Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Community Lose 22 Million To Scams In 2020

Last year scammers stole close to $34 million collectively from people who identified as culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD), people with disability, and Indigenous Australians.

Figures from the ACCC’s latest Targeting Scams report released earlier this week shows losses to the CALD community represented a 60 per cent increase compared to 2019, across 11,700 reports.

“Last year we saw a big increase in losses to scams affecting culturally and linguistically diverse communities,” ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said.

“Some members of CALD communities suffered higher losses on average than the overall community, accounting for one in every eight dollars lost.”

“Unfortunately, scheming scammers try to target people who by virtue of their background, disadvantage, language skills or disability may experience vulnerability, and be more likely to fall for their tricks,” Ms Rickard said.

Investment scams were responsible for $6.3 million in losses, the most costly type of scam for the CALD community.

This was followed by threat based scams, and people from CALD communities lost $6 million to these scams up 248 per cent from 2019.

The Chinese authority scam is a common threat based scam which cost people from the CALD community $4.3 million last year.

These scammers impersonate Chinese authorities and accuse their victims of committing a crime, such as sending a parcel with illegal goods like fake credit cards, and threaten them with deportation or arrest unless they paid money or provided their personal information.

“We received over 2,000 reports about Chinese authority scams in total last year with $7 million lost, and almost a quarter of these were from people with a CALD background,” Ms Rickard said.

“This shows that these scams continued to disproportionately target Mandarin speakers in Australia.”

Other threat based scams involved scammers impersonating Australian government departments such as the Australian Tax Office saying you will be arrested for unpaid tax and the Department of Home Affairs threatening to arrest you and have you deported.

“Australian governments will never threaten you with immediate arrest. Always stop and think about who you might be dealing with, and if you’re not sure whether the call is legitimate, hang up and call the organisation directly using contact details you independently source,” Ms Rickard said.

Scams also impacted Indigenous Australians in 2020. Last year Scamwatch received 3,455 reports with over $2 million in losses from Indigenous Australians. While the losses were 4 per cent lower than those in 2019, the reports increased by nearly 25 per cent.

The most financially damaging scams for Indigenous communities were dating and romance scams, followed by investment scams and online shopping scams.

People who identified as having disability made more than 7,500 reports to Scamwatch, and lost close to $10 million to scams last year. Dating and romance scams accounted for about half of these losses.

More than one third of reporters also said they had lost personal information. Meanwhile, 25 per cent of people without disability reported losing personal information.

“Unfortunately scammers do target all sectors of the community so it is important to stay alert,” Ms Rickard said.

“Remember, never give your credit card details or personal information to anyone who contacts you out of the blue no matter who they say they are, as scammers can do an excellent job impersonating the government and private sector organisations like banks and telephone companies."

"If you think you have provided your account details to a scammer, contact your bank or financial institution immediately,” Ms Rickard said.

The ACCC has translated the Little Black Book of Scams into ten languages to help the community understand and avoid scams.

More information on scams is available on the Scamwatch website, including how to make a report and where to get help.

The ACCC regularly engages in Indigenous outreach programs and shares scam warnings on the Your Rights Mob Facebook page.

Consumers can follow @scamwatch_gov on Twitter and subscribe to Scamwatch radar alerts.