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Phone calls aimed at defrauding people of their money have been hitting residents on the Hibiscus Coast and wider Rodney hard in recent weeks.
In particular, a scam where a person calls saying they are from Spark has had a big impact.
Sergeant Nick Herd of Whangaparaoa Police says in the last fortnight over the whole of the Waitemata Police district, at least $100,000 has been lost due to Spark scams. Around $42,000 of this was from two locals on the Hibiscus Coast.
The scammer generally calls a landline and impersonates a Spark employee saying there is a computer problem. They want to gain access to the victim’s computer and then take money via internet bank accounts.
Sgt Herd says that in both the local cases, the people concerned were in the 70-80-year age bracket.
He says the victims are distressed and angry, having lost their life savings and money that was a potential inheritance for their children.
Sgt Herd says that as soon as you have given someone access to your computer remotely, and realise that something may be wrong, call your bank, police or a family member.
Tracking down the offenders is next to impossible, but the bank may be able to put a freeze on the account. However, there are limits to what banks can do.
Sgt Herd also recommends asking a more computer savvy family member or friend to provide advice about computer security.
He says scams continue to evolve, and local police have had cases where hundreds of thousands of dollars were taken.
“A snapshot of Rodney over the past month reveals scams which have ranged from a scammer impersonating a family member on Facebook, another in which an employee received a fake email – she believed from her employer – and transferred funds, to one where someone claimed to be from the IRD and told the victim they owed unpaid taxes and required payment in iTunes vouchers,” Sgt Herd says.
The only thing they all have in common is that the scammer impersonates someone either known to the victim or in a position of perceived authority or trust.
There are also scams utilising Facebook in which fake profiles are created and items sold on local buy and sell pages to unassuming buyers. This is slightly different in that it typically originates from New Zealand and the items appear legitimate.
Sgt Herd says this is a method that is becoming a bigger and bigger issue.
Spark is working with Netsafe to combat the epidemic of scams and has a list of all current scams at spark.co.nz/help/scams-safety/scams/current-scams/
