A landmark study on cyberscams in Europe released this week has found that 75% of adults encountered a scam in the past year.
While 71% of respondents said they were confident in recognizing scams, 8% of those exposed went on to interact with scammers. Some 16% of parents said their children had been approached by a scammer.
Across the European countries surveyed, around €50 billion ($57.7 billion) has been lost to scams in the last 12 months, according to the study by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA), a nonprofit organization that polled around 22,200 people across 15 European countries.
Of those who interacted with a scam, 22% suffered a financial or data loss, yet only 39% reported the incident to authorities. The average financial loss was $2,735 (€2,369), with the highest average losses recorded in Switzerland, Denmark and Belgium. GASA's report estimated scam losses in Germany were about €10.6 billion over the past 12 months.
Some 35% of those who reported their losses said their money was reimbursed by the organization they reported it to.
