13.2 million Australians exposed to scams

Two-thirds of Australians aged 15 and over were exposed to scams in 2021-2022, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

William Milne, head of crime and justice statistics at ABS, said: The results of The Personal Fraud Survey showed that 65 percent of people received a scam offer or request in 2021-22, up from 55 percent in the previous year.

People were most often exposed to scams over the phone (48 percent) or via text message (47 percent), with exposure via text message doubling from 23 percent in 2020-21 to 47 percent in 2021-22.

While more people were exposed to scams this year, we found that the number of people who responded to scams dropped to 552,000. The survey shows that 2.7 per cent of Australians responded to a scam in 2021-22, up from 3.6 per cent in 2020-21, Mr Milne said.

The results also showed that more people reported their experiences to authorities. Of those who responded to a scam, 57 percent reported their most serious incident, up from 50 percent in 2020-21.

About a third filed a report with a bank or financial institution, which remains the most common authority scam. However, we have recently seen a notable increase in reports to the police, from 8.2 per cent in 2020-21 to 14 per cent in 2021-22, Mr Milne said.

The Personal Fraud publication provides information on the prevalence of card fraud, identity theft, online impersonation and selected scams. The publication also includes key socio-demographic characteristics of those affected by each type of fraud.