Scam victims can be young and savvy
Wednesday, 10 May 2017
If you think the most likely victims of online scams are too-trusting elderly people, think again.
New research shows that university-educated young men may be the most common targets.
New data from Britain shows young, tech-savvy banking customers were most likely to have been defrauded online.
The Banking Ombudsman says the same could apply in New Zealand too.
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Barclays data showed that when asked 'in the last three years, have you ever fallen victim to an online scam', 23 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 replied yes.
When asked if they had been defrauded, 32 per cent of those aged 25 to 34 said they had. For those aged between 45 and 64, just eight per cent said they had been scammed in the past.
The same researchers asked whether people had funds stolen from online payment accounts or credit cards without their knowledge or consent in the last three years. Of those with a masters or doctoral degree, 23 per cent said they had, compared to 10 per cent who only had a secondary school education.
Banking Ombudsman Nicola Sladden said her office dealt with about 120 cases relating to scams in the July 2015 year.
The bulk of those were customers who were upset their bank had refused to compensate them for money lost to scammers. Sladden said 60 per cent of the complainants who gave demographic details were male.
She said if young men were being increasingly targeted, it could be because they had the money to begin with, or were more prolific users of online services.
She said it should not be assumed that it was only naive people who were caught out.
She pointed to one case where a 53-year-old chartered accountant and experienced investor lost US$39,750 through a boiler room share scam.
He was targeted via phone by people asking him to buy shares in Alibaba Group. After he had handed over the money, he realised the trading company he had been dealing with was not legitimate.
In another case, a couple lost $100,000 when they transferred their term deposits via Western Union to Hong Kong, thinking they were putting money in an investment scheme.
Sladden said people needed to be sceptical about any investment opportunities that seemed too good to be true. They should also be careful about who they gave their personal details to and how much information was available on their social media profiles.
She said the cases her office dealt with were just the tip of the iceberg.
Sean Lyons, of Netsafe, said the biggest losses his organisation saw related to inheritance, romance and investment scams.
He said scammers often took a scattergun approach because the more people who were targeted, the more victims there were likely to be.
He said, because young people were bigger users of technology, some scams, if targeted at them, could net larger numbers of younger victims.
'Young people are certainly not immune to being scammed.'