Aussies tricked out of 166 mln USD by crafty scammers in 2015: report

Australians are falling victim to more elaborate scams and losing more money than ever before, according to data released by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on Monday.

In collaboration with the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network (ACORN), the government-run ACCC found that Australians lost a staggering 166 million U.S. dollars in 2015, with older Australians particularly susceptible to the more elaborate and convincing scams.

Of the 166 million U.S dollars, more than 31 million U.S dollars were unable to be recovered, and ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that shysters were getting more creative with ways of tricking people out of hard-earned money.

"Investment scams come in many different guises including business ventures, superannuation schemes, managed funds and the sale or purchase of shares or property," Rickard said on Monday.

"Those approaching retirement are really concerned about how they can grow their retirement fund, so we think that may be making them more vulnerable to scams.

"We also think that scammers target countries like Australia, they're aware of our superannuation schemes, they realize people have money to invest later in life and that we're a wealthy country."

Rickard said that almost half of all losses were suffered by older Australians, with many falling victim to shady dating websites. She said the average loss to scammers was just more than 6,000 U.S dollars.

"Forty percent of the scam losses last year were to people over the age of 55," Rickard said.

There were more than 100,000 reports of fraudulent activity throughout 2015, a 15 percent increase from 2014, and Rickard said the majority of scammers were now based in Asia and not locally.

"There have been occasions where they've been operated from Australia but on the whole they seem to be based overseas."

The ACCC said staying vigilant, enabling spam filters for emails and making sure passwords and PIN numbers are secure were keys to avoiding falling victim to scams in the future. Endit