A total of 32,000 people across NSW have become victims of scamming since the beginning of the year, losing almost $60 million.
Among those people, less than five per cent of them retrieved the money they lost.
What are the biggest scams targeting us in the harbor city right now? Is enough being done to disrupt the criminals, to stop them stealing our cash?
Click the link below to listen the full episode:
On today’s This Arvo In Sydney, host Sacha Barbour Gatt spoke to Catriona Lowe, the deputy chairwoman at the ACCC and the watchdog’s main consumer advocate, to find out what scams you should be aware of.
The Ad Targeting Scam report released early this year showed that in 2022, investment scams accounted for 66 per cent or two-thirds of all financial losses.
Ms Lowe said an investment scam would be a sham investment opportunity, with ads popping up on social media.
Sometimes they appear to involve a celebrity endorsement saying, Come and invest your money in this scheme or this opportunity or this product, when in fact there is no scheme or opportunity or product,”
Ms Lowe said.
There has also been a massive increase in “phishing scams”, where the scammer is phishing for information or money.
Ms Lowe said the best-known examples of “phishing scams” are the Hi Mum scam or toll road scams.
The toll road scam starts with a text message saying, “You have got an overdue account, and you need to pay up”.
Three key words and those words stop, think, and protect. So stop before you click on a link, before you give away personal information, certainly before you transfer money. Just stop.”
There are also scams involving pets when people pay for a puppy online, but the puppy never shows up.
The ACCC now sees these scams as sophisticated organised crime.
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.