Over $980 million was lost as a result of personal fraud according to the first National Personal Fraud Survey, by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which was released today.

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By definition, personal fraud included credit or bank card fraud, identity theft (includes the unauthorised use of a person’s personal details), and the following selected scams; lotteries, pyramid schemes, phishing and related scams, financial advice, chain letters and advance fee fraud.

The survey, conducted in 2007, asked people aged 15 and over about their experiences relating to personal fraud incidents in the preceding 12 months. The survey found that 453,100 Australians lost on average $2,160 as a result of personal fraud.

Other results from the survey include:

A total of 806,000 Australians reported they were victims of at least one incident of personal fraud in the previous 12 months.
This represented some 5 per cent of the population aged 15 years and over.

Half a million Australians experienced a form of identity fraud. The majority 383,300 (77 per cent) were victims of credit or bankcard fraud; identity theft accounted for the balance.

Nearly 6 million Australians (36 per cent) were exposed to a range of selected scams; that is they received, viewed and/or read an unsolicited invitation, request or notification designed to obtain personal information or money or obtain a financial benefit by deceptive means.

And almost 330,000 people fell victim to at least one type of scam by responding to or engaging with the unsolicited offer. The three main categories of selected scams were: lotteries (84,100 victims), pyramid schemes (70,900) and phishing and related scams (57,800).