Tertiary-educated Australians in professional occupations that live in capital cities are the most likely to experience personal fraud, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The 2010-11 Personal Fraud Survey asked Australians aged 15 years and over about their experiences of credit card fraud, identity theft, and selected scams in the 12 months prior to interview.
ABS Director of the National Centre for Crime and Justice Statistics, Brad Petry, said today’s publication presented further analysis of the 2010-11 Personal Fraud survey data to understand how personal fraud victimisation experiences differ between population groups.
“Our analysis of this data found that Australians living in state capital cities, at 4.2 per cent were more likely to be victims of credit card fraud than Australians living in other parts of the country at 2.8 per cent,” Mr Petry said.
“People with a tertiary education (bachelor degree or higher) are more likely to be victims of credit card fraud with 6.0% per cent having fallen victim compared to 2.4 per cent of people who have not completed studies beyond Year 12.
“They were also more likely to be victims of a scam with 3.4 per cent per cent of tertiary (bachelor degree or higher) educated people being scammed compared to 2.3 per cent of people with no tertiary qualification,” he said.
Working Australians were twice as likely to be victims of credit card fraud or a scam as Australians not in the labour force (4.6 per cent compared to 2.3 per cent and 3.2 per cent compared to 2.1 per cent respectively).
“We found that employed Australians were twice as likely to be victims of credit card fraud as Australians not in the labour force. Working Australians were also more likely to be a victim of a scam than Australians not in the labour force,” Mr Petry said.
Further information is available in the article ‘Victims of Personal Fraud: a statistical snap shot’, from In focus: Crime and Justice Statistics, June 2013 (cat. no. 4524.0) and Personal Fraud, Australia, 2010–11 (cat. no. 4528.0). Available for free download from www.abs.gov.au
