News & alerts

Scamwatch is urging tech-savvy daters to be on the lookout for romance scammers this Valentine’s Day as data shows these scams are increasingly happening through social media and dating apps.

Scamwatch is warning people to be careful about being caught out by holiday season scams.

Scamwatch is calling on businesses to urgently review how they verify and pay accounts and invoices as reports of business email compromise (BEC) scams to Scamwatch have grown by a third this year.

People are increasingly being caught out by celebrity endorsement scams, with reports to Scamwatch increasing 400 per cent and losses increasing a staggering 3,800 per cent so far in 2018.

Scammers are increasingly catching out people by impersonating well-known businesses or the police so they can get access to computers and steal money or banking information.

Scammers swindled nearly $4.7 million from Australian businesses in 2017 according to the ACCC’s latest Targeting scams report – a 23 per cent increase compared to 2016.

Australians lost more money to scammers in 2017 than in any other year since the ACCC began reporting on scam activity.

The ACCC is warning consumers to beware of scammers impersonating energy and telecommunications providers and demanding payments.

Scamwatch is warning people to watch out for scammers setting up fake ads pretending to sell adorable puppies, with more than $310,000 lost and 584 reports about this scam in the past 12 months.

The ACCC is warning people to be careful about who they ‘friend’ online this Valentine’s Day with stats showing people are most likely to be preyed upon by dating and romance scammers on social media sites.