Investment scams swindle five times more money from Australians than the next costliest scam type.
Australians lost $1.3 billion to investment scams in 2023 according to new data from the National Anti-Scam Centre's targeting scams report.
People aged 65 and older were hit particularly hard by these scams with a jump in losses of 13.3 per cent to $120 million, reported to Scamwatch alone.
"Reports to Scamwatch indicate scammers are targeting older Australians with retirement savings, who may be looking for investment opportunities," ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe said.
"We know of a recent case where an elderly woman lost her life savings after seeing a deepfake Elon Musk video on social media, clicking the link and registering her details online.
"She was assigned a 'financial advisor' and could see on an online dashboard she was apparently making returns, but she couldn't withdraw her money."
Remote access scams were the next most costly with $256 million lost in 2023, followed by romance scams with $201.1 million lost and phishing accounting for a $137.4 million loss.
The most common contact method for scams was text messages with more than 109,000 reports, up 37.3 per cent on 2022.
Despite this the biggest losses came through phone calls with $116 million lost from more than 55,000 reports, according to Scamwatch data.
Social media scams resulted in the second highest reported losses, jumping by 16.5 per cent to $93.5 million in 2023.
Overall the National Anti-Scam Centre found efforts to combat financial crime had resulted in a 13.1 per cent decline in reported losses in 2023, to $2.74 billion.
"While the National Anti-Scam Centre has made a positive impact since it was established on 1 July 2023, there is much more work to do," Ms Lowe said.
"Over the next two years we will continue to invest in technology-based solutions that will centralise intelligence and distribute information to those who can act on it - such as banks to freeze accounts, telcos to block calls or SMS and digital platforms to take down websites or accounts."
- Report suspicious contact or activity to Scamwatch at www.scamwatch.gov.au/report-a-scam
