The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released its annual Targeting Scams report, revealing scammers don’t discriminate and are targeting a range of different communities.
According to the report, in 2019 people who reported speaking English as a second language lost $13.7 million, an increase of 90 per cent on the previous year, despite the number of reports remaining steady.
It said this increase was mainly from investment scams which accounted for more than $5.3 million in losses in the group.
Deputy Chair of the ACCC, Delia Rickard said investment scams often began with cold calls promising low-risk investments with high returns and could go on for months, resulting in high individual losses.
“If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” Ms Rickard said.
“Don’t let anyone pressure you and make sure you take the time to research the investment opportunity and get financial advice before agreeing to anything,” she said.
“Dating and romance scams had the next highest losses in this group at $2.7 million, followed by scams using threats to life or arrest at $1.7 million.”
She said Chinese authority scams continued to target the Mandarin-speaking community by accusing victims of perpetrating a crime, and threatening arrest or deportation if they did not provide money or information such as their bank account balances and identity details.
Losses to Chinese authority scams in 2019 increased by 40 per cent on 2018 figures, up to $2 million.
“We want to encourage all community groups to report to Scamwatch and not feel embarrassed or ashamed if they have been a victim of a scam,” Ms Rickard said.
The ACCC’s 68-page Targeting Scams 2019 report can be accessed at this PS News link.
