 1 July 2026 a text carrying a brand name that is not on the ACMA's register is labelled Unverified. The National Anti-Scam Centre had more than 7,500 scam web addresses removed in 2025, and ASIC removed more than 19,400 online scams in the year to June 2026.

Reported scam losses in Australia peaked in 2022 and have since come down. The National Anti-Scam Centre, which combines reports to Scamwatch, the police, banks and others, counted A$2.18 billion lost in 2025, up 7.8% on 2024 but 29.7% below the A$3.1 billion of 2022. Of 481,523 reports, 274,577 involved a loss.

Investment scams are the costliest: A$837.7 million in 2025, 38% of the total, though down 11.4%. Payment redirection, in which a business or person is tricked into paying a false invoice, took A$166.8 million, romance scams A$139.9 million and phishing A$97.6 million. Losses by phone are larger than most: the median Scamwatch loss on a scam call was A$3,800, against A$400 for all Scamwatch reports, down from A$500.

Older people lose most. People 65 and over had A$88.8 million of Scamwatch losses, 26.5% of the total, against 17.2% of the population. On Scamwatch reports, cryptocurrency overtook bank transfer as the costliest way to pay in 2025, with A$121.3 million lost, 36.2% of the total.

Refunds depend on whether the victim authorised the payment. Where a card or account is used without authority, the ePayments Code, a voluntary code most banks have signed, sets out who bears the loss, and banks usually pay. A payment the victim was tricked into making falls outside those rules. The regulator ASIC found that customers of the four major banks bore 96% of scam losses in 2021-22, when 31,700 customers lost A$558 million and the banks paid back about A$21 million; repayment rose to 7% a year later. At 15 smaller banks in 2022-23 customers also bore 96%: 7% was repaid to victims who complained and 2% to those who did not.

A victim can complain to the bank and then to the free Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). Under the Scams Prevention Framework a victim will be able to claim damages from a bank, telephone company or platform that broke its duties, and AFCA will hear complaints against all three together, for scams on or after 31 March 2027.

Some money is pulled back: the smaller banks recovered about 20% of the money that reached the receiving bank. The Federal Court's June 2026 penalty against HSBC came with A$21.5 million in compensation to customers.

In the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Personal Fraud survey for 2024-25, 71.1% of people who responded to a scam reported the most serious one to an authority or organisation, against 70.8% in 2023-24: 53.8% to a bank, 13.8% to a social media or selling site, 8.5% to the police and 7.9% to a government body.

The National Anti-Scam Centre combines five registers: 481,523 scam reports in 2025 after duplicates, down 2.7% from 494,732, with $2.18 billion reported lost, up 7.8%. Banks recorded 202,943 cases through the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange, up from 169,184, and Scamwatch took 200,675 reports, down from 249,448. ReportCyber, which passes police reports to state and territory police, took 58,876 scam reports, down from 64,682. IDCARE, the identity and cyber support charity, handled 47,589 scam cases, up from 42,193, and the securities regulator ASIC 1,565, up from 965.

Scamwatch has sent investment scam reports to ASIC automatically since March 2024, referred 8,536 reporters to IDCARE in 2025 and shares data with over 40 partners, including banks, telcos and platforms. Services Australia's helpdesk supported over 9,000 people hit by scams using its name. From 31 March 2027 the Australian Financial Complaints Authority takes scam complaints that a bank, telco or platform has not resolved.

The figure shown here is the National Anti-Scam Centre's combined count for 2025: 481,523 scam reports, of which 274,577 involved a loss, and A$2.18 billion reported lost. The centre, part of the ACCC, adds five registers and removes the duplicates it can find: Scamwatch (200,675 reports, A$334.8 million), bank cases from the AFCX (202,943, A$842.3 million), ReportCyber (58,876, A$774.2 million), IDCARE (47,589, A$535.8 million) and ASIC (1,565, A$135.0 million). It includes reports with no loss and from businesses, and amounts are as reported, before any recovery.

ReportCyber is the police channel. Run by the Australian Signals Directorate, it passes reports to state and territory police and received over 84,700 cybercrime reports of all kinds in the year to June 2025, with an average reported cost of A$33,000 for individuals. Scamwatch alone had 138,392 reports and A$250 million lost from January to September 2026.

The Australian Federal Police lead the Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre, whose Operation Firestorm, begun in August 2024, targets offshore scam networks. ASIC charged four people with money laundering over investment scams in 2025 and had 95 companies linked to scams wound up. AUSTRAC made more than 100 referrals to police over cryptocurrency cash machines. The ACMA collected over A$4 million in penalties from three telephone companies for breaking rules against mobile number fraud, and the Federal Court fined HSBC A$35 million in June 2026.

By money, investment scams lead: A$837.7 million of the A$2.18 billion reported lost in 2025, or 38%, though 11% less than in 2024. An advertisement, often with a fake endorsement by a politician or finance presenter, leads to a scripted phone call and a fake trading platform that shows invented gains and may pay out small sums to build trust. Payment redirection is second at A$166.8 million: a scammer breaks into email and changes the bank details on a real invoice, so that the customer pays the wrong account. Romance scams took A$139.9 million. Contact starts on a dating site and moves to a private messaging app, and requests for money follow.

Phishing, in which messages posing as a bank, toll road or government agency collect passwords and card details, cost A$97.6 million and is the most reported scam, with 65,361 Scamwatch reports. Remote access scams, where a caller posing as technical support takes control of a device, cost A$69.9 million, down by a third. These five made up 60% of losses.

By number of victims the picture differs. More people lost money to shopping scams than to any other type on Scamwatch: 12,248 people and A$10.8 million. Job scams grew fastest: reports doubled and losses reached A$24.8 million, with students and visa holders among the targets. In the national survey card fraud is far more common than any scam, and buying or selling scams make up half of all scam victims.

Australia has joined up its agencies and passed a strong law, but the duties in that law are not yet in force. The National Anti-Scam Centre pools the reports of five bodies, shares data with more than 40 partners and seconds staff to the federal police. Banks share cases through their own exchange and have built a shared account name check.

The results are real but uneven. Reported losses are 29.7% below the 2022 peak, and reports of scam calls and texts have fallen by about three quarters. But losses rose 7.8% in 2025, scams begun online grew by a third, and cryptocurrency became the main route for the money. The centre says more work is needed by digital platforms in particular, which follow a voluntary code.

The largest gap is who bears the loss. Customers bore 96% of scam losses at the banks ASIC reviewed, and the ePayments Code is voluntary and covers only payments the customer did not authorise. The Scams Prevention Framework Act of February 2025 sets duties for banks, telephone companies and digital platforms, with penalties of up to 30% of turnover and a right to damages. Firms had to join the complaints scheme by 1 September 2026, but most duties start on 31 March 2027, more follow by the end of 2027, and the codes that define them are still being written. The Act gives no automatic refund: a victim must show that a firm broke its duties. Ten consumer bodies, CHOICE among them, say the proposals as drafted will not deliver fair compensation.