Survey finds Thais are scammed online, losing an average of 36,000 baht per person

The situation of online scams in Thailand over the past year has found that people have been scammed for an average of 36,000 baht/person, most often through FB. More than 1 in 3 or 39% lost money to scammers within 1 hour after being contacted by scammers. Gogolook and the developer of the Whoscall application, in collaboration with the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) and ScamAdviser, have released the State of Scams in Thailand 2024 report, surveying 9,360 people across all demographics over the past 12 months. Interesting data shows that 1 in 4 or 28% of respondents have fallen victim to scams in the past 12 months. The average loss from being scammed is $1,106, or approximately 36,000 baht per person. The most common scams are identity theft at 22%, scams to buy products at 19%, fake invoices or debt repayment scams at 16%, and scams to invest at 14%. The 5 most common channels used by scammers to scam are Facebook at 50%, followed by Line at 43%, Messenger at 39%, TikTok at 25%, and Gmail at 20%. How ever, 58% have dealt with scammers more frequently than in 2023, and 89% have dealt with scammers at least once a month, more than a third (39%) have lost money to scammers within an hour of being contacted by scammers, only 2% have recovered all of their assets after being scammed, 71% have not been able to recover their lost money, and 73% reported severe psychological impact after being scammed. Source: Thai News Agency