Australians lost more than AUD851 million to scams in 2020. The latest Targeting Scams report of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) shows that the record amount is due to the Covid pandemic, during which fraudsters deceived credulous people. The report is based on over 440,000 individual reports.
According to the combined data, the scams causing the most financial harm to Australians in 2020 were:
– AUD328 million lost to investment scams;
– AUD131 million lost to romance scams;
– AUD128 million lost to business email compromise (payment redirection scams).