The Australian Competition and Consumer commission publishes data every year about how much have Australians lost to scams and they finally published the data for last year. According to that data, Australian citizens have lost a whopping $435.2 million (AUD $624 million) to scams.
The data was gathered by several different organizations - Scamwatch, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Westpac and others.
The losses for 2019 are 34% more than the losses in 2018, which were AUD $489 million. That said, last year there were 5% fewer scam reports than they were in 2018. Out of the $634 million Australians lost a shocking $126 million to investment scams alone, which is a 59% increase compared to investment scam losses for 2018, unfortunately.
This rising trend is very concerning. The pandemic will probably make things even worse in 2020.