Investment scams, business email compromise and money mules: The biggest scams for 2026 and how to avoid them

Fraud experts are warning Australians to be on high alert to both old and emerging scam types in 2026 after a year of devastating losses which saw victims fleeced of home deposits and entire life savings.

So far this year Australians have lost $260 million of their hard-earned cash to cyber-crooks as scams proliferate and skyrocket.

Fraud experts say some of the alarming fraud schemes Aussies should be on the lookout for in 2026 include investment, business email compromise and money mules scams.

Westpac’s head of fraud prevention Ben Young said investment scams remain his highest concern “in terms of pure dollars lost” going into 2026.

Australians reported losing $128.4 million to investment scams in the first nine months of this year alone.

“That is still the number one thing to move the dial in terms of losses,” he said.

“In terms of techniques, AI gets used in all of these scams, but especially to make those investment scams more compelling.

“On social media you’ll see, not just options for investment, but those options appear to be endorsed by Elon Musk or Anthony Albanese or other celebrities.

“Those sorts of voice cloning or video impersonations are really only just getting started and that will make all scams, but particularly investment scams, more dangerous.”

Most scams are now executed through popular social media sites and online sales platforms like Facebook Marketplace or using phishing texts and emails.

But scammers are constantly evolving their techniques, coming up with new and more sophisticated ways to fleece their targets.

Most scammers are offshore but occasionally, Aussies are conned in person.

“It still does happen,” Mr Young said.

“We’ve definitely seen a scam targeting older Australians this last year where the scammer will pretend to be the bank and say, ‘your card has been compromised and we need to come around to your house and pick up your card’,” he said.

“Sometimes they might even send a driver around. Of course they also have a story for why you need to give them the PIN for your card as well.

“It sounds crazy but they play a numbers game.”

The Westpac executive said another common tactic used by scammers and criminal organisations to avoid detection was to recruit money mules to receive the funds for them.

“Another trend that we’ve seen over the last year and which I think will continue, is this ability to sell your bank account to scammers,” he said.

“Scammers not only need to find victims, but they need to find mules, places to dump the money once they’ve convinced you to part with it.

“They don’t want to pay themselves directly, so they try to set up an intermediary, and that’s what a mule is.”

Chris Sheehan, who leads NAB’s Group Investigations unit, said cyber crooks are “ruthless” in their tactics and mules are expose themselves to prosecution.

“Organised crime will use third parties, in particular people from lower socio-economic groups, and get them to go and open up bank accounts in their own name at multiple different institutions around the country,” he said.

“Those accounts will look completely normal right up until the point that the organized crime group says, ‘you’re going to receive a million dollars into your account. You can take $2000 out at an ATM and give us the log on details to your account because we need to control it’.

“And so these people are being used to launder money as mules and the only people who are exposed here are the lower level people who opened the accounts.”

Mr Sheehan, who is responsible for NAB’s scam strategy and strategic fraud change program, said one of the most damaging frauds to businesses is payment redirection scams.

These business email compromise scams involve invoices between businesses, suppliers or individuals being intercepted and amended with fraudulent banking details.

In 2025, there were $19.4 million in reported losses to false billing scams compared to $11.3 million in 2024.

“These scams target people when they’re trying to pay their house deposit or a construction or a renovation progress payment, that sort of thing,” Mr Sheehan said.

“We see stories of young couples who are trying to pay their house deposit for their first house, and the crooks have altered the conveyancer’s account details, and they lose their money. It could happen to anyone.”

The former police officer turned bank executive said investment scams continue to steal the most from NAB’s customers.

“With investment scams, there’s a lot of psychological grooming that takes place between the scammer and their victim, and typically, people get caught in the spell,” he said.

“People can be caught in these things for months before they realise they’ve been scammed.

“Not only does that mean they’ve lost a ton of money before they realise that they’ve been stolen from but it also means that the likelihood of recovery is just about zero, because crooks move the money very, very, very quickly.”

Mr Sheehan said the vast majority of the scam activity targeting Australians in the past five years has been driven by transnational organised crime groups based in places like Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.

“It is literally high-end organised crime who are doing this, and the money that they’re generating is being used to fund drug trafficking, human trafficking, child exploitation and warring conflict zones around the world.

“It’s a faceless crime but it’s not victimless.”

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission deputy chair Catriona Lowe said the proceeds of scams are almost always quickly transferred offshore.

“Typically, we do see that scam funds will move through a number of Australian accounts and then, yes, very often to an offshore or to a crypto currency account,” she said.

“This is the typical trajectory.”

ANZ’s head of customer protection Shaq Johnson said it was a “constant arms race” for banks to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions and protect their customers.

“I think we’ll continue to see the common scams such as the investment scams, all of the crypto scams and romance scams,” he said.

“We’re seeing that impersonation scams are on the increase, whether they’re impersonating banks, impersonating the Australian Taxation Office, impersonating Australia Post or payment service providers.

“These will continue and I think they will become a lot more personalised, so they’ll be able to use data to be able to make them sound a lot more convincing.”

Mr Young said there are a range of red flags Australian should be aware of in 2026.

“Anything you find on social media, you have to treat with absolute suspicion,” he said.

“Even if you see what appears to be a legitimate investment, just go to that website directly. Don’t click through any links. Don’t take call-backs from anyone.

“Anything that has to be done in a real hurry is a huge red flag and anything to do with crypto these days, you’ve just got to be super, super careful about.”