Australian Competition and Consumer Commission publishes scam snapshot showing lower reported losses and 5,834 scam website takedowns

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission published a National Anti-Scam Centre quarterly snapshot showing that reported scam losses fell in the first three months of 2026 across Scamwatch and police reporting channels, although online scams remained the largest source of consumer harm. After removing duplicates, Scamwatch and ReportCyber recorded 60,657 scam reports with reported losses of AUD 248.3 million. Scamwatch received 45,816 reports, down 17.8% from the same period in 2025, including 6,775 reports involving financial loss worth AUD 76.7 million, down 17%. ReportCyber received 15,391 scam-related reports to police with losses of AUD 187.7 million. Online contact methods such as fake websites, advertisements, social media and mobile apps accounted for around half of Scamwatch losses, with AUD 38.3 million lost to scams that began online. Investment scams produced the highest losses reported to Scamwatch at AUD 45.5 million. The National Anti-Scam Centre took down 5,834 scam websites, including 1,960 fake online gambling sites, referred those gambling sites to Google to block advertisements on its platforms, and sent 511 Facebook advertisements, profiles and groups to Meta for investigation. The centre said it will monitor whether the first three months of 2026 mark the beginning of a broader decline and continue working with digital platforms and other partners to detect scam activity earlier and disrupt scam operations.