Members of the Scam Taskforce are planning to reach out to international partners to combat cross border scams and re-align local agencies to international best practices.

The Office of the Solicitor-General is also looking at reviewing the existing laws and identify the gaps that restrict agencies from dealing with the perpetrators.

This after the Taskforce convened for its third meeting this week.

The Taskforce has agreed that greater awareness is required to avoid ordinary Fijians falling victim to online scams and that early warnings be made by consumer protection agencies.

Minister for Trade, Manoa Kamikamica says it is also important to keep up to date with emerging scams happening internationally.

Kamikamica says lessons have been learnt from previous scams.

The Deputy Prime Minister stresses that it is important that Fijians be aware that online scams are fast evolving and better disguised.

He adds the taskforce will be creating awareness materials and digital education online modules for the general public in this regard.

Kamikamica reiterates it is unacceptable for people to continue to prey on the vulnerable.

He adds that it has been revealed that a new way of scamming is through “Viber” accounts being hacked whereby the hacker will try to obtain money from people’s contacts.

Kamikamica says this is a new type of impersonation that is happening and the taskforce has received reports and complaints in this regard.

The Taskforce which includes Vodafone Fiji and Digicel Fiji have reaffirmed their support by continuing to conduct scam awareness and customer education through mainstream, media, and social media handles such as Tiktok, Facebook and Instagram targeting both the older and younger generation.

Other Taskforce members are Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Local Government, Reserve Bank of Fiji, Office of the Solicitor General, Consumer Council of Fiji, Fijian Competition Consumer Commission and the Online Safety Commission.