Community groups are calling for a grassroots approach to raise awareness of scams, as Indigenous Australians and those whose primary language is not English have lost tens of millions of dollars to scams over the past 10 months.
New data from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s scam-reporting service, shows scammers stole a total of $36.2 million from people who spoke English as a second language, and $4.6 million from Indigenous Australians.
This alarming data is timely as this week is national scams awareness week, a movement aimed at encouraging more open and honest conversations about scams to help people detect, prevent and avoid them.