Australians lost over 86 million USD to investment scams in 2018 alone – the biggest portion of the almost 490 million USD in losses from over 378 000 scam reports, the latest report of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) reveals. The investment scams have increased with 34% on the year, followed closely by the ‘dating and romance scams’, which increased by 44% to just over 60 million USD. Overall scam losses also increased by 44% from the 340 million USD reported in 2017. Many analysts, however, point out that the reported scams are just the tip of the iceberg as many people are too embarrassed to report their losses.
Good to know. "Many analysts, however, point out that the reported scams are just the tip of the iceberg as many people are too embarrassed to report their losses." So if conservatively 1 in 10 actually report scam losses, it's still costing as much as billions of dollars to victims in Australia, the U.S., and probably most any developed nation that these scams can flourish.
Many people are incredibly stupid falling for scams that are not even remotely clever let alone sophisticated, like the India call centers pretending to be the IRS & persuading people to buy gift cards and read off the numbers to them - I mean seriously, this is Darwinian. And the aspiring or struggling traders that fork over hundreds to thousands to the many self proclaimed trading gurus that sell them on the dream yet never have an audit to back up their big claims, this is the naive emotional crowd - the fish food for the market.