Scams are everywhere on the internet. You will find them in many forms. The main motive behind them is to make people give money to them. Some scams are more successful than others, but regardless of their success rate, they can be extremely damaging to unsuspecting people who might not be able to afford even a $1 loss because of their financial conditions. Despite security technology getting better and privacy standards improving over the course of time, there are still just as many scams or more out there as there were a few years ago.
As time passes, these scams become more sophisticated than before. Calculating the amount lost to scams and counting the number of people who got scammed is nearly impossible because of the vastness of this market. Cryptocurrency trading scams, forex trading scams, stock trading scams, identity thefts, credit card stealing scams, etc. you have so many out there that creating a list will require an entire day.
Today, you will find out some alarming statistics about scams all around the world, and some useful information on how you can escape these scams and save your money.
A Look at Scams and Their Damages
If you only look at the statistics provided by the scam watch website from Australia, you will be shocked to know the numbers. So, just in the first three months of 2020, people have already lost more than $3.5 million due to online scams according to the statistics provided by the Australian Government website.
Now, you will be surprised to know that most of these scams were related to investments. People would make you spend money in the name of investments and then run away with your hard-earned cash. Phishing scams still rank on top in terms of the damages they do and their success rate.
The most vulnerable places are emails, social networking websites, and smartphones, which are used most commonly for perpetrating scams. While you would think that the teens are the biggest target of these scams because they do not have the experience of the world, you will be surprised to know that it’s the elderly who fall for these scams the most.
According to the details provided by Scam Watch, the age group that gets scammed the most is 65 years and above. Perhaps, a lack of knowledge of technologies is what causes the elderly to fall for these scams easily.
In addition to the statistics from the Australian website, you have some coming from the US as well. According to FTC, people have lost more than $660 million just in 2019 in the hands of imposter scams. What happens in these scams is that you receive a call from an unknown person.
This person then introduces themselves in association with a very famous company or government agency. They make you trust their words and eventually, you provide them with your credit or banking details. They then use these details to scam you and rob you of your money.
You will be shocked to know that only the phone scams have resulted in losses of billions of dollars in 2019 in just the US. While people keep getting scammed by the traditional and old scams that are perpetuated over the phones, they are even more prone to fall for scams in the name of cryptocurrencies and trading.
These scams are very believable because they talk about an industry that a lot of people are interested in these days. Every single day, millions of dollars are lost around the world in the hands of these scams. Unfortunately, many of these losses are not even reported.
Why People Get Scammed So Much
Here are some reasons as to why people keep getting scammed even though they have access to the internet that can help them recognize the good and bad guys.
Elderly Are Not Tech Savvy
It is interesting that a teenager is more prepared to thwart a scam than an elderly person. That’s because the elderly do not have proper technical knowledge. They do not know how a lot of things work on the internet and that’s why people scam them easily.
They use a few technological jargons and make them think that they are talking to someone knowledgeable and trustable. On the contrary, they are talking to online scammers who are completely unaware of the technical details and are running a scam based on a script and a computer screen.
You can also say that the elderly do not use the internet as much as teenagers do. They usually use the internet to talk to their loved ones through voice and video calls. They might use Facebook in between but they are not as active on the internet as teenagers are. For this reason, they are usually out of touch and do not know about the recent scammers and their tactics.
Lack of Knowledge of Cryptocurrencies
A lot of scams these days are being run in the name of cryptocurrencies. People will come to you asking for cryptocurrencies in many ways. For example, you might receive an email that tells you that you have to hand over the cryptocurrencies you own to some unknown person if you want to be safe. What happens if you do not give them the money? Well, according to the threats that are contained inside these emails, you will get coronavirus. Someone infected will come to your house and infect you with coronavirus. However, that’s not true and you should not trust such emails.
In addition to that, you have a lot of online trading software that is looting people fast. They keep talking about cryptocurrency trading, and how a bot software can do it automatically to win a lot of money for them. in most cases, you will notice that these bots have a success rate of nearly 100%, which completely kills the purpose of its existence and the existence of the financial markets. If you know where the markets are going in the future, you can’t make any predictions because everyone will know what you know. S
You should also stay away from online brokers that are nothing but scams. They make you sign up on their trading platforms and then make your life difficult in more ways than you can count. They will make withdrawals nearly impossible for you.
In fact, even if you have made some profit on your trades, they will still not allow you to take out the money from your own trading account. They will charge you all sorts of commissions on your trades. You will have to pay a commission on your withdrawal and deposits. You have to pay a commission on your trades even if you have already paid the broker in the form of the spread.
Unfulfilled Dreams
You cannot ignore the most important factor that contributes to people getting scammed over and over on the internet. For someone who is aware of these scams, the scam sounds extremely obvious. You would wonder how someone could fall for such scams. However, there are millions of people who fall for these scams every single day.
That’s because people want to be rich and live lives that they have only dreamed of. They are looking to grab every opportunity they can get their hands on to change the way they are living. Whenever someone comes to them and shows a glimmering light that they can be rich, they fall for it.
That’s what most of the online scams are doing. They are manipulating the thoughts of these people because they understand their weaknesses. If you are eager to get rich, someone can easily fool you in the name of making you rich. So, many online scam brokers and trading platforms do this.
What Can You Do After Getting Scammed
So, what to do if you got scammed? In all honesty, there is nothing much you can do after you have been scammed. If there is something to do, it needs to be done before you get scammed. You have to know the many tactics that online scammers use to scam you so you can recognize them from far away.
In addition to that, you should wait before you invest your money in some new venture, such as a new ICO. Many ICOs in the past was proven to be scams. However, once they disappeared with people’s money, they were never found. When you sign up with online brokers, make sure you see that they are regulated. And once you have been scammed, you should just learn the lesson, and pass it on to others so they can save themselves from getting scammed.
Final Thoughts
Someone might be getting scammed right now as you read this sentence. The world is huge and with seven billion people on it, it is impossible to get rid of online scams completely. You are highly recommended to be attentive when you visit online websites. Avoid clicking on unknown links in unknown emails. Do not sign up with unregulated and new brokers. Spend time researching and do not believe every review you see online – some are paid for and endorsing even the scam websites.