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The National Anti‑Scam Centre’s second quarterly report shows a sharp reverse of scam losses in the last quarter of 2023.
For the last three years, the amount of money lost to scams has doubled year on year, hitting a record $3.1 billion in 2022.
However, a new report from the National Anti‑Scam Centre (NASC) suggests that the trend may now be reversing.
According to the NASC’s second quarterly report, scam losses in Australia almost halved in the period from November to December 2023, compared to the same period in 2022.
Scam losses dropped by 47 per cent for the last quarter of 2023, compared to the last quarter of 2022, and by 26 compared to the period from July to September 2023. Breaking this down further, Australia saw a drop of 37 per cent in losses to investment scams, 31 per cent to bank transfer scams, and an impressive 74 per cent in crypto scams.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones is rightly proud of the achievement.
“Before the Albanese government came to office, Australians were losing over $3 billion a year to scams. Of particular concern, scam losses had doubled and doubled again in the space of three years,” Jones said in a statement.
“That trend has now flipped, and losses have significantly reduced in the first six months of the government’s crackdown. In November 2023, scam losses decreased by over 50 per cent compared with November 2022.
“This comes after the government implemented its election commitment to crack down on scammers by investing $86.5 million in last year’s budget, which included establishing the National Anti‑Scam Centre.”
However, Jones said the fight against scammers is only just beginning.
“This is just phase one of the government’s crackdown on these criminals,” Jones said.
“Phase two includes developing mandatory industry codes to impose tough new obligations on banks, telcos, and social media platforms to protect their customers from scams. The government is also implementing Australia’s first SMS Sender ID Registry to prevent scammers [from] imitating trusted industry or government brand names.”
Australian Banking Association chief executive Anna Bligh responded to the NASC, saying she considers any drop in scam numbers a win.
“I have a lot of sympathy for Australians who have lost money to scams. It is encouraging that efforts to protect people are making a difference and less money is being lost to scammers,” Bligh said in a statement.
“Every dollar that stays out of the hands of the criminal gangs behind these scams is a win; however, we must all continue to remain vigilant to the risks that remain.”
Consumer champion Choice, however, feels that more needs to be done to combat social media scams, particularly on the part of the social media giants themselves.
"From October to December last year, social media scams made up a huge 20 per cent of losses for the quarter. In 2023, social media scam losses stole $95m, a 249 per cent increase since 2020. 76 per cent of 2023’s losses were through Meta-owned companies," said Alex Soderlund, senior campaigns and policy advisor at Choice, according to the Guardian's liveblog.
"We continue to see an overwhelming number of likely scam ads across Meta and Google-owned services. Big tech companies have a perverse incentive not to act on scams because they generate advertising revenue, so it’s clear that only strong mandatory rules to prevent scams developed and enforced by a regulator will result in any meaningful change for consumers."
UDPATED 13/3/24 to add Choice commentary.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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