Scammers are using sophisticated calls and texts to fleece Australians out of their hard-earned savings but one big bank is fighting back and getting good results.
Scam reports from National Australia Bank customers soared 38 per cent last year and "spoofing" cons were one of the two biggest issues.
But since rolling out new defence measures in December, the bank has recorded a 50 per cent drop in spoofing scams and a subsequent 70 per cent reduction in customer losses.
The lender now wants to join forces with government, industry and telcos in a united effort to fight back.
Spoofing involves scammers obscuring phone numbers to masquerade as legitimate businesses and organisations on calls and through text messages, with the latter sometimes appearing in existing message threads.
Bank customers have lost tens of thousands of dollars to the scams, with criminals prompting them to phone a number and then transferring all their money to a new account, group investigations and fraud executive Chris Sheehan said.
"It will sound like they've called a bank contact centre, right down to the waiting music," he told AAP.
"They will tell the person, 'There's been a breach of security on your bank account. We've very helpfully set up this other account. Here's the BSB and account number for you to transfer your money to.'
"Typically, when the money gets sent to the account nominated by the scammers, it disappears within an hour of arriving."
NAB has worked with telcos to get its legitimate phone numbers on a "do not originate" list, making it more difficult for scammers to spoof its numbers.
The bank has also put protections around its "alpha tag" - a word replacing a phone number that pops up on phone screens - to make it more difficult for scammers to spoof, although Mr Sheehan cautioned it did not make it impossible.
"We're dealing with transnational organised crime groups who are incredibly well-resourced. They're resilient, robust (and) have amazing technological capabilities," he said.
"So it's not a silver bullet but it will make it much harder for the criminals."
Mr Sheehan called for a co-ordinated national response to fight scammers.
"We all need to be in the boat, pulling the oars at the same cadence and getting the boat in the same direction," he said.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority looking into a potential SMS sender ID register was a "really positive step", with registers used in other countries to stop scammers, Mr Sheehan said.
The National Anti-Scams Centre, however, was the best way for Australia to move forward together.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission received government seed funding in the October budget to scope and plan for the National Anti-Scams Centre.
"It needs to be led by government and then we just have to all chip in and help co-design and make sure it's operating effectively," Mr Sheehan said.
