Since the beginning of this year, over 32,000 people across NSW have become victims of scamming, with total losses reaching almost $60 million.
Unfortunately, the data shows that less than five per cent of those scammed retrieve what they have lost.
On today’s This Arvo In Sydney, host Sacha Barbour spoke to three victims of different scams and found out how they lost their hard-earned money.
Click the link below to listen three personal stories of online scams
One lost cash to the “Hey Mum” scam, another fell for a website pretending to sell puppies, and a third almost scammed when selling a couch on Facebook Marketplace.
Sophisticated puppy scams exploded in the wake of the pandemic, and Georgia (Surname withheld) was one of many who were exploited.
Georgia and her partner decided to get a puppy during the peak of lockdown. She found a breeder website with an Australian number that sells Jack Russells.
The breeder claimed to be living in Hobart but could register the puppy and organise the shipping to Sydney. The breeder told Georgia there would be a confirmation email with a link once the registration was completed.
He just wanted to sort of name, number, email because once you get the confirmation email about the dog being tracked, you can send over payment,”
Georgia said.
Georgia never received any email, but the breeder insisted the email was sent through and demanded money in return. She then called the transport company for further confirmation.
The transport people said I wouldn’t pay for this. It doesn’t. I can’t see anything on our end for anything like that. Nothing, nothing’s been processed. It doesn’t make any sense,”
she said.
I sort of said, sorry, we’re not going through with that, and then that’s when we sort of realised it was a scam, because he started calling me bro and he’s like, Bro, what? What do you mean?”
Hosted by Sacha Barbour, This Arvo in Sydney is a 10 to 12 minute daily news podcast made just for Sydney! Listen now on theListnr app.