MORE than $10 million was lost to scammers in Western Australia last year.
Romance scams were still the most common type of scam with $4.1 million reported lost.
Commerce Minister Michael Mischin said there were 377 reported scam victims in 2016.
"Technology scams have seen a 21 per cent increase in victim numbers while the losses have almost tripled," Mr Mschin said.
Technology scammers usually contact their victims over the phone, pretending to be from well-known company, such as Telstra. They inform the victim their computer has been "hacked" and offer to fix it.
"They trick the person into giving them remote access to their computer and then ask them to log on to their online banking, where the bank accounts are later raided.
"The other area of concern is the doubling of losses from investment scams to $2.6 million in 2016m even though there has been a slight drop in the number of victims in this category."
- WA scams can be reported via email to wascamnet@commerce.wa.gov.au or to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's ScamWatch page.
