A staggering 15 million Australians are believed to have received a scam text or phone call by August this year, according to new research.
Three in four people have reported receiving fraudulent texts or calls in 2022, but only one in five people reported the hoax, a study by Finder has found.
The comparison company surveyed a group 1058 people across the country in August, with 75 per cent submitting they had been contacted by a scammer.
The figure is equivalent to about 15 million people when compared to the national population of 25.8 million people.
A further five per cent of people who undertook the survey said they didn’t know if they had received a scam message or call, leaving only 20 per cent saying they had not been contacted by scammers.
Four per cent of people said they did not realise the text or call was a scam until sometime after receiving it.
Australians lost more than $2 billion to scams in 2021, with around $10 million lost through text messages, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), while data from Scamwatch shows more than 50,000 phishing scams have been reported so far in 2022.
Finder money expert Sarah Megginson has warned people to be wary of scams, particularly as they get into doing their Christmas shopping.
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She has suggested people ignore calls from unknown numbers.
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“Let the caller go to voicemail. If they leave a number, you can check if it matches a real business online,” she said.
“Be especially cautious if you get a message in WhatsApp or on Facebook claiming to be from a relative who has lost their phone and now needs help. This is the so-called ‘Mum scam’, and is responsible for $2.6 million in losses in the first seven months of the year.”
Megginson has further advised people to ignore suspicious text messages.
“Don’t ever reply to or click on links in text messages. These could link to viruses and other nasties, or fake sites looking to steal your personal data.”
Read text messages carefully. Poor grammar and spelling are often a giveaway that the SMS is fraudulent.”
When shopping online, she has advised people research a website before buying from it.
“If you’re looking for the best deals online, you may come across some genuine-looking scam sites selling items at heavily discounted prices.
”If you’re unsure if the site is reputable, a quick google search for reviews will generally bring you up to speed and can also help you identify if the products are legitimate.”
