5 tips to protect yourself from being scammed

In 2020 Australians reported over 7,000 investment scams to Scamwatch, well up on the 5,000 reported in 2019. Scamwatch recorded investment scam losses of $65.8 million, but add in notifications made to other government agencies and the major banks and reported losses across 2020 soared to $328 million. Due to embarrassment many losses go unreported so we may never know the full extent of the damage.

With a high likelihood that we will all be targeted by scammers at some stage, perhaps repeatedly, how can we identify scams and protect ourselves from losses?