Once money has left your account to a scammer, the useful question is not "can I get it back?" but "which report goes where, and in what order?" Three pathways matter in Australia: your bank or payment provider, the national scam reporting service (Scamwatch, run by the National Anti-Scam Centre), and ReportCyber, run by the Australian Signals Directorate's Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD's ACSC). Each does something different, and none of them replaces the others.
This guide sets out the sequence, what each authority actually does with your report, how to preserve evidence so a later complaint or police enquiry is credible, and how to escalate when the scammer impersonated a government agency.
Start with your bank or payment provider
This is the time-critical step. Payment recalls, card freezes and account locks have a far better chance of helping while the transaction is recent, so make this call before you write anything else.
Use contact details you find yourself — the bank's official app, its website, or the number on the back of your card. Do not use a phone number, email address or link supplied by whoever contacted you, even if they claim to be helping you recover the funds. Recovery-room scams follow the original scam, and they target people who have already reported a loss.
What to ask for:
- Whether the specific payment can be stopped, traced or recalled, and what determines that.
- Immediate protection: freeze or close affected cards, and secure the account.
- A reference number for your report, plus the team handling it.
- What you need to do about linked credentials — saved payees, stored cards, devices with saved logins.
- How to escalate internally if you are unhappy with the outcome.
Get the answer about recall in writing if you can. Whether a payment is reversible depends on the payment method and your institution's processes, and this varies. Treat any statement about getting money back as something to confirm with your own provider rather than assuming it applies to you.
Preserve the evidence before you clean up
Most scam reports fail on detail, not on merit. Before you delete messages or close apps, capture everything in one place.
Checklist:
- The transaction: date, time, amount, payment method, reference number, source and destination account details.
- Every message: screenshots of SMS, email, chat threads and social media profiles, including usernames and profile URLs.
- The contact points used: phone numbers, email addresses, links, and any business or trading names.
- The story you were told, written down while you remember it — invoices, fake job offers, romance narrative, investment pitch, government threat.
- A simple timeline: first contact, first payment, discovery, first report.
Keep originals. Screenshots help, but do not discard the underlying message if you can avoid it, and do not edit them. Name files by date so the timeline is self-explanatory later.
Report to Scamwatch (National Anti-Scam Centre)
Scamwatch is described as the place to "report a scam", operated by the National Anti-Scam Centre. This report matters even when you assume nothing can be done: scam reporting contributes the data that agencies use to identify and disrupt scam campaigns — the Commonwealth Fraud Prevention Centre frames this approach as using data to counter fraud.
What this report does and does not do — a practical distinction worth understanding:
- It records your experience against a scam type and a set of identifiers, including contact details and payment destinations.
- It does not itself reverse your payment or act as a recovery service. Recovery happens through your financial institution, not through the report.
Report once, with the full evidence pack attached. Duplicate reports under different names make the data less useful.
Report to ReportCyber when there is a cyber element
ASD's ACSC assists Australians affected by cyber incidents, and ReportCyber is the reporting point for cybercrime, cyber security incidents and vulnerabilities. Use it when the scam involved more than a transfer — for example:
- You clicked a malicious link, downloaded an attachment or gave remote access to a device.
- An email, social media or bank account was taken over.
- The scam came through phishing email infrastructure, spoofed domains, or involved threats to publish data.
A scam that was "just" a bank transfer can still be reported to Scamwatch; where both apply, file both reports. cyber.gov.au also notes separate reporting arrangements for cyber security incidents affecting critical infrastructure, so check cyber.gov.au for that pathway if it applies to you.
For identity documents or personal details that were exposed rather than just money taken, cyber.gov.au points to IDCARE for support. That is a support service for identity concerns, separate from reporting.
Escalation depends on who the scammer pretended to be
Impersonation is common, and the correct escalation route changes with it.
| The scammer claimed to be | Where the evidence points | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| AUSTRAC staff | AUSTRAC warns that scammers impersonate its staff by phone and email, demanding payment, threatening imprisonment or fines | AUSTRAC staff do not contact the public demanding payment this way. Cease contact and report the impersonation. |
| AUSTRAC demanding fines, taxes or transfers | AUSTRAC warns of emails to reporting entities and the public pretending to be from AUSTRAC seeking payment of fines, taxes or other financial transfers | Treat any such demand as fraudulent. Do not pay, and do not confirm personal details. |
| AUSTRAC or a "legal representative" about a deceased relative | AUSTRAC warns of an upfront-payment variation where you are told you are entitled to money or assets, releaseable only after a fee | Any estate payable only after an upfront fee is a recognised scam pattern. Stop and report. |
| An Australian Government department generally | The Commonwealth Fraud Prevention Centre says report suspected fraud directly to the relevant entity, which will have its own processes to manage reports | Report to the agency whose identity was used, not only to Scamwatch. |
| Another Australian Government department | The Centre states it is unable to investigate fraud allegations relating to other Australian Government departments | Do not expect the Centre to investigate on the department's behalf; go to the department itself. |
| Medicare, welfare or child support | The Centre directs reporters to the correct destination for suspected Medicare, welfare and child support fraud | Check counterfraud.gov.au/report-fraud for the current destination before filing. |
AUSTRAC's own guidance is about scams impersonating AUSTRAC; it is not a mechanism for investigating an individual payment you made. Use it to confirm you are dealing with an impersonation, then report through Scamwatch and your bank.
Questions to check before you rely on any answer
Authorities change processes, and your own circumstances change the outcome. Verify these rather than assuming:
- Which team at your financial institution owns scam reports, and how do you contact them after hours?
- What is the deadline, if any, for lodging a formal complaint about the transaction?
- Does your provider require a Scamwatch or ReportCyber reference number before assessing a claim — and does it want them in a particular form?
- If the payment crossed borders, which institution is responsible for pursuing it?
- If identity documents were handed over, what does IDCARE recommend for your situation?
That last point is worth acting on quickly. A driver licence or passport scan in a scammer's hands creates risk beyond the money already lost.
Your practical next steps
- Contact your bank or payment provider using details you source yourself. Get a reference number. Ask about recall, freezes and linked accounts.
- Save the full evidence pack to one folder, including a written timeline.
- File your Scamwatch report with the National Anti-Scam Centre, attaching what you have.
- If there was a phishing link, malware, remote access or account takeover, file a ReportCyber report with ASD's ACSC.
- If identity documents were compromised, contact IDCARE for support.
- If a government agency was impersonated, report it directly to that agency as well, following counterfraud.gov.au/report-fraud where the fraud involves government programs.
- Note any deadlines you are given, and follow up in writing rather than by phone alone.
If anyone subsequently contacts you offering to recover the money for a fee, or claiming to be from a government agency and asking for payment to release your funds, treat it as a second scam and report it through the same channels.
General information only
This article is general information, not legal, financial, tax, migration or credit advice, and it is not personalised to your circumstances. Reporting requirements, complaint processes and timeframes differ between institutions and agencies, and outcomes vary. Confirm current procedures directly with your bank, the National Anti-Scam Centre's Scamwatch, and ASD's ACSC through the official sources listed above before making decisions based on anything here. Australian Cash is an information publisher, not a lender, broker, government body, regulator or comparison service.