INFOGRAPHIC true impact on Australians . Based on the numbers for December , during the holiday season , people can become desensitized to receiving numerous advertising links for shopping deals and the like and may not think twice about opening a dangerous file or clicking a suspicious link .
“ The data shows scammers were extremely active in 2021 and we anticipate this will only increase as scammers continue to evolve and update their tactics . Malicious actors will always follow the money and we ’ ve seen that during the past year , SMS attacks have grown exponentially , because those actors discovered a trusting and captive audience ready to engage on the other end of the phone . It is critical for consumers to remain vigilant .”
Top scams
Across 2021 investment scams were consistently the most financially damaging type of scam , costing Australians a record AU $ 177 million from 9,663 reports . The amount lost in 2021 was more than double the previous year , while the number of reports increased by 32 % YoY .
Losses to investment scams also accounted for more than half of all money lost to scams in 2021 . Australians aged over 65 were the most impacted , losing AU $ 52 million , while those aged 35 to 44 recorded the highest number of reports at 1,901 .
Dating and romance scams were the second highest in terms of financial loss , with AU $ 56 million , up 56 % YoY . They were also one of the costliest scams , with 40 % of all reports across the year resulting in money lost .
Social networking sites were the biggest single source of money loss for these scams , recording AU $ 22 million . New South Wales residents reported the greatest losses to dating and romance scams , at AU $ 15.9 million , and the largest number of reports with just over 1,000 across the year .
Phishing scams attempting to gain personal information received the highest number of reports in 2021 , making up one quarter of all scams reported to the ACCC . Reports of phishing scams also significantly increased YoY by 61 %. Money lost to phishing scams came primarily from phone calls , with this delivery method accounting for over half of all money lost . Queenslanders lost the most to phishing scams across Australia , reporting AU $ 1.6 million .
Scams relating to threats to life or arrest disproportionately impacted younger Australians , with those aged 18 to 24 accounting for the highest losses at AU $ 3.3 million , and 25-to-34-year old ’ s the greatest number of reports with 5,528 . Victorians suffered the highest losses from these scams at AU $ 4.8 million .
Other notable scams included losses to job and employment scams , which more than doubled in 2021 to AU $ 2.6 million , while losses to identity theft scams increased threefold to AU $ 10 million .
Reports of malware and ransomware scams decreased by 6 % but losses increased exponentially by more than 10-fold to AU $ 1.5 million . Reports of hacking scams increased by three quarters during the year , and remote access scams by 85 % YoY . p
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