Australia saw a surge in reports of scams involving last year, according to the country’s consumer watchdog.
In 674 cases, victims reported to the the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and other government agencies that had been used to pay scammers in 2018, with reported losses of AU$6.1 million (US$4.3 million), the ACCC said in its tenth annual “Targeting Scams” on Monday.
The figure is 190 percent higher than the reported (US$1.48 million) lost to crypto scams in 2017.
Online scammers generally tricked consumers into buying various through fake platforms, but when consumers tried to cash out their investments, scammers “made excuses or were no longer contactable,” according to the report.
Some investment scams also asked victims to pay in for forex , commodity or other investment opportunities. The ACCC said, in 2018, victims of investment scams reported losing AU$2.6 million (US$1.83 million) in .
In some cases, scammers also reportedly asked victims to visit ATMs to convert fiat into the and then transfer it to them.
Of the total 674 scam reports last year, almost half were made by men between the ages of 25 and 34, the commission said.
In a separate , ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard, said that total combined losses (fiat and ) reported to the ACCC’s Scamwatch program and other government agencies were higher than AU$489 million (US$345 million) – that’s AU$149 million (US$105 million) more than in 2017.
Rickard added:
“And these record losses are likely just the tip of the iceberg. We know that not everyone who suffers a loss to a scammer reports it to a government agency.”
image via Shutterstock
Published at Mon, 29 Apr 2019 10:41:07 +0000
