The ‘fake father’ scam sees men receive large sums of money in return for adding their names to a child’s birth certificate, a BBC Newsnight investigation has claimed.

Tim Watkins, who banks with NAB, received a text message on April 18 informing him that $800 of his own money had been spent on Amazon gift cards.

The ACCC found that Australians lost $37million to romance scams in 2021 and several experts have warned dating app users to stay on high alert in the lead up to Valentine’s Day.

In the UK financial year ending April 2021, fraudsters trousered a shocking £535 million from investment cons, making them the most costly of all scams.

Fraudsters pretending from being banks, delivery firms or the tax man have stolen almost £130 million from victims over the first six months of the year- more than double the previous period.

A 73-year-old retired Victorian university lecturer has been robbed of $10,000 by scammers posing as ATO officials, forcing her to go and withdraw cash out of her bank account.

Scammers are offering fake COVID-19 vaccines on the dark web, in e-mails, messaging apps, and through robocalls impersonating goverment agencies amid the slow rollout.

Fraudsters phoned people with exact details of their bookings and asked them to confirm card details before trying to spend thousands of pounds at Argos as the Ritz said it’s investigating a breach