Brisbane grandfather Phillip Savage battling liver cancer duped by celebrity cryptocurrency scam – Daily Mail

A 69-year-old grandfather battling liver cancer has lost $350,000-worth of life savings through a cryptocurrency scam after clicking on a Facebook ad.

Brisbane man Phillip Savage, who is also missing a lung, was contacted by telephone after he clicked on the social media advertisement featuring a fake celebrity endorsement.

‘They were bringing up ideas and money numbers which mesmerised me – I thought well, these guys sound pretty good,’ he told A Current Affair.

‘It shattered my life. It was money that I had set aside for my grandchildren.’

Mr Savage initially invested small amounts but kept being tricked after the cynical scammers showed him fake cryptocurrency returns and he invested even more.

He has since lost the lot with no hope of return. 

An Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report, released this week, revealed losses from cryptocurrency investment scams last year more than tripled, rising by 270 per cent, to $99million, with 4,730 rackets reported.

‘These scams generally involve scammers setting up fake investment and cryptocurrency trading platforms, sometimes impersonating legitimate, well-known websites, to steal money from people looking to invest in cryptocurrency,’ it said.

The consumer regulator said cryptocurrency was becoming the preferred method for scammers demanding payment because transactions were harder to trace than a traditional bank account transfer.

The ACCC’s deputy chair Delia Rickard said: ‘Urgent work is needed to combat cryptocurrency investment scams.’

Bank transfers were still most common avenue for scammers to steal money, followed cryptocurrency transfers like Bitcoin, Tether and Ethereum.

The Australian Federal Police’s acting assistant commissioner for cyber command Chris Goldsmid said cryptocurrency scammers were often part of money laundering schemes.

‘We certainly see cryptocurrency as an emerging threat,’ he told the Nine Network.

‘We see it as a laundering mechanism where the criminals will steal money and then move it into cryptocurrency to facilitate the laundering process.’

Australians lost a record $2billion to scams in 2021 but only $1.8billion of that was reported to authorities.

‘When we take into account the fact that around one third of scam victims don’t report to anyone, it is clear that the real loss figure is well over $2billion,’ Ms Rickard said.

‘We also know that the true cost of scams is far more than just financial – it leads to emotional stress and can have life changing consequences for many individuals, families, and businesses.’

More than a third, or $701million, of those losses came from dubious investment schemes.

Those aged 65 and over last year reported the highest losses.

This older age bracket accounted for 27.3 per cent of losses to scams last year.