CANBERRA: Total financial losses to scams in Australia increased by 7.8 per cent in 2025 despite a fall in the number of scams reported, according to official data.
The National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC) said in an annual report released on Monday that Australians lost A$2.18 billion (about US$1.5 billion) to scams in 2025, up from A$2.03 billion in 2024, reported Xinhua.
In the same period, the number of scams officially reported by Australians fell by 2.7 per cent to 481,523.
The NASC report identified investment scams, payment redirection scams, romance scams, phishing scams and remote access scams as the top scam types by financial losses in 2025.
The total financial losses from phishing scams increased by 15.5 per cent year-on-year, and losses from payment redirection scams rose by 9.3 per cent.
Despite the increase in financial losses in 2025, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which runs the NASC, noted that scam losses remained 29.7 per cent lower than the record-high of A$3.1 billion reported in 2022.
Catriona Lowe, deputy chair of the ACCC, said in a statement that collaboration and shared accountability are needed to tackle the harm caused by scams in Australia and globally.
The NASC said it referred over 8,400 suspicious websites for assessment in 2025, resulting in the removal of 7,500 scam URLs. – BERNAMA-XINHUA
