February 13, 2025 • 12 mins
It may be Valentine's Day but not everything in love is chocolates and roses.
Romance scams are affecting an increasing number of Kiwis, fraudsters crafting elaborate fake relationships and emotional connections in order to convince their victims to send money.
Last week the Herald reported on a woman who wasted two years and more than $375,000 on what turned out to be a romance scam with an impersonation of actor Martin Henderson.
ANZ’s Head of Customer Protection Alan Thomsen told Kerre Woodham that there’s a misconception that those who fall victim to romance scams are all over the age of 60, but a third of their victims are under the age of 45.
He says that many victims are in a vulnerable state, and it’s important for people to stop and pause before committing to anything.
ANZ is also making an effort to educate and raise awareness around romance scams, creating a unique rose. The “Scammers Bloom”, is a beautiful long-stemmed rose - the ultimate symbol of love - and while it looks beautiful, once you get closer you realise it smells fishy.
The special blooms will be available at their pop-up shop 'Love Stinks' in Ponsonby, Auckland.
The bouquets come with a charming collection of Valentine’s Day cards which help normalise talking about romance scams, and give people the tips to help look out for and avoid romance scams.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the carry Wood and Morning's podcast from
News Talks Heed B.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to Friday, the fourteenth of February, Valentine's Day, and
it may be Valentine's Day, but not everything in Love's
Chocolate and Roses. Romance scams are an issue affecting Kiwi's
finances as well as their trust. These scams typically start
on social media or dating apps, where frauds does craft
fake relationships, manipulate emotions, and ultimately convince victims to send money.
(00:37):
In the media, most recently were two women's These were
not New Zealand women scammed by a fake brad Pit
and a fake Martin Henderson. To educate us on how
to recognize the telltale signs of a romance scam, I'm
joined by A and Zhead of Customer Protection, Alan Thompson,
and a very good morning to you, Ellen, and happy Valentine's.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Day, Thank you, Kerrian. Happy Valentine's Day you too.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
If you saw the fake brad Pit, you would wonder
how and all that is holy somebody could be taken
in by that.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah. Look, I think when you say it like that,
it does seem that way, but the reality is that
these scammers are very good at manipulating individuals, and often
what we'll see when people do for victim is that
they are in a vulnerable state for whatever reason. And
so I think it's just important for, you know, just
(01:35):
in terms of protecting ourselves, that we sort of stop
and think and pause and understand because everyone is meeting
someone online these days. You know, it's not just there's
a misconception out there that romance scams are just victims
are only from those ages of sort of sixty plus.
The reality is that we see victims of romance scams
(01:57):
of all ages. In fact, over a third of our
romance scam victims are under the age of forty five.
Oh really, Yeah, that's an important point that I'd just
like to make that it's the sort of this misconception
that it's only those of a certain age bracket they're affected,
but natural fact, we see it across everyone, and that's
(02:18):
because of the sort of shift towards meeting partners and
relationships online. On the first place, Is that.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Because it's really sorry, I know, there's a lot of
shame involved in romance scams. Is that because it's the
older ones who have come forward and feel as though,
you know, they have nothing to lose by exposing what
happened to them, whereas younger ones might feel a bit
more shame about about it being made public.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
No, I don't think so. I mean I think ultimately,
I mean that's that. Yeah, I wouldn't want to speak
from a victim's perspective, but ultimately it's just the fact
that scammers aren't They're not concerned about the age of
the victim. They're only concerned about taking as much money
as they possibly can from anyone that chooses to engage
(03:08):
with them and to form some form of virtual relationship
with them. They don't distinguish. And that's not just for
romance scams. That's across all scam types.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I'm just thinking maybe this comes back to willful blindness,
a bit like the pseudo fed and the CULDURL. I
know it doesn't work, I still buy it because I
feel like I need to do something. I know, when
I buy the expense of cream, I'm not going to
look like an eighteen year old, beautiful young actress, but
I buy it anyway. I know that the handsome American
(03:41):
ex marine who's tragically lost his wife and has decided
that I'm the woman of his dreams as probably a scammer,
but I'm lonely and it feeds into something I need.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, I mean, I can't talk to the exact psychology
of some effect of our customers who do full victim,
but what I can say is that we do see
scammers manipular individuals in lots of different ways. And yes,
some of them the ones that will commonly end up
in newspapers and in media, movie stars or you know,
(04:17):
they're a doctor without border and an engineer building a bridge,
or someone in the army as you mentioned before, But
a lot of them aren't. A lot of them are
simple relationships with individuals you know, every in fairy, everyday
relationships that occur. And I think probably the second points
to note here is that when people think about these
romance scams, they're typically thinking about a situation where it's
(04:40):
a romantic relationship between the two parties and they begin
by asking them for money for legal bills or you know,
some sort of medical help or a plane ticket to
get somewhere. But we actually see three different types of
romance scams. So we do see that one, but we
all but what we're seeing more and more of are
a transition to investment type scams. So it begins with
(05:03):
a relationship between parties, and then here is a sort
of chef to say, look, you know, I'm wealthy and
I've done wealth myself, and the way that I've done
wealth myself is by using you know this crypto product
or you know this investment product as it might be,
and let me, because you know I care for you
and I love you, let me help you to bring
(05:26):
your happiness up and gain you some financial wealth as well.
So we're seeing a sort of a transition away from
not necessarily that first all typical one to also the
second one around investment. And then the third element of
romance scams that we see as well is not necessarily
one where the romance scam victim themselves loses any money,
but they become part of the scammers network. So so
(05:52):
I am the victim of a romance scam and my partner,
or my sort of my faker partner tells me that
they're expecting to receive a sum of money. Let's just
say it's ten thousand dollars, and they can't receive that
money because they don't have a new Zealand bank account.
There's something strange that's going on with fair bank account
at the moment, something such like. And so therefore I
(06:14):
receive that ten thousand dollars and then I pass that
money on and I might send that money overseas or
to another person within New Zealand as well. And so
that in that third situation, I'm not I'm not losing
any money, but I am becoming a mule or a
recipient of times, and I'm being used as part of
the wider scam network by these criminal organizations. So, you know,
(06:36):
the romance scams actually fall into these three different categories.
And it's important, I guess that we kind of that
we you know, and the whole point of the pop
up shot that we've got in POMPS and b Central
today is to kind of highlight romance scams and to provide,
you know, pause the thought and to help in the
education of New Zealand as a whole around what's happening
(06:56):
in the space.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You're selling stinky flowers.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
We're not selling stinky flowers, Carrie. If you go to
Pumps to be sent, you will see a pop up florest.
It looks like a real florest in every way, shape
and form. If you go and smell the bunches of
flowers in the front of the forest, they will smell
like fish. They will stink like fish, and they really
(07:22):
do stink. They do it now you will go inside
and you can have it checked to the people behind there,
and you know, in a discussion around why they stink
and exactly what we are I guess trying to bring
bring to the public and to kind of widely acknowledge
that we do have, you know, cause and concern for
victims of romance scams and for people to be aware
(07:42):
of this and cognizance. But you will get to take
away just a regular road that does smell lovely and
fresh after you've gone through this pop up experience.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
That's a very good idea, because it does stink when
when you put your faith and trust into somebody. And
I mean, you know, I say that about Brad Pitt,
but I was I was scammed myself by a a
lovely guide that I had when I was on safari
in Africa. He said, as child was in hospital with burns,
(08:13):
he was trapped in the Angora Goora crater and needed
to pay the money to the hospital before they could
treat him. You know, I was I'm doing interviews with people.
I know that that scammers exist, but my first thought
was of a child with burns and hospital needing treatment,
and all common sense goes out the window.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah, that's right and just and you know that might
that individual might be working by themselves, or they might
be part of a wider criminal organization as well. So
there's a lot of you know, there's a lot that
goes into this. And you know, you were the victim
of that Africa, but you won't have been that person's
first victim, and you won't be their last victim as well.
(08:54):
And they're always changing their craft to be able to
manipulate individasm, to create that sense of you know, that
intensity in the moment that means that you need to
act now and act fast, which in and of itself
stops people from thinking as coherently as they might do
if they were calm and in a different environment, or
just simply reading that type of situation on a piece
(09:16):
of paper.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
And my poor genuine guide was as much a victim too,
because they had people from all over the world who
you know, as Facebook had been hacked and he was like, please, don't,
don't give them any money. It's a scam. But yeah,
and they will constantly evolve and change their pattern to
(09:38):
target their next victim. You know, if romance isn't going
to work, they'll try something else.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah, that's correct, and then they'll try different things for
different age groups as well. So when we think about relationships, well,
romance scams, we typically think about, you know, the ones
that I've mentioned previously and the one of the ones
that hopefully your audience has listened to and maybe gained
a little bit of education on. But also for younger
people as well, it's not necessarily romance per se, but
(10:06):
sometimes it's sending material of themselves that they then adequate regret.
And then we move into seat of the exploitation type
and extortion type situations as well. So it all happens
online and it's I guess probably just the key messages
are just do you really know this person? Have you
met them in real life? And how much do you
feel that you can really trust them? And if your
(10:28):
audience and the people who are doing the pop ups
show today oh sorry experiencing the pop up for us today,
you know, stop and think about that and then go
and talk to their friends about that. Then that's that's
the that's the point of what we've done and the
point and the points we're trying to raise.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
How much responsibility to banks have.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Look, you know, we take a large amount of responsibility
and trying to protect our customers and we do a
We do a pretty good job, right, So ninety three
percent of all ford and scam transactions that occurred last
year at AMZ Bank we stopped or we refunded the money,
or we recovered the so that that's a pretty decent percentage.
And you know, scammers are increasing in terms of their volume,
(11:14):
so there's there's more scammers out there today than there
were yees today. So we had an eighteen percent increase
in the number of scam cases that were happening, and
that's a year on year and that was but despite that,
you customer losses were actually down last year as well
in terms of victims of scams. So we're investing a
lot of money and when I'm talking like tens of
(11:37):
millions of dollars over the last few years and will
continue to vest into the future to help fight forward
and scams. But we also think that there's a part
to play from other parts of the kind of wider ecosystem.
So you know, over ninety five percent of scams start online,
and so it would be great if the the facebooks
(11:57):
of this world and the Googles of this world also
looked to play their part in terms of, you know,
stopping those sort of fake profile I was being put
up and fake advertisements for investments as well that you
see with some Google searchers too. So you know, everyone's
got a part to play, and we feel that we
have one part to play, and that we're investing heavily
(12:20):
in the space because we want to protect our customers
often and Kiwi's frankfully.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Nice to hear from you. Thank you very much, Allen
tom Thompson, who is a in z's head of customer protection.
Have you hit it a scam off at the past
in recent times have you had to bring yourself up
short and go you know what, I'm not entirely sure
about this one. How much responsibility should the banks take on?
(12:51):
How much is on our own shoulders.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news talks that'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio,
You're listening to the carry Wood and Morning's podcast from
News Talks Heed B.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to Friday, the fourteenth of February, Valentine's Day, and
it may be Valentine's Day, but not everything in Love's
Chocolate and Roses. Romance scams are an issue affecting Kiwi's
finances as well as their trust. These scams typically start
on social media or dating apps, where frauds does craft
fake relationships, manipulate emotions, and ultimately convince victims to send money.
(00:37):
In the media, most recently were two women's These were
not New Zealand women scammed by a fake brad Pit
and a fake Martin Henderson. To educate us on how
to recognize the telltale signs of a romance scam, I'm
joined by A and Zhead of Customer Protection, Alan Thompson,
and a very good morning to you, Ellen, and happy Valentine's.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Day, Thank you, Kerrian. Happy Valentine's Day you too.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
If you saw the fake brad Pit, you would wonder
how and all that is holy somebody could be taken
in by that.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah. Look, I think when you say it like that,
it does seem that way, but the reality is that
these scammers are very good at manipulating individuals, and often
what we'll see when people do for victim is that
they are in a vulnerable state for whatever reason. And
so I think it's just important for, you know, just
(01:35):
in terms of protecting ourselves, that we sort of stop
and think and pause and understand because everyone is meeting
someone online these days. You know, it's not just there's
a misconception out there that romance scams are just victims
are only from those ages of sort of sixty plus.
The reality is that we see victims of romance scams
(01:57):
of all ages. In fact, over a third of our
romance scam victims are under the age of forty five.
Oh really, Yeah, that's an important point that I'd just
like to make that it's the sort of this misconception
that it's only those of a certain age bracket they're affected,
but natural fact, we see it across everyone, and that's
(02:18):
because of the sort of shift towards meeting partners and
relationships online. On the first place, Is that.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Because it's really sorry, I know, there's a lot of
shame involved in romance scams. Is that because it's the
older ones who have come forward and feel as though,
you know, they have nothing to lose by exposing what
happened to them, whereas younger ones might feel a bit
more shame about about it being made public.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
No, I don't think so. I mean I think ultimately,
I mean that's that. Yeah, I wouldn't want to speak
from a victim's perspective, but ultimately it's just the fact
that scammers aren't They're not concerned about the age of
the victim. They're only concerned about taking as much money
as they possibly can from anyone that chooses to engage
(03:08):
with them and to form some form of virtual relationship
with them. They don't distinguish. And that's not just for
romance scams. That's across all scam types.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I'm just thinking maybe this comes back to willful blindness,
a bit like the pseudo fed and the CULDURL. I
know it doesn't work, I still buy it because I
feel like I need to do something. I know, when
I buy the expense of cream, I'm not going to
look like an eighteen year old, beautiful young actress, but
I buy it anyway. I know that the handsome American
(03:41):
ex marine who's tragically lost his wife and has decided
that I'm the woman of his dreams as probably a scammer,
but I'm lonely and it feeds into something I need.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, I mean, I can't talk to the exact psychology
of some effect of our customers who do full victim,
but what I can say is that we do see
scammers manipular individuals in lots of different ways. And yes,
some of them the ones that will commonly end up
in newspapers and in media, movie stars or you know,
(04:17):
they're a doctor without border and an engineer building a bridge,
or someone in the army as you mentioned before, But
a lot of them aren't. A lot of them are
simple relationships with individuals you know, every in fairy, everyday
relationships that occur. And I think probably the second points
to note here is that when people think about these
romance scams, they're typically thinking about a situation where it's
(04:40):
a romantic relationship between the two parties and they begin
by asking them for money for legal bills or you know,
some sort of medical help or a plane ticket to
get somewhere. But we actually see three different types of
romance scams. So we do see that one, but we
all but what we're seeing more and more of are
a transition to investment type scams. So it begins with
(05:03):
a relationship between parties, and then here is a sort
of chef to say, look, you know, I'm wealthy and
I've done wealth myself, and the way that I've done
wealth myself is by using you know this crypto product
or you know this investment product as it might be,
and let me, because you know I care for you
and I love you, let me help you to bring
(05:26):
your happiness up and gain you some financial wealth as well.
So we're seeing a sort of a transition away from
not necessarily that first all typical one to also the
second one around investment. And then the third element of
romance scams that we see as well is not necessarily
one where the romance scam victim themselves loses any money,
but they become part of the scammers network. So so
(05:52):
I am the victim of a romance scam and my partner,
or my sort of my faker partner tells me that
they're expecting to receive a sum of money. Let's just
say it's ten thousand dollars, and they can't receive that
money because they don't have a new Zealand bank account.
There's something strange that's going on with fair bank account
at the moment, something such like. And so therefore I
(06:14):
receive that ten thousand dollars and then I pass that
money on and I might send that money overseas or
to another person within New Zealand as well. And so
that in that third situation, I'm not I'm not losing
any money, but I am becoming a mule or a
recipient of times, and I'm being used as part of
the wider scam network by these criminal organizations. So, you know,
(06:36):
the romance scams actually fall into these three different categories.
And it's important, I guess that we kind of that
we you know, and the whole point of the pop
up shot that we've got in POMPS and b Central
today is to kind of highlight romance scams and to provide,
you know, pause the thought and to help in the
education of New Zealand as a whole around what's happening
(06:56):
in the space.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You're selling stinky flowers.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
We're not selling stinky flowers, Carrie. If you go to
Pumps to be sent, you will see a pop up florest.
It looks like a real florest in every way, shape
and form. If you go and smell the bunches of
flowers in the front of the forest, they will smell
like fish. They will stink like fish, and they really
(07:22):
do stink. They do it now you will go inside
and you can have it checked to the people behind there,
and you know, in a discussion around why they stink
and exactly what we are I guess trying to bring
bring to the public and to kind of widely acknowledge
that we do have, you know, cause and concern for
victims of romance scams and for people to be aware
(07:42):
of this and cognizance. But you will get to take
away just a regular road that does smell lovely and
fresh after you've gone through this pop up experience.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
That's a very good idea, because it does stink when
when you put your faith and trust into somebody. And
I mean, you know, I say that about Brad Pitt,
but I was I was scammed myself by a a
lovely guide that I had when I was on safari
in Africa. He said, as child was in hospital with burns,
(08:13):
he was trapped in the Angora Goora crater and needed
to pay the money to the hospital before they could
treat him. You know, I was I'm doing interviews with people.
I know that that scammers exist, but my first thought
was of a child with burns and hospital needing treatment,
and all common sense goes out the window.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah, that's right and just and you know that might
that individual might be working by themselves, or they might
be part of a wider criminal organization as well. So
there's a lot of you know, there's a lot that
goes into this. And you know, you were the victim
of that Africa, but you won't have been that person's
first victim, and you won't be their last victim as well.
(08:54):
And they're always changing their craft to be able to
manipulate individasm, to create that sense of you know, that
intensity in the moment that means that you need to
act now and act fast, which in and of itself
stops people from thinking as coherently as they might do
if they were calm and in a different environment, or
just simply reading that type of situation on a piece
(09:16):
of paper.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
And my poor genuine guide was as much a victim too,
because they had people from all over the world who
you know, as Facebook had been hacked and he was like, please, don't,
don't give them any money. It's a scam. But yeah,
and they will constantly evolve and change their pattern to
(09:38):
target their next victim. You know, if romance isn't going
to work, they'll try something else.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah, that's correct, and then they'll try different things for
different age groups as well. So when we think about relationships, well,
romance scams, we typically think about, you know, the ones
that I've mentioned previously and the one of the ones
that hopefully your audience has listened to and maybe gained
a little bit of education on. But also for younger
people as well, it's not necessarily romance per se, but
(10:06):
sometimes it's sending material of themselves that they then adequate regret.
And then we move into seat of the exploitation type
and extortion type situations as well. So it all happens
online and it's I guess probably just the key messages
are just do you really know this person? Have you
met them in real life? And how much do you
feel that you can really trust them? And if your
(10:28):
audience and the people who are doing the pop ups
show today oh sorry experiencing the pop up for us today,
you know, stop and think about that and then go
and talk to their friends about that. Then that's that's
the that's the point of what we've done and the
point and the points we're trying to raise.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
How much responsibility to banks have.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Look, you know, we take a large amount of responsibility
and trying to protect our customers and we do a
We do a pretty good job, right, So ninety three
percent of all ford and scam transactions that occurred last
year at AMZ Bank we stopped or we refunded the money,
or we recovered the so that that's a pretty decent percentage.
And you know, scammers are increasing in terms of their volume,
(11:14):
so there's there's more scammers out there today than there
were yees today. So we had an eighteen percent increase
in the number of scam cases that were happening, and
that's a year on year and that was but despite that,
you customer losses were actually down last year as well
in terms of victims of scams. So we're investing a
lot of money and when I'm talking like tens of
(11:37):
millions of dollars over the last few years and will
continue to vest into the future to help fight forward
and scams. But we also think that there's a part
to play from other parts of the kind of wider ecosystem.
So you know, over ninety five percent of scams start online,
and so it would be great if the the facebooks
(11:57):
of this world and the Googles of this world also
looked to play their part in terms of, you know,
stopping those sort of fake profile I was being put
up and fake advertisements for investments as well that you
see with some Google searchers too. So you know, everyone's
got a part to play, and we feel that we
have one part to play, and that we're investing heavily
(12:20):
in the space because we want to protect our customers
often and Kiwi's frankfully.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Nice to hear from you. Thank you very much, Allen
tom Thompson, who is a in z's head of customer protection.
Have you hit it a scam off at the past
in recent times have you had to bring yourself up
short and go you know what, I'm not entirely sure
about this one. How much responsibility should the banks take on?
(12:51):
How much is on our own shoulders.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news talks that'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio,
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