GLOSSARY
Bachelor degree or above
Includes education qualifications of bachelor degree, graduate diploma, graduate certificate, and postgraduate degree.
Chain letter
A chain letter is an invitation in the form of a letter or email to send a specified amount of money or goods to an unknown person. There is a list of names and money or goods are sent to the name at the top of a list. That name is then removed and the recipients of the chain letter add their own name to the bottom of the list before sending the letter or email to a number of other people. For the purposes of this survey chain letters that did not ask for money or goods to be sent, or only asked for goods of negligible value, were excluded.
Credit or bank card fraud
Credit or bank card fraud involves the use of credit or bank card details to make purchases or withdraw cash without the account owner's permission. For the purposes of this survey, credit or bank card fraud also included the fraudulent use of debit cards.
Diploma or certificate
Includes education qualifications of certificates I, II, III, IV, certificate not further defined, diploma, and advanced diploma.
Equivalised weekly household income
Equivalised weekly household income is gross weekly household income adjusted using an equivalence scale. For a lone person household it is equal to gross weekly household income. For a household comprising more than one person, it is an indicator of the gross weekly household income that would need to be received by a lone person household to enjoy the same level of economic well-being as the household in question.
Gross household income is all current receipts that are usually or regularly received by the household or by individual members of the household, and which are available for, or intended to support, current consumption. This includes receipts from wages and salaries (including salary sacrificed income), profit or loss from own unincorporated business (including partnerships), net investment income (e.g. interest, rent, dividends), government pensions and allowances, and private transfers (e.g. superannuation, workers' compensation, income from annuities, child support and financial support from family members not living in the same household). Gross household income is the sum of the income from all these sources before income tax, the Medicare levy and the Medicare levy surcharge are deducted.
Exposure to scams
A person was considered to have been exposed to a scam if they received an unsolicited invitation, request, notification or offer, and viewed or read the unsolicited material. Exposure does not necessarily involve responding to the scam.
Fake notification or offer from a bank or financial institution
A fake notification or offer is an offer, request or invitation which appears to be from a bank or other financial institution and is designed to obtain personal information, money or another financial benefit from a person. Offers may be received over the phone (including by SMS), in person, by email, post or any other correspondence which was opened and read. When conducted electronically, these scams often purport to be from a legitimate bank, but actually direct a person to a hoax website to verify their account details.
Fake notification or offer from an established business
A fake notification or offer is an offer, request or invitation which appears to be from an established business (e.g. pay pal) and is designed to obtain personal information, money or another financial benefit from a person. Offers may be received over the phone (including by SMS), in person, by email, post or any other correspondence which was opened and read. When conducted electronically, these scams often purport to be from a legitimate business but actually direct a person to a hoax website to verify their account details.
Financial loss
Financial loss relates to all incidents experienced in the last 12 months (5 years for identity theft). Respondents were asked to provide an approximate total amount of money lost as a result of all their incidents of each fraud type. For credit card frauds, this amounted to money lost before any form of reimbursement from authorities. For scams, this amounted to money lost through responding to the fraudulent invitation, request, notification or offer.
Fraud
Fraud is the act of intentionally deceiving another for the purpose of gaining an advantage or benefit, whether financial or otherwise.
Highest level of educational attainment
The highest educational achievement a person has attained, encompassing both school and non-school education, regardless of the particular field of study or the type of institution in which the study was undertaken.
Household Income
Household income is a gross measure that includes all current receipts that are usually or regularly received by the household or by individual members of the household, and which are available for, or intended to support, current consumption. This includes receipts from wages and salaries (including salary sacrificed income), profit or loss from own unincorporated business (including partnerships), net investment income (e.g. interest, rent, dividends), government pensions and allowances, and private transfers (e.g. superannuation, workers' compensation, income from annuities, child support and financial support from family members not living in the same household). Gross household income is the sum of the income from all these sources before income tax, the Medicare levy and the Medicare levy surcharge are deducted.
Identity fraud
Identity fraud involves the theft of personal details without a person's consent. The person's name, date of birth, address, financial details or other personal details are then used to engage in fraudulent activities, such as conducting business, purchasing goods, withdrawing cash, opening accounts, taking out loans or avoiding criminal liability. This comprises of identity theft and credit or bank card fraud.
Identity theft
Identity theft is the use of someone's personal details without permission, or otherwise illegally appropriating another's identity (for example, using a drivers licence or tax file number in stolen, fraudulent or forged documents, conducting business, opening accounts or taking out loans illegally in another person's name).
Lottery
A lottery scam is where a person receives a fraudulent notification of having won a lottery or prize for a draw that they did not enter, and are asked to provide personal details or pay a fee in order to collect their prize or winnings. This excludes registered lotteries such as Readers Digest.
No tertiary qualification
Tertiary qualifications are awarded for educational attainments other than those of pre-primary, primary or secondary education. They include qualifications at the postgraduate degree level, master degree level, graduate diploma and graduate certificate level, bachelor degree level, advanced diploma and diploma level, and certificates I, II, III and IV levels. Tertiary qualifications may be attained concurrently with school qualifications.
Occupation
Please refer to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) (cat. no. 1220.0) for more information.
Personal weekly income
Personal weekly income is calculated as gross personal weekly income from all sources.
Pyramid schemes
Pyramid schemes are a multi-level selling technique where the main feature is that earning money and gaining promotion depends on recruiting other people into the operations rather than selling a product or providing a service.
Remoteness Areas
Remoteness is determined using the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA+) which is calculated on the basis of physical distance from goods and services. For more information refer to the Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) (cat. no. 1216.0).
Reporting Rate
Reporting rates refer to the volume of experienced scam incidents where an agency such as the police, bank or financial institution, consumer affairs/ombudsman or business were notified by the victim or another person, to the victim's knowledge.
Request to send bank details to another person
Request to send bank details to another person is a request by a person (that is. not a bank, financial institution or business) for another person to send them their bank details, such as an account number, password, and credit card details. The request may be made by phone (including by SMS), in person, by email, post or any other correspondence which was opened and read.
Scam
A scam is a fraudulent invitation, request, notification or offer, designed to obtain personal information or money or otherwise obtain a financial benefit by deceptive means.
Victim
A victim is a person who has experienced credit or bank card fraud, identity theft or a person who has not only received a fraudulent invitation, request or notification, but has also responded to that offer or request by supplying personal information, money or both, or seeking more information in relation to these requests.
Victimisation rate
Victimisation rate is the total number of victims of a personal fraud type in a given population, expressed as a percentage of that population.
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