Continued action critical to combat fraud as annual scam losses exceed $2 billion
AI-amplified scam activity is acknowledged by a major Australian regulator, but this item is primarily a fraud statistics release rather than an AI governance development.
Key points
- Australians lost $2.18 billion to scams in 2025, a 7.8 per cent increase on 2024.
- ACCC explicitly names AI as a driver of increasing scam sophistication alongside industrialised criminal syndicates.
- AI is mentioned once in passing; this is primarily a scam statistics and fraud enforcement report.
Summary
The ACCC's National Anti-Scam Centre has released its 2025 Targeting Scams Report, combining data from Scamwatch, ReportCyber, AFCX, IDCARE, and ASIC. Australians made 481,523 scam reports, with 274,577 involving financial losses totalling $2.18 billion. Investment scams were the largest loss category at $837.7 million. The ACCC deputy chair briefly cited AI and industrialised scam compounds as escalating threats requiring urgent, scaled responses, but the report's focus is on scam typology, disruption activity, and cross-sector collaboration frameworks.
"Continued action critical to combat fraud as annual scam losses exceed $2 billion" Source: ACCC – News Centre Published: 29 March 2026 URL: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/continued-action-critical-to-combat-fraud-as-annual-scam-losses-exceed-2-billion The ACCC's National Anti-Scam Centre has released its 2025 Targeting Scams Report, combining data from Scamwatch, ReportCyber, AFCX, IDCARE, and ASIC. Australians made 481,523 scam reports, with 274,577 involving financial losses totalling $2.18 billion. Investment scams were the largest loss category at $837.7 million. The ACCC deputy chair briefly cited AI and industrialised scam compounds as escalating threats requiring urgent, scaled responses, but the report's focus is on scam typology, disruption activity, and cross-sector collaboration frameworks. Retrieved from SIMS, 18 May 2026.