Australians lost over $851 million to scams in 2020, a record amount, as scammers took advantage of the pandemic to con unsuspecting people, according to the ACCC’s latest Targeting Scams report released today.

“Unfortunately scammers continue to become more sophisticated and last year used the COVID-19 pandemic to scam and take advantage of people from all walks of life during this crisis.” stated ACCC Deputy Chair. “Victoria, which was significantly impacted by the second wave of the virus, recorded the highest losses nationwide for the first time and Victorians reported $49 million in losses to Scamwatch, more than double those in 2019.”

Health and medical scams increased more than 20 fold compared to 2019, accounting for over $3.9 million in losses.

Phishing activity also thrived during the pandemic, especially through government impersonation scams. There were over 44,000 reports of phishing scams, representing a 75 per cent increase.  

Gobbill continues to protect small businesses and households from scams and fraud throughout Covid. Join Gobbill today to have the confidence that you have cyber protection from fraudsters.

Source ACCC June 2021 https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/news-alerts/scammers-capitalise-on-pandemic-as-australians-lose-record-851-million-to-scams

Scamwatch reports 2,000 COVID19 scams with losses now more than $700,000. This is only the reported figure with unreported figures accounted for.

There has been also a spike in ‘puppy scams’ during coronavirus lockdown reaching $360,000. “A lot of people are stuck at home and going online to buy a pet to help them get through the loneliness of social isolation,” ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said. “Unfortunately the rush to get a new pet and the unusual circumstances of COVID-19 makes it harder to work out what’s real or a scam.”

COVID-19 has been a hot bed for fraudulent activity with scammers targeting those in search of a furry companion reports 9News.

Don’t get done by those puppy eyes…
For more information, visit ACCC’s report.

Gobbill is a partner of StaySmartOnline since 2015, a cybersafety initiative of ACCC Consumer Rights.

Right now, the FBI is concerned with business email compromise, or BEC, which involves targeting an employee with access to their company’s financial infrastructure and duping them into moving money to the scammers.

FBI agent Michael Sohn of the Los Angeles Cyber Division told Wired, “[w]hen a small business gets scammed out of $200,000 or $500,00 they’re just done, they’re no longer in business.”

A similar strategy called vendor email compromise, or VEC, is also on the rise. In a typical scenario, a fraudster will create an invoice that looks identical to the real vendor’s, save for the bank account information. When the company issues payment, it once again ends up in the scammer’s account.

Juniper Research, which forecasts trends in digital technology, estimates business losses stemming from cybercrime hit $3 trillion worldwide in 2019 to over $5 trillion in 2024, an average annual growth of 11%. No one is safe from the fallout. 

By the way, the Nigerian prince scam is still fooling people. Here’s why. Also known as the 419 fraud, the Nigerian prince is a variation on the centuries-old Spanish prisoner swindle, an advance-fee scam that emerged after the French Revolution, where people sent handwritten letters soliciting help for a (non-existent) nobleman falsely imprisoned. While it’s closely associated with the early internet, the Nigerian prince first went global in the 1980s when West African fraudsters began snail-mailing scam letters around the world. Today, it seems more like a punchline than a real threat, but the Nigerian prince still gets paid: in 2018, the con brought in more than $700,000 from Americans alone.

That’s why we built Gobbill, to protect businesses from fake invoices and scams. Get protected with our accounts payable fraud protection platform. https://gobbill.com

Gobbill expects to debut and showcase its “Know Your Biller™” fraud detection technology at prestigious UK investment events such as this year’s EIE20 driven by what the UK Financial Conduct Authority calls an “epidemic” of 3.8 million fraud cases reported in 2019.

Sources:

Popular Science – The Nigerian prince scam is still fooling people. Here’s why. 5th March 2020

https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/nigerian-prince-scam-social-engineering/

Juniper Research Hampshire, UK – 27th August 2019

https://www.juniperresearch.com/press/press-releases/business-losses-cybercrime-data-breaches