CANBERRA, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Total financial losses to scams in Australia increased by 7.8 percent in 2025 despite a fall in the number of scams reported, according to official data.
The National Anti-Scam Center (NASC) said in an annual report released on Monday that Australians lost 2.18 billion Australian dollars (about 1.5 billion U.S. dollars) to scams in 2025, up from 2.03 billion Australian dollars in 2024.
In the same period, the number of scams officially reported by Australians fell by 2.7 percent to 481,523.
The NASC report identified investment scams, payment redirection scams, romance scams, phishing scams and remote access scams as the top scam types by financial loss in 2025.
The total financial loss from phishing scams increased by 15.5 percent year-on-year, and losses from payment redirection scams rose by 9.3 percent.
Despite the increase in financial losses in 2025, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which runs the NASC, noted that scam losses remained 29.7 percent lower than the record-high of 3.1 billion Australian dollars reported in 2022.
Catriona Lowe, deputy chair of the ACCC, said in a statement that collaboration and shared accountability are needed to tackle the harm caused by scams in Australia and globally.
The NASC said it referred over 8,400 suspicious websites for assessment in 2025, resulting in the removal of 7,500 scam URLs. ■