With over $23 million in losses reportedly related to relationship, dating and romance scams this year alone, people being sent scam letters, predominantly online, are being urged to contact the ACCC and discuss their issue.
While the ACCC commenced its Scam Disruption Project in August, which involves utilising financial intelligence to identify Australians sending funds to West African nations and advising them they may have been targeted by a scam, many people are still at risk.
In the three months ending in October the ACCC recorded almost 1500 letters having been sent to scam victims in NSW and the ACT.
ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said, “It is still early days and difficult to draw firm conclusions from the data collected but approximately 60% of those receiving the ACCC’s warning letters stopped sending money overseas for at least a 6 week period”.
“While there is no guarantee that all of the people sent a letter will be a scam victim, there are very real questions about why people should be sending funds to these high risk jurisdictions. Funds transfers from the people we wrote to total over $9 million and this does not include funds sent prior to the commencement of the project,” Ms Rickard said.
“The ACCC strongly urges anyone who receives such a letter stop sending money or if they are in doubt about whether they are being scammed to contact us and discuss their situation on a confidential basis. The information provided has enabled us to confirm that almost three quarters of the people who have contacted us were scam victims and hopefully we saved them from further losses. Collectively, these people have lost $1.7 million at an average of $34,000 each.”
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