Australia is currently experiencing a cryptocurrency scam epidemic.
Cryptocurrency scams are one of the fastest-growing threats that are impacting Australian banking customers.
During the last year, Australians lost over $221 million to cryptocurrency scams.
Some Australian banks are implementing policies to protect their customers.
From 18 July 2023, the NAB began to decline some transactions made to high-risk cryptocurrency exchanges, in an attempt to protect some customers from some of these scams.
The combined losses reported to Scamwatch; ReportCyber; the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange, IDCARE, ASIC and other government agencies was at least $3.1 billion in 2022. This is an 80% increase on total losses recorded in 2021.
There are many statistics in this report. Behind the numbers are everyday Australians who lost money, sometimes their life savings to scams.
www.accc.gov.au/consumers/protecting-yourself/scams