Country Consumer Scam Reporting Tells a Story

Every year there are a few countries that report annual consumer scam losses.  This is so important because only with statistics can you tell how severe the problem is.  The annual consumer scam loss reports only include the ‘reported’ losses.  So, we know the actual losses are 10-20 times higher because most people do not report scam losses.

When you read the annual scam loss reports, you can quickly tell the difference between countries on how they are fighting scams.  In this article we will be looking at three countries (Singapore, Australia and the United States) and how they report consumer scam losses. The UK Finance 2025 fraud and scam loss report, from another country with good statistics, is not due out until late May 2026.

You will see in both the Singapore and Australia reports, the governments focus on both the scam losses and the controls the governments have in place to reduce scams.  A number of significant controls are included in these two reports, including measured benefits for some of the controls. 

Whereas in the US report, the report is heavy on loss statistics and light on controls.  So far, there are no meaningful scam regulations in the US.  The one bright spot is the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is looking to add regulations to help the telcos stop scams.  One example of this is adding a strong ‘know your customer’ requirement before telco providers allow companies to use telco services to access consumers.

Here is a quick snapshot of the scam loss statistics for the three countries.

In all three countries investment scams have risen to the top category.  This has become the biggest component of consumer scam losses.   It is 36-41% of total scam losses for these three countries.

Let’s look at these three countries.

Singapore

The Singapore annual report is entitled “Annual Scam and Cybercrime Brief 2025”.  It is most unique in that it not only talks about the scam losses, but what the Singaporean government agencies are doing to 1) prevent scams, 2) disrupt scams in process and 3) recover scam funds.  Singapore may be the most active government working to prevent consumer scams. 

Statistics

In 2025, both the number of scams and the dollar amount losses dropped.  The number of scams went from 51,504 in 2024 to 37,308 in 2025 and the dollar loss went from S$1.1 billion in 2024 to S$913 million, a drop of 18%.  See Chart 1 for total scam losses since 2021.  Note how Singapore is showing funds recovered in the past two years.  Funds recovery is a big initiative in Singapore.

Figure 1. Total Scam Losses and Amounts Recovered. Source: Singapore Police Force Annual Scam and Cybercrime Brief 2025

Investment scams were S$336 million and in second place were government impersonation scams at S$243 million.  See Chart 2 for the summary of the top scam types. 

Figure 2. Breakdown of Scam Types by S$ amount lost. Source: Singapore Police Force Annual Scam and Cybercrime Brief 2025

Crypto currency involved losses were S$182 million (20% of scam losses), with the bulk 64% (S$117 million) being Tether.

The Singapore report also highlighted the top contact methods by the scammers.  Chart 3 shows this information.  This shows why the Singaporean government is aggressively adding controls to telcos and digital platforms to help reduce scams.

Figure 3. Top Contact Methods by Scammers. Source: Singapore Police Force Annual Scam and Cybercrime Brief 2025

The 2025 scam losses would have been dramatically higher if it wasn’t for the significant actions and controls Singapore has deployed over the past three years.  In the next part, we will list some of these actions and controls and what the tangible benefits were.  If this were a ‘lessons learned’ document for other countries, this next part would be it.  Some countries do some of the items Singapore does, but nobody comes close to all of the items Singapore does.

Actions

Even more impressive in the Singapore report is a large section listing the ongoing actions and required controls to prevent scams.  Most significant are the scam disruption and recovery activities.

1. Project A.S.T.R.O. ”leverages technology to identify and alert potential scam victims.”  In 2025 the Anti-Scam Command (ASCom) “worked with partner banks to conduct six operations, sending over 32,800 SMSes to alert more than 26,000 victims” they were in the middle of a scam.  This saved over S$265 million in potential losses.

2. ASCom works with police and banks to proactively intervene real-time with victims who are attempting money transfers.   This saved another S$72 million in potential losses.

3. Singapore is part of 13 jurisdictions (Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Republic of Korea, Republic of Maldives, Malaysia, Australia, Macao, Canada, Indonesia, Brunei, South Africa and Dubai) that are members of Frontier+ that work together in identifying money mules and support each other in funds recovery.  In May 2026, the Singapore Police Force’s Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) used Frontier+ (Dubai Anti-Fraud Centre and the Royal Oman Police) to recover USD $6.6 million from a BEC case.

4. In a recent operation in 2026, ASC worked with cryptocurrency exchanges and TRM Labs and Chain Analysis and identified ‘in-process’ scam victims and saved almost S$3 million.  The ASC had another operation in early 2026 that ‘foiled over 300 scams and saved over S$24 million.”  There is also a government Crypto Tracing Team that monitors virtual assets used in scams.  CTT had over 380 successful interventions, saving an additional S$8.8 million.

5. Singapore has a suite of Scam Analytics and Tactical Intervention System (SATIS) tools “to swiftly triage, assess and disrupt scam-related websites. SATIS automatically analyzes over 400,000 web sites daily and disrupts around 40,000 scam web sites monthly.  There is a similar activity, SATIS+, to disrupt scam mobile numbers.

6. GovTech Singapore is the first government agency to send scam signals to the Global Signal Exchange (GSE) to help disrupt scams worldwide.

The Singapore 2025 Brief also spent significant time describing the scam controls in place in Singapore to help prevent consumer scams.

1. The Protection from Scams Act went live in July 2025.  This allows the police to restrict banking accounts of victims ‘deeply entrenched’ in scams.

2. The Criminal Law Bill went live in December 2025.  This creates serious penalties for criminals involved in scam offenses, including money mule accounts.  Penalties can include ‘caning’ up to 24 strokes.

3. Singapore requires Meta apply verification methods using government issued identification for all Facebook ads. As a result, “scam cases on Facebook decreased by about 38% from July to September 2025.  In September 2025, Meta was directed to strengthen their measures against government impersonation.

4. In November 2025 Singapore directed Apple and Google to implement measures to prevent government impersonation scams.

5. Singapore has directed online service providers to disrupt scam content and take action to remove such content within 24 hours of it being identified.

6. Consumers can use the government issued Scam Shield app and helpline to help consumers to avert scams.

7. Singapore has recommended eCommerce sites use government IDs to validate users.

8. For banks, Singapore has several requirements:

   1. Improved authentication by removing OTP codes.

   2. Use Money Lock which blocks money from online accounts from being moved.  Currently S$44 billion is ‘Money Locked’

   3. Cooling periods for high-risk activities.

   4. In app notification that call is coming from a bank (soon).

   5. Overall increased friction to help reduce scam losses.

   6. Have active money mule detection (soon for crypto currency exchanges).

   7. Allow customer over 55 to immediately block unintended monetary flows (‘CPF Safety Switch’)

      
      

9.   For telcos:

   1. Singapore requires single SMS Sender ID.  Since inception there have been “zero scam SMSes sent from the gov, sg ID.”

   2. Customers can block all incoming international calls and SMSes.

   3. The government has been working with telcos to detect and block scam numbers.  Since mid-2024, 100,000 mobile lines have been disrupted.

Australia

Statistics

The Australian government’s National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC) reported 2025 consumer scam numbers rose in 2025. The AUS $ loss was $2.18 billion, an increase of 7.8%.  This is disappointing given that in 2024 Australian scam losses dropped from $2.7 billion to $2 billion (a 26% reduction).  With a population of only 27 million, even AUS $2.18 billion is a very big scam loss number.  As an example, the UK has a population of about 62 million (less Scotland, which is excluded from UK APP scam numbers) and maybe £500 million per year in APP scam losses (AUS $ 1 billion).

The number of scam reports in 2025 was down slightly, at 481,523 (down 2.7%).  Chart 4 shows the scam losses for the past five years

Figure 4. Australian Scam Losses 2021-2025 (AUS $). Source: NASC