Australians Lose More than $70 Million to Investment Scams in H1 2021

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), a competition regulator in Australia, recently published a report about the bogus investment opportunities in Australia and highlighted an alarming surge in the overall losses due to the investment scams.

According to the report, residents of Australia lost over $70 million to fraudulent investment schemes during the first half of 2021. Data from Scamwatch shows a 53.4 percent surge in reports about investment scams received in H1 of 2021. Scamwatch received 4,763 reports in the first six months of 2021, compared to 3,104 in H1 of 2020.

Additionally, ACCC highlighted that the projected losses are set to cross the level of $140 million by the end of this year. Cryptocurrency trading scams accounted for more than 50% of the total losses in the first half of 2021.

“Investment scams are more prevalent than ever, and scammers are capitalizing on interest in cryptocurrency in particular,” ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said. “More than half of the $70 million in losses were to cryptocurrency, especially through Bitcoin, and cryptocurrency scams were also the most commonly reported type of investment scam, with 2,240 reports.”

“Be wary of investment opportunities with low risk and high returns. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” Rickard added.

Bitcoin-related investment scams have increased rapidly in Australia as Australian citizens lost nearly $26 million to BTC investment scams in H1 of 2021, compared to $17.8 million across all of 2020.

Ponzi Schemes

In addition to the cryptocurrency scams, Australians lost a substantial amount to different Ponzi schemes and imposter bond scams. “These scams used advertising on social media sites and had their applications available via official app stores. People invested their money and were able to make small withdrawals in the beginning before the scammers cut off contact,” ACCC mentioned in the report.

Mobile apps and social networking sites accounted for nearly 40% of all investment scams which involved a financial loss.