The Australian Competition and Consumer commission publishes data every year about how much have Australians lost to scams and they finally published the data for last year. According to that data, Australian citizens have lost a whopping $435.2 million (AUD $624 million) to scams.
The data was gathered by several different organizations - Scamwatch, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Westpac and others.
The losses for 2019 are 34% more than the losses in 2018, which were AUD $489 million. That said, last year there were 5% fewer scam reports than they were in 2018. Out of the $634 million Australians lost a shocking $126 million to investment scams alone, which is a 59% increase compared to investment scam losses for 2018, unfortunately.
This upward trend is very disturbing. And I have little doubt that the pandemic and the scams provoked by it will make things even worse this year, and not just in Australia.