By Samantha Lock in Sydney

AUSTRALIANS lost a record $3 billion to scammers last year with the average victim forking out $20,000 for every con recorded by authorities.

Scammers pocketed at least $3.1b in 2022 according to the latest Targeting Scams report, an 80 per cent increase on total losses recorded from the year before.

“Australians lost more money to scams than ever before in 2022, but the true cost of scams is much more than a dollar figure as they also cause emotional distress to victims, their families and businesses,” Australian Competition and Consumer Commission deputy chair Catriona Lowe said.

The report used data reported to the ACCC’s Scamwatch, ReportCyber, the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange, IDCARE and other government agencies.

Scamwatch received 239,237 scam reports last year with financial losses totalling more than $569 million, a 76 per cent increase compared to losses reported in the previous year.

Average losses experienced by victims in 2022 rose by more than 50 per cent to almost $20,000.

The rise is due in part to scammers using increasingly sophisticated technology and techniques to lure and deceive victims.

“We have seen alarming new tactics emerge which make scams incredibly difficult to detect,” Ms Lowe said.

“This includes everything from impersonating official phone numbers, email addresses and websites of legitimate organisations to scam texts that appear in the same conversation thread as genuine messages.

“Many Australians are losing their life savings.”

Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said banks needed to do more to combat the number of scams being carried out, with the consumer watchdog working with banks to set up a code of practice for the institutions.

“We set a bar very high about what banks are expected to do to protect their customers in relation to scams, to ensure that money is kept safe, that the customers’ details are kept safe, so consumers know what to expect from their banks,” he told ABC TV on Monday.

“Increasing the fines and penalties has to be a part of the options that we put in place.”

An explosion of reported losses to phishing scams, where victims are lured into believing the scammer is a relative or financial institution, skyrocketed by 469 per cent to $24.6m in 2022.

Investment scams were the highest loss category ($1.5b), followed by remote access scams ($229m) and payment redirection scams ($224m).

Mr Jones said keeping a track of the scams was like a game of whack-a-mole.

“What we’re seeing is scammers moving to an industrial scale, using new technologies, new capacity, to attack Australian households and businesses,” he said.

“A lot more needs to be done to be combating this.”

Investment scams were the highest loss category ($1.5b), followed by remote access scams ($229m) and payment redirection scams ($224m).

Millions of Australians became more vulnerable to scams in 2022, following a spate of large-scale and high-profile data breaches late last year.

Ms Lowe said there were hundreds of reports to Scamwatch in the weeks after the data breaches, including reports of scammers impersonating government departments and businesses to carry out identity theft and remote access scams.
People experiencing vulnerability or hardship were disproportionately impacted by scams, reporting record losses.

People with a disability reported financial losses of $33.7m, a 71 per cent increase on 2021 losses.

Indigenous Australians also reported losses of $5.1m to Scamwatch (up five per cent on 2021), while the median loss for indigenous Australian scam victims rose to $754, from $650 reported in 2021.

People from culturally and linguistically diverse communities made 11,418 scam reports, which resulted in losses of $56m, up 36 per cent compared to 2021.

Ms Lowe said this community was “significantly over-represented” in terms of financial losses across a range of scam-types, accounting for more than one quarter (27.9 per cent) of total losses associated with identity theft and about a third (32.7 per cent) of all losses to pyramid schemes.

Losses by small and micro businesses also doubled in 2022, losing $13.7m to scams and representing a 95 per cent increase compared to the previous year.

Scam losses across the Australian business community broadly saw a 73 per cent increase, totalling $23.2m.