Australia, with many other countries, is still in a dilemma about the use of cryptocurrencies. As per the reports of The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the Australian citizens lost over $6 million during 2018 by being trapped by the cryptocurrency scams.
The ACCC stated, “Victims reported being tricked by online scammers into purchasing various cryptocurrencies through the scammer’s software platform, but, as with other investment scams, when they tried to cash out, the scammers either made excuses or were no longer contactable.
These investment scams also included scammers asking for payment in cryptocurrency for forex trading, commodity trading or other investment opportunities.”
The data shows an expedition in remote access scams by 95%, which happened to bring a loss of $4.8 million over last year.
With cryptocurrency acquiring a peak over $20,000 last year, the scams also reached heights in Australia following humongous losses. Cryptocurrency fraud in Australia is the second most common racket with advanced payment programs, first being the use of gift cards.
In addition, it has been reported that the victims firstly strive to a bitcoin ATM to turn money into the virtual currency before they transfer it to the scammer.
According to the reports, the majority of people becoming prey to the scams were men belonging to the age group of 25 to 34.
The ACCC received more than 670 records and claimed them to be a lot more than this as a vast number of people would presumably be embarrassed to show themselves as the victims.
