With people spending more time online since the Covid-19 pandemic began, there has been a rise in the number of people losing money through online scams.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) recently released their scam statistics gathered from 2019 until April 2022, which have been analysed and collated in a new study by Social Catfish.
David McCellan is the president of Social Catfish, a US site dedicated to helping users investigate people or businesses that may be trying to swindle them.
He explained how they took the data collected by the ACCC and broke it down into how many people were scammed in each jurisdiction and how the amount lost varied between the age demographics.
The ACT reported the most incidents per 100,000 residents, however it’s at the bottom of the overall list. David attributes this to low population and a lower age average. Here in the capital, the average age worked out to be just 35 due to the large number of students and defence personnel, while the data showed people aged over 45 lost the most money to online scams.
Victims aged over 65 lost an average of $30,000 per incident, while the average amount lost in a scam in the ACT was only $667.
“The more money somebody loses, the older someone is, they feel like they should have known better, or they’re embarrassed they lost so much money and they don’t want family members to know, so they don’t typically report it. Whereas the younger age demographic, they lose…
