Action on scams, spam and telemarketing: January to March 2026

Our key actions
	$702,900 in penalties paid by Lululemon for spam law breaches. $376,200 in penalties paid by Lycamobile for mobile number fraud law breaches.
	109.3+ million scam calls and 45.2+ million scam SMS blocked by telcos from January to March 2026. 4.0+ billion scams blocked in total.
	Preparation for the 1 July 2026 go-live of the Australian SMS Sender ID Register to help prevent brand impersonation scams.

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1. Disrupting mobile number fraud – We monitored telco compliance with rules directed at fraud prevention and took strong enforcement action when we found non-compliance. Mobile number fraud (MNF) can result in financial losses and emotional distress for those impacted.
2. Combating spam and telco scams – This is an enduring priority, and in 2025–26 we focused on persistent unwanted spam or telemarketing. We escalated our approach to businesses that failed to respond to our compliance alerts and early warnings. Unwanted spam or telemarketing can have a range of adverse impacts on consumers, ranging from frustration through to financial loss and serious impacts on mental health and wellbeing.

Key actions and outcomes in the quarter included:

• We announced that Lycamobile Pty Ltd paid a $376,200 infringement penalty for breaching mobile number fraud rules, and entered into an 18-month court enforceable undertaking. The telco failed to conduct required identity checks on 131 occasions when porting mobile telephone numbers. The breaches led to reported consumer losses of at least $175,000. 
• We provided advice to telcos about mobile number fraud threats and vulnerabilities gleaned from our ongoing compliance and enforcement work. This information included additional steps that could be taken to protect customers from harm.
• We gave compliance alerts to multiple telcos about potential mobile number fraud so they could take early action to protect consumers.

Key actions and outcomes this quarter included:

• Telcos reported blocking more than 4 billion scams since anti-scam rules registered by the ACMA came into force. This includes 2.9 billion scam calls since December 2020 to the end of this quarter, and more than 1.1 billion scam SMS since July 2022 to the end of this quarter. The ACMA and telcos use blocking statistics to identify trends and inform disruption activities. 
• We provided anonymised scam call data to telcos to inform their blocking activities.
• We collaborated with the National Anti-Scam Centre to share information on scam trends and align educational material for consumers.
• We announced that Lululemon Athletica Australia Pty Ltd paid a $702,900 infringement penalty and entered into a new 2-year court enforceable undertaking for sending over 370,000 marketing emails that did not contain a way to unsubscribe. 
• We gave 967 compliance alerts to businesses for early remediation of possible scam, spam and telemarketing law issues.

In January to March 2026, we significantly stepped up our outreach activities with stakeholders in the telco sector, government and broader economy to prepare for go-live of the Sender ID Register on 1 July 2026.

The register is being implemented as part of the government’s Fighting Scams initiative to address scams and online fraud and protect Australians from financial harm. 

It is designed to make branded SMS and MMS messages safer and help prevent impersonation scams. From 1 July 2026, unregistered sender IDs will be labelled as ‘Unverified’ under a single message thread on people’s phones.

At the end of the quarter, 123 telcos had been approved to participate in the register.

Onboarding of businesses and organisations to the register via telcos commenced on 30 November 2025. At the end of the quarter, 2,761 entities had registered 3,648 sender IDs.

We continued to provide the voluntary pilot SMS Sender ID Register to protect the sender IDs of key organisations impersonated by scammers and protect consumers from receiving scam SMS using these sender IDs. The pilot will be decommissioned following go-live of the register.

Find out more about the SMS Sender ID Register. 

Check the list of participating telcos.

Some businesses misunderstand what makes an electronic message ‘commercial’ under the Spam Act 2003. This is most common where a message is partially factual, like a bill or notification, but it also includes sales or promotional content. 

Under the spam rules, if an electronic message contains any promotional or sales content, it is commercial, regardless of whether the main content or purpose is factual. Messages may also be commercial if promotional or sales material is directly available via links, phone numbers or contacts contained in the message.

Examples of messages that are likely to be commercial include:

• Service or support messages that include commercial promotions or offers of the business’s (or another business’s) products and services.
• A bill or invoice sent to a customer that has a banner advertisement for products or services, or that directly links to an ad for products or services (including promotion of an app).
• A ‘follow-up’ email to an existing customer that promotes additional products and services.
• Messages sent to comply with other laws – such as product disclosures or account confirmations – if they also contain any additional promotional material.

Logos or branding in an otherwise entirely factual message are not generally considered commercial, but care should be taken with any embedded links. Remember, if the message contains a link to commercial content, the entire message may be considered commercial.

The simplest way to comply is to keep ‘service’ or factual messages separate from any messages that have, or link to, promotional content.

For commercial messages to be sent, businesses must have consent. Commercial messages must also include accurate information about the sender and a functional unsubscribe.

Businesses are encouraged to familiarise themselves with these rules and ensure their service or factual messages are compliant. 

Learn more about the spam rules.

In this quarter:

• We received more than 4,500 complaints from consumers about alleged breaches of telemarketing and spam laws.
• Solar, insurance and electricity were the most complained about industries.
• Scams made up 8% of the complaints we received for telemarketing and 4% of the complaints we received for spam.

Please note: These are a subset of all complaints received by financial year.

Where we receive enough information to identify the alleged caller or sender, we alert businesses and telcos about potential compliance issues raised in complaints. One alert can relate to several issues or complaints.

Please note: Compliance alerts for potential mobile number fraud are a new initiative in 2025–26.

We investigate where we see serious and/or systemic indications of non-compliance. Within the quarter, we:

• Opened 2 new investigations (both related to scams).
• Finalised 6 investigations (all 6 were related to scams).
• Monitored compliance with 20 court-enforceable undertakings.

For the 12 months to the end of the quarter, we took an average of 3.5 months to complete an investigation. All investigations were completed within 6 months.

View our enforcement actions for breaches of spam and telemarketing laws.

View our enforcement actions for breaches of scam laws. 

Find out more about scam, spam and telemarketing rules, including how to make a complaint. 

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