The COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war have provided criminal gangs with fresh fodder to dupe a growing number of Australians with romance scams.
Australian authorities have warned people against sending money overseas in response to reports that some have been defrauded by criminal gangs promoting Russian romance scams.
Screengrabs from a Russian dating website promoted to Australians. Credit:
Westpac data shows that romance scams have nearly doubled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic with more than $18 million lost to them.
Westpac head of fraud Ben Young said the bank had seen a spike in reported scams from customers who had been tricked into sending money to someone posing as a love interest after spending more of their time isolating and socialising online.
“Being physically separated from others can, unfortunately, make us more vulnerable to these scams, lacking an important sounding board to discuss deals, offers or relationships that might otherwise appear to be too good to be true,” Mr Young said.
“Scammers are also becoming remarkably good at exploiting our emotional drivers, which is especially common in romance scams where a lot of time is invested in building a fake relationship or personal connection before asking for money.
“The criminals are not necessarily aligned to the situation in Russia or Ukraine, they are generally very opportunistic.”
Paul Haskell-Dowland, cybersecurity expert
“We’ve seen people of all ages impacted by scammers during the pandemic, most commonly being targeted through social media platforms and messaging apps, so it’s important for everyone to take care.”
Chris Sheehan, a financial crime investigations executive for NAB said romance and friendship scams were among the top four types reported by customers.
