A whopping 72 per cent of all Indians have fallen prey to various kinds of online scams/frauds in the recent past, claims an e-survey conducted in November by YouGov, the details of which were released on Wednesday.
While 20 per cent of those surveyed admitted to losing money in online frauds, 47 per cent said a family member or friend had been gypped.
Around 28 per cent of the respondents contended they had escaped such online swindlers, while 10 per cent replied in “don’t know” mode.
The scams were of a varied nature – fake job rackets, online shopping, investment scams, bank/card phishing frauds, lottery or fake rewards offers, government or social media deceptions, fraudulent loans, dating/romance lures, fake charities, etc.
The survey found that online shopping scams top the list (27 per cent), followed by fake job offers (26 per cent), bank/card phishing (21 per cent), investment scams (18 per cent), lucrative lottery hoaxes (18 per cent), social media swindles and loan offers (17 per cent each), fake charities and government phishing (12 per cent each), and dating App frauds (11 per cent).
Among the top three types of cheatings, Millennials have been worst-hit (33 per cent) by online shopping scams, while GenZ has been hit (31 per cent) by fake job/employment offers.
Though a huge number of gullible Indians have been duped in one or more scams, only 30 per cent bothered to report them to the authorities concerned and 48 per cent claimed to have got their money back, in the quick survey covering 1,022 people in the 18-plus age group.
However, the remaining did not complain about losing out in such scams, while 46 per cent said they did not get back their lost money.
On the aspect of fixing the blame, 26 per cent want the government to bear the scam losses, while 23 per cent said the consumers are responsible, 22 per cent feel that banks should reimburse their losses, and 4 per cent want telecom companies to be made accountable.
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