Australian Crypto Scams Surge Over 162% With Nearly $150M Lost

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Australians lost 221.3 million Australian dollars ($148.3 million) to investment scams where cryptocurrency was used as a form of payment in 2022, an increase of 162.4 % compared to 2021.

According to an April 17 scam activity report from the country’s consumer regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), a total of 3,910 crypto scam incident reports were made, and the average Australian victim was robbed of A$56,600 ($37,900).

The $148.3 million figure represents 7.1% of the total A$3.1 billion ($2.08 billion) in scams reported in Australia for 2022.

Wire transfers remained the largest fraudulent payment method with almost 13,100 reports totaling $141 million, which is $7.3 million less than crypto payments.

Bank wire payment scams averaged around A$16,000 ($10,700) per incident, meaning crypto scammers were able to scam 250% more value from each victim.

Data showed that crypto scammers primarily contacted victims via social media and networking apps, while bank payment scammers contacted them more often via phone and email.

In an April 17 statement, ACCC Vice President Catriona Lowe partially attributed the surge in scams to new technologies that facilitate greed and deceive victims with increasingly sophisticated tactics:

We’ve seen alarming new tactics emerge that make scams incredibly hard to detect. This includes everything from impersonating official phone numbers, email addresses, and websites of legitimate organizations, to fraudulent texts that appear in the same conversation thread as genuine messages.

This means now more than ever, anyone can be scammed, she added.

Although the numbers are alarming, Lowe pointed out that the true cost of damage is still not taken into account:

Australians have lost more money to scams than ever before in 2022, but the true cost of scams is much more than a dollar figure, as they also cause emotional distress to victims, their families and loved ones. companies.

Lowe explained that the Australian government, law enforcement and the private sector need to strengthen their ties to fight scams more effectively and bring the numbers down.

Related: Australians Revealed as Top Targets of Israeli Crypto Scam Syndicate

According to data from the ACCC’s Scamwatch scam database, the average investment scam victim in Australia is a 65-year-old man who was contacted on social media or responded to an advertisement. fraudulent.

They will likely be tied to the scam for several months before realizing they have been scammed.

Fraudulent bond offerings, initial public offerings (IPOs), relationship or hog butcher plans, and money grabbing services are among the most commonly reported investment scams.

The ACCC said in its report that losses from scams are much higher than those reported, as around 30% of scam victims do not report it to anyone, while only 13% of victims report the incident to Scamwatch. .

ACCC Scamwatch, ReportCyber, Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX) and other agencies compiled data for the report.

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