Highlights
- Pinakama-maraming naloko sa Investment scams na may $328 million
- Kasunod ang Romance scams kung saan ang mga naghahanap ng pag-ibig ay nadenggoy ng $131 million
- Ang iba naman ay na swindle ng payment redirection scams, na umabot ng $128 million in losses.
Sinamantala ng mga scammers ang kasagsagan ng pandemya noong 2020.
Tinatayang nasa $851 million ang nakuha ng mga ito sa panloloko sa maraming Australian noong nakaraang taon, ayon sa pinakahuling ulat ng Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
Iba't-ibang paraan ng panloloko
Ayon kay Deputy Chair, Delia Rickard naging tuso ang mga scammers at gumagamit sila ng iba't-ibang taktika.
"Different scams appeal to different groups so you've got older people over 65 who lose the most money and they tend to fall for things like investment scams, romance scams, remote access scams. Younger people are more likely to be a victim of online shopping scam, a cryptocurrency scam and they are particularly effective at linking their stories to topical events so the pandemic suited scammers right down to the ground unfortunately."
Ang report ng ACCC ay base sa datos ng Scamwatch, ReportCyber, iba pang government agencies, mga bangko at financial intermediaries.
Ibinase din ito sa higit 444,000 reports ng mga biktima.
Ayon sa ekspertong tulad ni Delia Rickard,gumagawa ng paraan ang mga scammers para makuha ang loob at personal information ng mga tao.
"The scammers wanted to get your personal information so they could try to get your early access to super rights or access benefits and other sorts of fraud. They did an incredible job at impersonating the government and because people were expecting to hear from the government at this time, it didn't seem strange to be hearing from scammers, just like during the bushfires earlier in the year, there were a range of charity scams where people appeared to be willing to help genuine victims, but weren't."
Mga kababaihan ang kadalasang target
Sa pagaaral ng Director of the University of NSW Institute for Cyber Security, Professor Monica Whitty, nakita ang dahilan kung bakit mas maraming kababaihan ang nabibiktima ng romance scams.
"Older women especially middle aged women are more likely to give money. There's a lot of mythology about that that people who are romance scammed are more likely to be the lonely type. If you compare those who are looking for a romance online and those who are scammed versus not scammed, there's no correlation. It's about the fact that they're more affluent and they're more likely to give more money and more likely to be targeted."
Ayon kay Professor Whitty patuloy ang pagtaas ng kaso ng mga panloloko.
"The reason why is we're not seeing people to validate our questions and when you're in a pandemic and you're working from home and you are not allowed to see anyone, then you can't actually do the things you ought to do and that is to check the validity of the person you're meeting.
Hence during the pandemic and when you're working at home and you're not seeing other individuals, you've got a world of people who are far more vulnerable to scams. When it first started, we were predicting that romance scams were going to go off the charts again."
Ayon kay Ms Rickard ng ACCC kahit karamihan ng scam ay mula sa labas ng bansa pero meron ding dito nagmula sa Australia
"We do have some homegrown scammers and one of the pleasing things about 2020 is a lot more resources went into scam prevention and catching scammers themselves so there were multiple arrests last year involving the AFP, state and territory police, ASIC so we do have some local ones unfortunately."
Ang average financial loss o nakukuha ng scammer sa isang tao ay higit $7,600.
Paano makakaiwas sa mga panloloko
Nananawagan si Ms Rickard sa mga Australian na huwag basta tumanggap ng mga request na humihingi ng kanilang personal details sa telepono, email o websites na hindi naveverify o natutukoy ang pinagmulan.
"The basic rule has to be that if somebody contacts you out of the blue, by phone, by email, by SMS, no matter who they say they are, or pretend to be, do not give them your personal information, particularly financial information, don't give them money and don't give them remote access to your computer and if you think for any reason they might be legitimate, still hang up, press delete and go and find and independently google search the contact details for the organisation and call and check."
Pinaniniwalaang marami pang biktima ang hindi nagrereport tungkol sa mga karanasan sa panloloko ng scammers kaya maaring malaki pa ang halaga ng nawala.
