Australian businesses were scammed out of $227 million to payment redirection cons over the course of 2021.
Payment redirection, a business email compromise class of scam, caused the highest losses to businesses according to the latest Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) scam report.
Combined losses reached $227 million in 2021, compared to $128 million lost to business email compromise reported from the prior year.
Findings revealed total scam losses grew to over $2 billion as the ACCC “continued to see record levels of scam activity in Australia”.
The report found the largest combined losses in 2021 were $701 million lost to investment scams, $227 million lost to payment redirection scams, and $142 million lost to romance scams.
Because it doesn’t have a specific reporting category for payment redirection scams, the ACCC obtained its figure from reports of false billing, phishing, identity theft and hacking.
The report found over 2021 Scamwatch received 3624 scam reports from businesses with $13.4 million reported lost.
“This represents a 13 percent decrease in reports and a 27 percent decrease in losses,” the report stated.
“The highest losses were to false billing scams which include many payment redirection scams.
“Businesses reported losses of $6.7 million to false billing scams with a median loss of $4200.
“However, for small businesses, the median loss was $8000.”
According to the report, the “second highest losses were investment scams with over $5 million reported lost and a median loss of almost $40,000.”
“The most common contact method for reports and losses was email, which is not surprising given the scam that causes the highest losses involves scammers emailing invoices with a change of payment details.”
In a breakdown of scam reports from businesses, 763 recorded accounts of false billing scams totalling $6,747,148 in recorded losses.
Businesses also lost $5,100,761 over 2021 to investment scams, with report reaching close to 90 over the year.
Phishing scams reported by businesses reached a total of 752, resulting in $166,635 lost.
Remote access scams saw businesses lose $90,504 with the number of reports reaching over a hundred.
More than 160 Australian businesses reported hacking scams and 54 reports of ransomware and malware cons.
The competition watchdog also received 231 reports regarding the Ponzi scheme Hope Business, which first appeared around May 2021 and the Wonderful World app scam.
The ACCC added the Flubot SMS scam is “the largest SMS scam in Australia” as “Scamwatch received almost 26,500 reports” between August and December 2021.
“Many people lost personal information and $10,743 was reported in direct financial loss,” the report stated.
“Government, law enforcement and the private sector worked together to combat this scam.
“An international effort including with the Australian Federal Police resulted in a Europol operation disrupting the Flubot infrastructure rendering the strain of malware inactive in June 2022.”
