Growing ‘Scamdemic’ due to evolving online scams

Keeping up with the multitudes of online scams – romance, investment, recruitment, impersonation and many more – has been an uphill task for governments, law enforcement agencies and the rest of us in society. — 123rf.com

THE threat of online scams is real, but not unique to Malaysians alone.

Official statistics show similar trends internationally: Americans lost US$10bil (RM 46.6bil) to online scams in 2022, compared to Australians A$3bil (RM9.2bil) and Singaporeans S$660mil (RM2.3bil) during the same period. Similarly, a study of Asia-Pacific countries found one in four consumers had been victims of online fraud (Experian, 2022).