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Scams are becoming increasingly harder for the community to identify. The 2022–23 scam data results are now available and they reflect a shift in how Australians are responding to fake emails, SMS and social media messages.

During this period, there were 25,609 ATO impersonation scams reported, an increase of over 25%. Despite the spike in this number, there has been a 75% decrease in the amount of money paid to scammers.

Scammers are becoming increasingly interested in harvesting personally identifying information (PII) rather than requesting payments. Divulging PII continues to be a way for scammers to compromise another’s identity, leading to difficulties with lodging tax returns and myGov logins. However, we saw a 71% decrease in people providing this information.

Please encourage your clients to stay vigilant, lock down their identity information and frequently sign into their online accounts to check for unusual changes.

(NB: Stopping scammers funds is the only way to stop them and the above shows we are learning.  Keep up the good work!)

Latest scam data

2022–23 Scams by numbers

Last financial year our data shows:

• There were 25,609 ATO impersonation scams reported to us, an increase of over 25%.
• The amount of money paid to scammers decreased by 75%.
• Only 28 people paid money to a scammer, a 66% decrease.
• 346 people divulged personal identifying information (PII), a decrease of 71%.
• There has been a significant shift in the way scammers are contacting people – Email has increased by 179% and SMS contact has increased by 414%.
• The shift toward SMS and email scams has seen an increase in targeted phishing scams, leading clients to fraudulent websites. In response, we have initiated 4,836 take downs of websites with AusCERT.
• 35–44-year old’s are now the most likely to pay money to a scammer, this has shifted from the younger demographic of 25–34 year old’s in the previous year.
• 25–34-year old’s have remained the age group that divulged the most PII to scammers.

Source:  ATO