Underreporting

Shame, not knowing where to report, believing nothing can be done, and simply never realising you were scammed all suppress reporting. The result is that every official loss figure is a floor rather than a measurement, and that comparisons between years can reflect changes in reporting behaviour rather than in crime.

Australia’s National Anti-Scam Centre notes that around 86% of reports to Scamwatch involve no financial loss at all, which pulls its median down; its report also lists report fatigue and the growth of alternative reporting channels as reasons its own numbers fell in a year when losses rose. Read reports and losses as two separate signals. See the methodology for how this site handles it.