The government's official watchdog countering scams has reported a huge number of costly deceptions every day in the ACT.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Many of them involve people duping other people through online dating.
According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, there have been at least 2924 scams since January in the ACT, costing the victims more than $1.7 million.
That works out at about 15 scams of all types a day in the Australian capital.
Of these, romance and online dating scams cost Canberrans $714,146 since the beginning of the year - that's more than $3500 a day in the ACT.
Last year, a woman was sent to prison for two-and-a-half years in the ACT for swindling 10 men she dated online out of a total of $302,000.
She formed relationships and then posed as a professional person who had fallen on hard times due to poor health and family trauma.
She would then ask the men to send her money to get her out of financial trouble.
Many of the "non-romantic" scams involve scammers pretending to be from a government agency, according to ACT Minister for Consumer Affairs, Shane Rattenbury.
"Typically, scammers will pretend to be from a government agency or well-known organisation, threatening with fines, arrest or deportation if you don't hand over money or personal information," he said.
READ MORE:
Quoting figures from ScamWatch, the agency trying to prevent further deceptions, he said, "Scammers are increasingly targeting those aged 65 and over.
"Since January this year, Canberrans aged over 65 have reported 487 scams to Scamwatch resulting in a loss of nearly $77,000."
His advice was, "Don't be pressured to act quickly, a government agency or trusted business will never threaten you with arrest or deportation, and will never demand immediate payment with unusual methods such as with gift or store cards, iTunes cards, wire transfers or bitcoin."
Twenty-one-year-old Scarlett Simonis-Van Deyk bought a ticket to the 2019 Groovin the Moo festival from a woman advertising it on the music festival's Facebook page.
But when she got to the festival, she was told the ticket was invalid. She tried to get in touch with the seller but "she blocked me before I could ask for the money back," Miss Simonis-Van Deyk said.
"I'm never going to buy off someone on the internet again unless I go and see them face to face and actually get the tickets from them."
The deputy head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Delia Rickard, said that most people felt they were too savvy to be scammed but she warned that perpetrators were very convincing.
"Scammers are professional businesses dedicated to ripping us off," Ms Rickard said.
"They have call centres with convincing scripts, staff training programs, and corporate performance indicators their 'employees' need to meet."
According to the ACCC's ScamWatch, men were more likely to be conned than women, accounting for three of every five victims. Men aged between 55 and 64 were particularly vulnerable.
The figures may underestimate the scale of the problem because people were loathe to report that they had been fooled.
Damien Manuel from Deakin University's Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation said some people weren't aware they had been duped.
"They have money coming out of their account over a slower period of time, so it's not a large sum," he said.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
