On November 9, Wednesday, a scam summit was held by Global Anti-Scam Organization and ScamAdviser in the Netherlands. The highlights of this summit will be summarized in this article to provide you the latest scam alert to protect against scammers.
Worldwide total loss in 2021
According to a study released on the scam summit, around US$55.3 billion ($77.2 billion) was lost to scams worldwide. The data was collected from 48 countries around the world, and it had risen by 15.7%, from US$47.8 billion in 2020.
Top reported scams
Online scams are among the most reported crimes in many countries including the United Kingdom, Russia, and Singapore. Moreover, scams keep growing, even in developing countries, because the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed people to go online, desktops, laptops, and mobile.
Stay alert on the scams rapidly growing
Investment scams, especially those involving cryptocurrency (AKA: pig butchering scam), are growing rapidly worldwide. High inflation, improvement in living costs, and high unemployment rates in some countries may lead to that. People would like to take more risks to invest for more profits. However, scammers are also following.
Phishing scams
A presentation was released at the conference by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), saying that phishing scams hit an all-time high in the second quarter of 2022, with a record 1.09 million unique phishing sites found from April to June. Phishing scammers aim to steal personal data from the Internet by pretending to be a legitimate organization or an individual.
Email scams
In email compromise scams, scammers pretend to be a manager from a legitimate organization and require victims to transfer money to them. The economic loss as a result of email scams rises from US$91,000 to US$109,000.
Easy Tips to Avoid Scams for Everyone
#1. Stay alert to any hook of scams.
Knowing what a scam is like enables you to avoid most scams. It’s suggested that learn about scams as much as possible to keep alert all the time. Don’t be caught by scam hooks!
#2. Never pay via phone.
Keep in mind, no legitimate organizations will require you to pay via calls or texts. If they do, they’re mostly scammers.
#3. Never click any suspicious links in your text or email.
Your personal information will be easily stolen if you click a link customized for you by scammers. Worse still, if you enter your bank account information in the link, it’s extremely possible economic losses will be caused.
#4. Use RealCall to keep immune to scammers.
RealCall is an easy-to-use application on a cell phone and is able to work on both iOS and Android systems. With simple settings, RealCall helps users to bypass all unwanted calls like robocalls, scam calls, marketing calls, etc. The huge database of number IDs helps to identify suspicious numbers and keep them blocked without users’ knowledge.
- Auto Block Over 99% of Unwanted Calls
- Accurate Detection and Smart Blocking of SMS Fraud
- Meet Answer Bots to Fool Telemarketers, Scammers, etc.
- Custom Block Calls in Categories
- Know Who’s Calling You, Based on Our Powerful DataBase