About Scamwatch
Scamwatch is a service run by the National Anti-Scam Centre, which was established in 2023 by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) with the goal of collecting information on and combatting scams in collaboration with both domestic and international partners, agencies, and industry bodies.
Scams awareness week and 2025 campaign
Scams Awareness Week is an annual collaborative effort between the federal government and numerous educational, community, and business groups designed to promote an awareness of scams among Australians and teach them how to protect themselves. The most recent campaign ran from 25 to 29 August 2025 with the theme of ‘Stop, Check, Protect’.
Stop: Don’t rush and fall prey to a false sense of urgency
Check: Consider whether the person contacting you is legitimate; verify their identity
Protect: If something feels wrong, act quickly by calling your bank or a service like IDCare if personal information has been shared with a scammer
Scams and how they work
A scam is an illegal and fraudulent act that involves a criminal or criminal organisation tricking or deceiving someone to steal from them – commonly by gaining access to a person’s financial or personal information.
Common sign of a scam
There are several ways of identifying a scam, as noted by Scamwatch:
- Being presented with time-sensitive money-making opportunities that are too good to be true
- Weaponising human sympathy through the use of heart-breaking or distressing personal stories
- Phishing attacks that redirect users to scammy websites
- Emotional manipulation, including denying a person the chance to stop, think, process, and verify information and pressuring them to act quickly
- Requesting the use of unusual payment methods including bitcoins and debit cards
- Making unusual banking requests, including asking for the creation of new PayIDs or bank accounts
Top 5 scam trends and statistics
The National Anti-Scam Centre’s most recent Targeting Scams report, published in March 2025, revealed that $2 billion was lost to scammers in 2024, with 494,732 scams reported over the course of the year, with the top five scams by loss consisting of:
- Investment scams: $945 million
- Romance scams: $156.8 million
- Payment redirection scams: $152.6 million
- Remote access scams: $106 million
- Phishing scams: $84.5 million
Digital hygiene policies
In addition to the precautionary guidance provided by Scamwatch, the ATO offered additional cyber safety recommendations that include tips for both individuals and businesses that can be used to improve their digital hygiene (the habits a person takes to secure and protect their digital information) as well as a set of policies that allow users to report vulnerabilities to improve the security and stability of the ATO’s services.
Red flag categories and checklists
Scamwatch provides a checklist of potential red flags and assorted signs that can help identify if someone is being scammed, and breaks this list down into five categories, each with its own associated set of indicators:
- Urgent red flags
- Financial red flags
- Relationship red flags
- Communication red flags
- Behaviour red flags
Resources and additional guidance
As part of its promotional activities for Scams Awareness Week, Scamwatch made a variety of resources available to access and/or download, including a scam sense quiz, links to The Little Book of Scams (including an updated version for First Nations peoples), factsheets, videos, posters, social media images, and stakeholder kits, among other helpful resources.
What to do if you’ve been scammed
For anyone who thinks they may have been scammed, there are several steps that can be taken immediately:
- Contact your bank to report the scam and freeze any transactions that may be in progress
- Change all your passwords – especially those which may be similar to ones used on other sites, and run virus scans on all devices and computers regularly
- Call IDCare to organise support, assistance, and create a plan to minimise the damage
- Contact Scamwatch to report the incident and provide any relevant information concerning the incident
- Be on guard for follow-up attempts, as statistically one in three scam victims is likely to be scammed more than once, so should a scammer attempt to initiate contact, block the account and avoid sending them money
- Inform family and friends of the incident
Key takeaways
Scams can happen to anyone and can take many forms – including dating, investment, phishing, and crypto scams. As reported by the National Anti-Scam Centre, 2024 saw Australians lose $2 billion to a variety of different scams. To help Australians protect themselves, Scamwatch runs an annual scams awareness campaign to educate the public on how to identify a scam and understand what steps they can take to protect themselves from being financially manipulated.
