SYDNEY: The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says its ScamWatch operation has now received more than 3400 scam reports mentioning the coronavirus. This has involved more than $1.79 million in reported losses since the outbreak of Covid-19.

Common scams have involved phishing for personal information, online shopping and superannuation scams.

The ACCC says many scammers are pretending to be government agencies providing information on Covid-19 via text messages and e-mails phishing for information.

“These contain malicious links and attachments designed to steal your personal and financial information.” the ACCC adds.

“In many cases text messages appear to come from ‘GOV’ and ‘MyGov’, with a malicious link claimed to have more information on Covid-19.”