Australians looking forward to grabbing a bargain during this year’s mid-year sale season have been warned that they might not be getting what they’re expecting.
With fashion scams on the rise, Australians may find themselves dealing with something more than just a bad buy: they may be dealing with a criminal.
The bank has reported a 66% surge in scams since February of this year, cautioning that criminals may exploit the mid-year sales for their own monetary gain.
Chris Sheehan, the NAB investigations and fraud manager, noted with the advent of ghost sites and bogus ads containing pictures and logos of legitimate companies, it becomes more challenging to single out scams and protect unsuspicious customers from being cheated.
“I suspect that the reason for the increasing number of cases involving people paying for goods that never show up or turn out to be counterfeit is because criminal groups can easily create fake websites or imitate legitimate product websites and persuade people to send money,” Mr Sheehan said.
Scamwatch reported Australians lost $9 million in the same period of time as when they spent an average of $2063 on clothes and shoes last year. Furthermore, in just the first four months of 2023, Australians have had $2.5 million of their funds stolen through these type of scams.
The low price of the products on offer may enable scammers to entice victims, as individuals typically lose less than $1000 when involved in such scams.
