Latest scam data
February update
In February 2025, we received 7,537 reports of ATO impersonation scams, which is a 30% increase from January.
There were no reports of payments made to scammers.
The demographic who most reported providing personal information to scammers were people over 65 years old.
Find out how to protect your personal information and verify or report a scam.
For legitimate ways to pay your tax debt, see How to pay.
Scam channel data
We continue to observe email and SMS as the primary channel used by scammers when targeting the community. These channels combined make up 99.6% of all scams reported to us in February.
Month | SMS | Phone | Social media | Other | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
February 2025 | 97.9% | 1.7% | 0.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
January 2025 | 90.9% | 8.1% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
December 2024 | 90.4% | 8.9% | 0.6% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
November 2024 | 91.8% | 7.2% | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
October 2024 | 77.5% | 20.8% | 1.3% | 0.4% | 0.0% |
September 2024 | 82.5% | 15.6% | 1.2% | 0.7% | 0.0% |
August 2024 | 76.7% | 21.7% | 1.3% | 0.3% | 0.0% |
July 2024 | 78.9% | 18.4% | 2% | 0.6% | 0.1% |
SMS | Phone | Social media | Other | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
88.0% | 10.8% | 1.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
The social media category includes scams that occur through platforms like Facebook, X, LinkedIn and WhatsApp.