Scams have become an unfortunate reality in today's digital age, and no country is immune.
In fact, according to figures released by the ABS, two-thirds of Australians aged 15 years and over were exposed to a scam in 2021-22.
William Milne, ABS head of crime and justice statistics, said:
“The results of The Personal Fraud Survey showed that 65 per cent of people received a scam offer or request in 2021-22, up from 55 per cent in the previous year.”
How are we being exposed?
According to the report, people were most commonly exposed to a scam over the phone (48 per cent) or by text message (47 per cent), with exposure via text message doubling from 23 per cent in 2020-21 to 47 per cent in 2021-22.
Mr Milne commented:
“While more people were exposed to scams this year, we found that the number responding to scams has actually decreased to 552,000.
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The survey shows that 2.7 per cent of Australians responded to a scam in 2021-22 down from 3.6 per cent in 2020-21."
More people are reporting the incidents to the authorities
The results also showed that more people are reporting their experiences to authorities.
Of those who responded to a scam, 57 per cent reported their most serious incident, up from 50 per cent in 2020-21.
Mr Milne said:
“About one-third reported to a bank or financial institution, which remains the most common authority scams are reported to.
However, we have recently seen a notable increase in reporting to the police, up from 8.2 per cent in 2020-21 to 14 per cent in 2021-22.”
