Fewer Australians are getting scammed but victims are losing more, with new figures suggesting that anti-scam efforts are paying off – yet with $554.1 million lost to scammers this year and AI a growing disruptor, experts warn the war is far from over.

As Scams Awareness Week gets underway, new figures show scam victims reporting their experiences to the ACCC’s Scamwatch service during the first half of this year lost an average $1,706 per incident, with 91,767 reports accounting for a reported $156.6 million in losses.

Yet a further 30,783 victims reported $397.5 million in additional losses using the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) ReportCyber service – with losses from those scams nearly eight times higher, at an average $12,913 per incident.

The figures represented an 11 per cent overall decline in the number of scam reports compared with the previous period, even as reported financial losses increased by 1 per cent.

This suggests many would-be victims are getting better at avoiding scams but that many people are losing even more money to more-elaborate scams, many shaped and executed with the help of generative AI (genAI).

Nothing is off limits for scammers, which have recently been found targeting Census confusion, job hunters, elderly tai chi students, local councils, bank customers, visa applicants, telecommunications and utility customers, and even anti-scam specialists.

Many victims report that scammers use pressure tactics to get them to act quickly, often constructing elaborate ruses and hastily walking victims through the actions they need to take before they have time to process what’s happening.

“They rush you through it and make you panic,” one victim told the ACCC, adding that “as soon as I hung up the phone, I just knew [and] my heart sank.”

Anti-scam efforts are bearing fruit

Despite sizeable losses, the decline in the number of reports suggests broader scam awareness is finally making would-be victims more cautious – and that a slew of recent industry anti-scam efforts is starting to pay off.

The half-year reporting period began just weeks after the 15 December introduction of a new SMS ID Register that prevents anonymous scammers from sending text messages that spoof the identities of other organisations.

Months earlier, Australian banks introduced a Confirmation of Payee (CoP) system that cross-checks provided account details against records of past payments – alerting many would-be victims to potential scams.

Bankwest this week reported that scam losses among its customers dropped by 43 per cent during fiscal 2026 – with phishing responsible for 52 per cent of all scam cases, up 6 per cent year on year.

Older customers were disproportionately affected, with those aged 55 and over representing 71 per cent of scam exposure – and relationship and investment scams among the most commonly seen scam types.

This could change with the new Scams Prevention Framework – which began on 1 July but was not reflected in the latest scam statistics – that ACI Worldwide Pacific region general manager Trent Gunthorpe called a “significant shift in how Australia addresses scams.”

Scams “may start with a text message, social media advertisement or fraudulent investment website,” he said, “but by the time a customer initiates a payment, the bank is often the last line of defence.”

“The challenge is ensuring scam detection and intervention can operate at the same speed as the payments themselves – and the effectiveness of the framework will depend on whether intelligence can be shared quickly enough to disrupt a scam before a payment is executed.”

“That's a very different challenge from investigating a scam after the money has already gone."

Minding the gap, together

While technological controls seem to be working as intended, genAI’s growing verisimilitude is feeding an ongoing awareness gap that has many Australians acknowledging they are still not immune from manipulation.

A new survey of 1,028 recent and intending property buyers by PEXA – which facilitates online property settlements and recently launched an anti-scam education portal – found 92 per cent are aware of property scams but few could pick them.

Presented with a simulated scam email, 42 per cent of respondents couldn’t spot any signs of a scam and 99 per cent couldn’t identify the fraudulent email address it used – even after they were told the message was a scam.

Indeed, just 41 per cent of the PEXA respondents said they were confident in being able to detect a property scam – down from 51 per cent a year earlier – highlighting the persistent risk from scammers targeting multimillion-dollar property settlements.

AI is salt in the wound, with one analyst warning AI deepfake scams had increased by 2,000 per cent in three years – even as 69 per cent of Bankwest customers and 62 per cent of PEXA respondents fear growing use of AI voice cloning and deepfakes.

Many victims feel they can manage the situation themselves, with new CommBank research finding 31 per cent of victims believed they could go it alone, a third believing it was unnecessary to speak with someone, and 34 per cent too embarrassed to do so.

“One of the biggest myths about scams is that people fall victim because they don’t know enough,” said CommBank executive manager for fraud and scams James Roberts.

“What we’re seeing is something much more human – when something unexpected happens, many of us believe we can work it out ourselves.”