Australians lost nearly half a billion dollars to scammers in 2018, according to new statistics released by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), but the watchdog warns these figures are “just the tip of the iceberg”. 

The ACCC’s ‘Targeting Scams’ report found that consumers were scammed more than $489 million last year, a 34 per cent leap from $340 million in 2017. 

But ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said actual figures may be much greater. 

“We know that not everyone who suffers a loss to a scammer reports it to a government agency,” she said.

Last year, more than 378,000 scam reports were sent to ACCC’s Scamwatch, the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network (ACORN) and other government agencies including the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). This includes reports of automated scam phone calls received by thousands of households that pretended to be the ATO and threatened to issue an arrest warrant for unpaid taxes. 

The ACCC said the number of reported ‘ATO scams’ rose by 900 per cent late last year. 

These scams increasingly demanded money through iTunes cards, Google Play cards and cryptocurrencies to evade anti-scam measures. 

The report also shows investment scams cheated the most money from Australians, totalling $86 million, which is more than 34 per cent higher than 2017. 

Dating and romance scams ranked second most financially harmful, rising from $42 million in 2017 to $60.5 million in 2018. 

Additionally, Australian businesses reported losses of more than $60 million in 2018, after falling for ‘business email compromise scams’ that would impersonate key contacts in a business’s email system and request changes to regular bank account details. 

The ACCC encourages individuals to report scams to www.scamwatch.gov.au. They can also follow @scamwatch_gov on Twitter or subscribe to its scam alert emailing list to read advice on avoiding scams impacting the community.