TRANSCRIPT
Last December, Sydney woman Sunni Wan received a text saying someone was trying to access her bank account.
She says the message came in the same thread as previous ones from her bank, so she called the number provided.
"Because I had already received a thread of messages previously from a year ago from the same number, then I assumed it was legitimate. The scammer sounded very professional. He was basically robbing me of $49,900 while I was on the phone with him. It's affected emotionally, so stressful. It's been six months and there's still no responsibility or action."
Ms Wan's case was one of more than 600,000 scams reported last year, up 18 per cent from 2022.
They added to a combined loss of $2.7 billion.
That figure was down 13 per cent from a record $3.1 billion the year before.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission deputy chair Catriona Lowe says it is the first time losses have gone down in six years.
"At $2.74 billion, that is still far too many dollars lost to Australians, and a significant emotional and other costs suffered by Australians as well. Some of the areas where we will be focusing over the next 12 months are supporting the introduction of mandatory and enforceable codes. We've done a great deal with volunteers around the table, but we need everyone around the table to be effective in this fight."
The biggest culprits last year were investment scams, accounting for $1.3 billion in losses.
Next were remote access scams, at $256 million.
And then came romance scams, at $201 million.
There were two distinct areas where the losses are growing: email scams and social media scams.
Federal Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones the codes of practice being developed by the government will apply to online platforms.
"They've got to put much more effort into targeting the scammers that are making millions and millions of dollars through the social media networks. And if they don't lift their game, then compensation and penalties will be in place, and they'll be paying the price for the fact that they're not keeping their environment safe."
People aged over 65 were scammed out of more money than any other age group last year, losing $121 million.
While culturally and linguistically diverse communities only made up less than 5 per cent of the scams reported, they were over-represented in losses, accounting for almost 13 per cent.
Consumer Action Law Centre Chief Executive Stephanie Tonkin says what the federal government is proposing is not entirely adequate.
"Unfortunately, the laws now and what's proposed by the Assistant Treasurer is still entirely silent on compensation and reimbursement of scams losses. And that's not right. Reimbursement will be the driver of investment by business in protecting their customers. But until they're on the hook for that level of investment, we're not going to see enough change to protect consumers from scams."
The United Kingdom has already made it mandatory for banks to reimburse scam victims, and New Zealand and Singapore are working to do the same.
Ms Wan is now campaigning for the Australian government to do the same.
"They definitely need to take liability and responsibility. There's no duty of care to their customers. I mean, we are putting our life savings into these institutions. Most of us have mortgages with them, and we are barely making our repayments now."
Scamwatch says consumers can protect themselves by avoiding giving out personal information, questioning potentially fraudulent activity, and acting fast to report any losses.
