Following Orange Credit Union's 'Fraud Forum' last Thursday, evidence from national data and examples given by Orange police showed that fraudulent crimes are present in Orange.

"Scammers are targeting vulnerability and loneliness, which seemed to be the main theme during isolation," Orange Credit Union's marketing and communications manager, Mel Monico said.

"People will let strangers into their lives where they're preying on peoples' good nature and fear, trying to get them to do something that they wouldn't usually do, and people don't think it could happen to them - but it's happening right here."

MP Phil Donato opened the forum commending the branch for its work in delivering financial education to the city, while Detective Sergeant Megan Duckworth spoke to event-goers about some of the scam-related crimes in the region, pinning dating sites as hot spots for online sharks.

Discussed was an online relationship that had quickly developed between a woman from Orange and a masked scammer who claimed be from the United States and working with the 'world military' - which left a trail of disbelief and legal trouble in its wake.

"He'd convinced her that he'd been experiencing some kind of international issue with his salary and asked this woman if she could set-up a bank account in her name to deposit his pay into, where she could then transfer the funds to him from the account she'd created," Mrs Monico relayed of the story's unfolding.

"It turned out she was washing money for a scammer, who she considered her boyfriend when confronted, but when police ran checks from social media photos, the images were of someone from a dental ad - and this was in Orange."

Mrs Monico also described how charm-savvy offenders will commonly leave the victims of their crimes in a realm of devastation.

"People are often in denial and disbelief with romance scams, as well as asking themselves 'how could this happen to me, he loves me', which is really sad," she said.

According to the latest figures from 'Scamwatch', a website run by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, January marked a loss of $34 million dollars in just that month - with more than 21,000 reports of fraud.

While investment fraud topped the list, ranked at second were dating and romance scams - attributing to a national loss of over $5 million dollars.

"The ACCC also showed that the most targeted demographic of those most likely to be scammed were unfortunately males aged 65-years-old or more," Mrs Monico said.

"[Scammers] are less likely to target younger generations because they have less money, so they'll generally prey on these older males who are experiencing loneliness and who have accumulated wealth or superannuation.

"They're also far less tech-savvy, which is the most common thing at the moment. In the old days, it might've been door-to-door salespeople, but now there's new ways of accessing people."

Which is the reason why the OCU branch will roll-out its next workshop on June 6 to focus solely on digital banking - including online safety, use of mobile banking apps and paying bills online.

"We found that a lot of people were asking us how to do internet banking online, even looking at two-factor authentication and authorisations which can be confusing," Mrs Monico said.

"So, it's just a little bit of information about how that all works and extra security that a lot of people might not be familiar with.

"It's really important to stay safe online and it's an industry-wide initiative to raise awareness and stop these fraudsters from claiming more victims."

The next 'Stay Safe Forum' is also scheduled for later in the year during 'Scam Awareness Week', which will be held on Tuesday, November 8.

For more information, head to the Orange Credit Union website, or phone (02) 6362 4466.