We were so excited yesterday by the discovery that it’s Australian Bacon Week that we forgot to notice that it’s also National Consumer Fraud Week. The ACCC has released some stats to coincide with Fraud Week which shows that consumers are starting to wise up to the scammers.
In 2010, the ACCC received about 42,000 reports related to fraudulent scams, compared to just 20,000 in 2009. The amount of money lost to scams was also down slightly to $63 million, with only 16% of people reporting scams losing money.
Reports for online scams grew from 14,000 to 19,000, and telephone scam reports skyrocketed from just 2,000 in 2009 to more than 14,000 in 2010.
While the increased reporting of scams to the ACCC is encouraging, it’s still worth remembering that we need to be vigilant against the spams and scams that are coming through the portal. If you want to report a scam or you’ve been sucked in, the ACCC has a dedicated website, Scamwatch, plus a twitter feed you should follow.
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[ACCC]