The Hidden Risk: How Scams Spread During the Covid-19 Pandemic
The Covid-19 Pandemic saw immense change. People took more care in their health and hygiene and Australians spent more time online than ever before. During this time though, scams and online fraud incidents rose to unfathomable numbers.
Over the course of two years, Melburnians spent 263 days under lockdown restrictions, forcing schools and workplaces to function remotely and make the switch to online modules. During this period, the Australian Communications and Media Authority found an 11 per cent increase in broadband connection from pre-Covid years. With almost 8.2 million Australians connected to the internet, scams and online phishing schemes have access to an extensive array of users to deceive and victimise. Over this time the Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded a record number of scam activity. William Milne, the ABS head of crime and justice statistics, said “65 per cent of people received a scam offer or request in 2021 to 22, up from 55 per cent in the previous year.”
Scamwatch Australia also recorded an increase in scam activity over the Pandemic. In 2021, when Australians living in Victoria spent a recorded 108 days under strict lockdown, 286,621 scams were reported to the agency. That’s an increase of over 70,000 scams compared to 2020 numbers.
The question remains, why are so many Australians being exposed to scams? According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, scammers have easy access to unprotected online usage streams. “Australians were downloading a total of 9.8 million terabytes of data,” said the ACMA, “The COVID-19 pandemic has helped drive rapid growth in Australians' online activity.”
With this unprecedented amount of online usage, the risk of scam exposure rises at an alarming rate and our most vulnerable age groups are being exposed to harmful intelligent scams. The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that people aged 55 to 64 were the most exposed to online scams in the year 2021-22. About 70% of people aged 55-64 encountered a scam during the course of the year.
After almost three years of consistently alarming scam rates, Scamwatch Australia said in order to spot scams and counter their harmful effects, always stop, think, and check before you act, “Scams succeed because they look like the real thing and catch you off guard when you’re not expecting it.”
