Despite fewer scams, losses mount for Australian businesses

Sean Cao

2nd Jun 2025

Scam-related losses in the first four months of this year soared 28 per cent to $119 million despite a 24 per cent drop in the number of cases, statistics from reports to Scamwatch shows.

The biggest increase in reported losses came from phishing scams, in which scammers impersonate government agencies or financial institutions. Such schemes accounted for $13.7 million in financial losses, compared to $4.6 million last year.

Losses to social media scams increased by 30 per cent to $23.4 million. The number of people reporting financial loss to these scams rose by almost 50 per cent.

Phone scams appear to be declining, with an 11 per cent drop in reports. However, they still account for the highest overall financial losses of any contact method, with $25.8 million lost during the period.

The National Anti-Scam Centre is calling on businesses to join the fight against increasingly sophisticated scams by partnering and sharing data.

“While the average and median losses per victim have slightly decreased, the rise in overall financial loss and the number of people being impacted is a reminder to stay alert,” commented ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe.

“Our approach to scam prevention is grounded in partnership,” she continued. “Sharing information is a key step towards improving community safety – organisations, such as banks, digital platforms, and telecommunication companies, can help disrupt scams faster and reduce the harm they cause.”

“The work of our fusion cells has demonstrated that a piece of data that may be unremarkable on its own, when joined with other pieces of data, can form powerful intelligence. With data held across the ecosystem, sharing data with the National Anti-Scam Centre enables those vital connections to be made,” Lowe explained.

• This story was originally published on Inside Small Business.