Watching out for new scams

You may feel confident in your ability to spot a scam, but it's crucial to remember scams often involve social engineering tactics that exploit human emotions and trust. The volume, increasing sophistication and diversity of different scams means there is a scam out there for everyone – including myself, despite my six years of experience working in this area.

"Research indicates scammers often target Australians, viewed as trusting and affluent, particularly those over 55 with substantial savings.”I'm passionate about helping customers who have been scammed because we want to prevent anyone losing their hard-earned money and peace of mind to organised crime. The impact is not just financial – scams can destroy a victim’s emotional health, trust and confidence and can have severe impacts on their family, friends and community.

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Preying on emotions

Scammers manipulate people to divulge information or send them funds. Scams are often run by sophisticated, well-resourced syndicates operating worldwide. They often look like legitimate businesses, complete with professional-looking websites and call centres.

These criminals cast a wide net and exploit human psychology and an individual’s situation to extract information and funds. For example, romance scams exploit the normal human desire for companionship or compassion for another’s situation and investment scams exploit the desire for financial security.

Research from the National Anti-Scam Centre, Scamwatch, indicates criminals often target Australians, viewed as trusting and affluent, particularly those over 55 with substantial savings.

Reported scams and loss breakdown in 2024 by age group

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Our Customer Protection teams at ANZ are always monitoring new scam types and collaborating with government and other organisations to make Australia an unattractive target for scammers.

This proactive approach allows us to anticipate and mitigate scams by continuously enhancing our technological capabilities and systems.

Everyone plays a role in preventing funds going to cyber-criminals. Our goal is to empower customers with the knowledge to identify scams and know what steps to take if they fall victim.

What to do if you’ve been scammed

If you suspect a scam, pause and assess the situation. Scammers often create urgent scenarios to prompt hasty actions.

Take a moment to step back and report the incident promptly. Investment scams alone resulted in about $79 million in losses so far this year, according to Scamwatch. Despite these losses, a relatively low number of attempted scams were reported this year – just 3,818 cases. This may indicate under reporting as not everyone comes forward.

Top ten scams by loss and number of reports

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If you have already sent money to a scammer, the first thing to do is contact your bank as quickly as possible. You should not be embarrassed or ashamed. You are the victim of a crime and scammers are master manipulators of people. We speak to scam victims regularly and we understand the distress these experiences cause.

Also speak with your friends and family about your experience – this will increase awareness of the issue and help make it harder for scammers to succeed.

We’ve invested in our people and systems to help prevent cyber-crime. Customer scam losses through ANZ Classic accounts fell by a third in the first half of the 2024 financial year, compared with the same period in the 2023 financial year. While our controls prevented more than $100 million of customer funds going to cyber-criminals in the year to March 2024.

Ruth Talalla is Scams Portfolio Lead at ANZ