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Australians have lost over $134 million in the first six months of the year to scams, according to the National Anti-Scam Centre, with investment and romance proving the most devastating to the back pocket.
The statistics were released by the National Anti-Scam Centre’s Scamwatch, detailing the worrying trends facing vulnerable Australians.
The report assessed 143,106 reported scams, breaking them down by cause, method of contact, and demographics.
Worryingly, the data confirms that pensioners are still the age group most likely to fall victim to scams, reporting $40 million in losses.
The report also spells bad news for Australian men, who contributed 55 per cent of the total funds lost in scams.
In figures, Scamwatch warned that during the last six months, over $78 million was lost in investment scams, while $11 million and $9.6 million were lost in romance and phishing scams, respectively.
However, there is little correlation between the most common scams and those which solicited the most money.
According to the report, the most prolific scams by number of reports were related to phishing, false billing, ID theft, and online shops.
The report was released days after the Australian Federal Police coordinated a nationwide operation against large-scale phishing campaigns.
As reported by Cyber Daily, the AFP’s Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre helped coordinate actions between the NSW Police Force, Western Australia Police Force, Tasmania Police, Victoria Police, Queensland Police Service, and AUSTRAC, leading to the arrest of five individuals on 18 July.
Three alleged scammers were arrested in NSW, and two people in Victoria to proceed by summons. Offences include using equipment connected to a network to commit a serious offence, dishonestly obtaining/dealing in personal financial information, tampering with evidence with intent to mislead judicial tribunal, and failing to comply with digital evidence access order direction.
A total of six search warrants were executed across suburbs in both states, and more than 40 SIM boxes – devices used to send SMS phishing messages to a large number of potential victims – were seized.
Liam Garman is the editor of leading Australian security and defence publications Cyber Daily and Defence Connect.
Liam began his career as a speech writer at New South Wales Parliament before working for world leading campaigns and research agencies in Sydney and Auckland. Throughout his career, Liam has managed and executed a range of international media and communications campaigns spanning politics, business, industrial relations and infrastructure. He’s since shifted his attention to researching and writing extensively on geopolitics and defence, specifically in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Sydney and a Masters of Strategy and Security from UNSW Canberra, with a thesis on postmodernism and disinformation operations.
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