With Australians losing more money to scammers every year, Scam Awareness Week aims to help people spot a scam and keep themselves safe online.
Scammers clearly have their sights set on Australia, with combined losses of more than $2 billion reported last year to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch initiative, as well as the government and the financial sector.
This year, combined losses might reach $4 billion. Scamwatch received more than 166,000 reports between January and September this year, revealing a 90 per cent increase in losses over the same period last year.
Scams Awareness Week aims to alert Australians to the risk of being scammed and teach them how to look for red flags that something is wrong, says ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard.
“We know scammers are relentlessly targeting Australians,” Rickard says. “With millions of Australians more vulnerable to scams following the recent spate of large-scale data breaches, there has never been a more important time to know the tell-tale signs of a scammer.”
Research commissioned by the ACCC shows that 96 per cent of the population was exposed to a scam in the five years to 2021. Half of the survey’s respondents were contacted weekly or daily by scammers, a figure expected to rise given current cybersecurity concerns.
Scam Awareness Week: spotting scams
Scamwatch’s advice when it comes to spotting scams is; Stop, Think,…
