November 16, 2025 • 23 mins
It’s been revealed that Kiwis lost a record $3 billion to scams this year.
That’s a 30% increase from $2.3 billion last year.
Netsafe and the Global Anti-Scam Alliance ‘State of Scams in New Zealand’ report shows that scammers are getting more sophisticated – and victims are facing persistent barriers to reporting and recovering their losses.
So, how should we protect ourselves and who should be held accountable?
Today on The Front Page, Netsafe’s Sean Lyons is with us to break down the latest figures, and discuss how New Zealand can better prepare itself for the evolving world of scams.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Kiyota.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. It's been
revealed that Kiwi's lost a record three billion dollars to
scams this year. That's a thirty percent increase from two
point three billion last year. Net Safe and the Global
(00:30):
Anti Scam Alliance State of Scams in New Zealand report
shows that scammers are getting more sophisticated and victims are
facing persistent barriers to reporting and recovering their losses. So
how should we protect ourselves and who should be held accountable?
Today on the Front Page, netsafe's Sean Lyons is with
(00:53):
us to break down the latest figures and discuss how
New Zealand can better prepare itself for the evolving world
of scams. First off, Sean, let's dive into the report.
How many kiwis have experienced a scam within the last
twelve months.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, we're now talking about fairitys to the interest. From
the figures that we've been able to together, we're saying
probably close to more than eight percent, So eighty two
percent from our report are experiencing a scam at some
point in the last year, So this is not about
occasional access. And if you kind of extrapolate the figures,
you're probably talking about a person experiencing, you know, over
(01:35):
one hundred and fifty different scam attempts in a year,
so that this is something that we're seeing regularly. For
a lot of people, it's probably becoming the norm. So
this is not something you might go, you know, and
drop the sandwich when you see it's the kind of
thing that now you're probably saying, okay, here's another one.
And there's there's good things about that, but there's also
some concerns around it. When things become really normal, when
(01:58):
we start to become maybe a little bit sort of
more casual about things, we might become a little bit blase,
if we're trying to use the French word. And that's
a concern I think is when we start to feel
that things are a bit normal, maybe sometimes our guard
goes down. We look for spotting one thing. When the
scams change a little bit, then perhaps that's where some
(02:18):
of us are being caught out. So it's definitely much
more normal, as I say, but it doesn't mean that
we're all we're all defended against it unfortunately, and we.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Talk about experiencing scams, it's not actually people who have
fallen victim to them, but you've just encountered it on
a daily basis.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah. Absolutely, So for some people, that might be that
they're you know, they're sick and tired of getting the
seventy fifth text in the last two months from to
say that they owe a toll, or that they've been
through a tunnel or something, or that there's a parcel
waiting for them at a post office. That doesn't sound
quite right. So people will see and spot those that
that's what we really mean. But in amongst those, there'll
(02:57):
be some people that experience a much more realistic or
much more plausible message social media, email, whatever it is,
and they'll actually follow through. So somewhere in those numbers
are unfortunately people who are also falling victims to scams
as well, And.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Because is that generally the way to go, they cast
a wide net as wide as possible, and just hope
someone buy its. Because I got I myself got one
of those messages saying Hi Mum, I've lost my phone
or something. It's like, now, I'm not a mother normal,
i'd probably ever be one so, but there will be
some mothers that have actually got someone of that age,
(03:34):
perhaps living out of home or living in different country.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Absolutely so that there is definitely the kind of the
scattergun approach. I suppose there's one way to put it
that you know, you buy from somewhere, somebody buys from
somewhere a list of email addresses, it might be narrowed
down to a country, it may not be, and they
just fire out an email message or a text message
or whatever mechanism they've got for contacting people. So there
are definitely those, but there are also so scams that
(04:02):
can feel and maybe are a little more targeted. And
now that's not to say that there's somebody out there
that's picked on you. You know, that's not someone that
said right today, I'm gonna scam Sean. But what might
be occurring, we think in some of those situations is
where there's data out there that might have been leaked
when somebody broke into a computer system, with a whole
lot of other sort of generally available information. People can
(04:24):
piece these things together and then direct a scam that
might feel an awful lot more targeted. I think that
the best way might be the difference between getting a
message from a bank one that you might have heard
of but don't use, and then getting a message that
comes from a bank that you do use. Now, that
could either be just luck of the drawer scatter gun,
(04:45):
or it might be that that particular scam is targeting
customers of a particular organization, And it's those times that
in both those situations, they can feel a lot more personal.
And when they feel personal, they can often feel a
lot more real. And that's maybe the first step that
scammers will go through to try and get us hooked in.
If they can find something that really talks to us
(05:07):
to use that phrase, then that they're probably over their
first hurdle. That they're not all the way through the gate,
but they're certainly over the first hurdle.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Right. So I've got another example here. I got a
message from my brother saying is this you or is
our dad getting scammed? The message read, Hi, Dad, messaging
you from my tablet a sim travel plan. My old
numbers no longer working since I changed networks. Please reply
so I can send you my new number. My dad
(05:35):
then replies Oki dokie love you xxx. Now, because he
has replied that has he ended up on some master
list somewhere where they're like, they've got a live one.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I think that's probably enough to get him categorized in
a different way, maybe on an existing list. I don't
think that's single them out for any kind of special treatment.
But what they're doing there is that they probably have
just got a whole list of contact details. They're looking
for people that are prepared to respond. Now the fact
that he has responded and said Okki, love you and
it was a from dad, maybe someone's going to assume, Okay,
(06:11):
here's a contact number that is a dad, and because
they're a dad, maybe they'd be more susceptible to a
sort of parent based scam. So yeah, that's a common
technique used. It is much more of that scatter gun.
But again it's the steps that they take to take
what might be millions of contact details and try and
(06:33):
whittle it down to a smaller number, a more manageable
number for them, that they can start to have a
more focused attack on.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
In terms of some common scams, what you've mentioned the tolls,
the getting a message from your bank, we've messaged my dad,
falling forth, whatever that was. In terms of common ones,
that are going around at the moment. I mean, I
don't really hear too much of the Nigerian prints anymore.
Is he doing all right?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I think he may have reinvented himself into a retail
job perhaps because we're certainly seeing a lot more of
the retail based scam. Look that the mechanism of the
Nigerian princes what they used to call a four to
one nine scam because it fitted a Nigerian penal code
that was covered under this. It's those kinds of investment
(07:23):
scams are definitely still around. They don't look like they did.
They certainly don't come in on fax rolls, which is
the scams that I remember back back in the very
early days, but the mechanisms are the same. We're definitely
seeing retail scams as the biggest single category. Now. Some
of those might originate in offers that come in by emails.
Some of those might be because people are browsing for
(07:44):
certain products and coming across different sites. Investment scams, so
people offering you get rich quick schemes, prizes, lotteries, grants,
those kinds of things that the grant for being a
one full citizen, unfortunately is one that's been around for
a long time and is still going around because who
(08:05):
doesn't want to think that their government's identified them as
just a superb person and are going to get a
whole lot of money as a result. But there are
some scams that are constant that those would indicate what
ones that are. But also what we do see continually
is the change in what is that that very basic
scam to have elements of that, but to look very differently.
(08:27):
So probably the greatest example for us over the last
few years is the kind of merging of a romance scam,
a traditional you know, I meet you on a site online,
former relationship with you. Originally, romance scams would all then
be about I need some money because my mother's ill,
or I've been arrested, the things that we're very very
(08:48):
familiar now, those scams are often rather than pivoting into
just give me some money, often they're pivoting into I've
got a great investment opportunity for you, and I've been
in in this cryptocurrency or these shares for a while.
We should invest together like a romantic investment. And so
they're they're they're using one scam, they're they're piggybacking a
(09:11):
second one off of it. They are changing their tactics
depending on what's working now that might be working on
the individual or from what they know is working generally.
So you know, the mechanisms of scams are very similar
that the ways in which scammers use them, the scale
and which they're using them, and I guess the tenacity
(09:32):
to a lot of to a great extent that that
scammers are prepared to apply to these things are what's
changing and our indications, unfortunately of the success that they're experiencing,
just how profitable these things are for for for scammers.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
This guy Jeculously came to New Zealand border the plane
and May last year as part of a crime synder
gift in. What they were doing was cold calling all
the victims, mostly elderly, and pretending that they were part
of a COVID police operation trying to catch bad crookeld
bank staff and counterfeit notes. What they'd do is they
(10:11):
would send this guy Jack Kennessey over by taxi to
the elderly people's homes and ask them to have withdrawn
large sums of money up to twenty thousand dollars, and
they'd hand it over when he used.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
The special code word.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
And they managed to get more than three hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, within the space a day after arriving, within the
space of fourteen days, mister Hennessy had visited twenty one
residences and he managed to get three hundred and thirty
seven thousand dollars and none of that money was ever recovered.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And you mentioned retail scams. What does that entail that
you pay for something you never get at Basically.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah, that's probably the biggest one. But there are some
that you pay for something and what arrives is not
what you thought. Certainly heard of people purchasing goods and
then photographs of the goods arriving, and so people then saying, well,
we didn't scam you. You didn't check the fine print
or where people will order one product and then a
(11:12):
totally worthless and ridiculous other product arrives, and they, rather
than saying it's a scam, they tried to bury themselves
in it being a logistics erra or an ordering error
or a system error. But the majority of them would
be you know, I'm looking for some sneakers, try and
find some they are at one price on one site
that I know really well, and then I come across
(11:32):
somewhere that's selling them a little bit less or a
different color that I couldn't get anywhere else, and I
think I'm going to take a risk on that, and
then those products just simply never ever arrive and when
I go back and try and text some match, and
the likelihood is that the website or the contact that
I was dealing with has disappeared into the ether. So
(11:53):
that that would be the kind of main mechanism of
retail scam And unfortunately that's hitting quite quite a considerable
number of New Zealanders this year, as it has in
previous years.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
How does New Zealand's scam exposure compare internationally? So are
we keeping up the pace with global trends or kind
of falling behind in prevention efforts.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I think we are. We are comparable to to lots
of the countries that that that we talk to. Scamming
is not although the the impacts are very local, it's
it's absolutely a global enterprise. It's a global business. I
(12:38):
think many of the people that carry out the scams
would have have almost no idea originally where their targets were.
That that that might come that might come over in
the conversations that we have, But I don't think we
are particularly more vulnerable than than any of the other countries.
Certainly that that that the netsafe would would talk to
(13:00):
most countries are facing similar problems, similar losses, but but
but by population, similar mechanisms. That there's there's lots of
really great prevention work that goes on, there's lots of
really great awareness raising that that that goes on. And
I think you know, when you stop people in the
streets and if you ask them about the different scams
that are out there or their experience, they would probably
(13:21):
be able to tell you, you know, with some detail
about the scams that they had recognized. And I think
that's a really good sign. But we still see losses.
We know that that scammers are becoming increasingly more sophisticated,
more determined, as I mentioned before, and that means that
the things that we recognized as a scam yesterday. You know,
(13:43):
you mentioned our friend the Prince a while ago that
you know, anybody that tried to send out a message
that that that looked like look like one of those scams,
I think you know, most people would recognize that that's
just not not real, but with a slightly different dressing,
with a slightly different story, with a slightly different mechanism,
(14:04):
Throw a few websites in, throw a few convincing videos in,
a few fake news stories from media outlets that look
real but actually aren't, and a lot of people could
probably and actually do still lose money to the to
what is basically the same scam, but just looking an
(14:24):
awful lot looking off a lot different to how it
might have done. So I think as a nation we
do a good job both in prevention and awareness, but
unfortunately there's a lot more to it than just prevention
and awareness.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So that's safe and the Global Anti Scam Alliance recommend
an international network of anti scam centers. How realistic do
you reckon that is for New Zealand to be a
part of.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
I think it is fairly realistic that there are lots
of organizations here that that that work in the space.
There are lots of organizations who's customers are the targets
of scams. And you know, like I said before, the
many nations, most nations, all nations, I imagine, have the
same issue. But it is absolutely a transnational crime. This
(15:15):
is not There are obviously frauds and scams that go
on inside New Zealand perpetrated against New Zealanders by New Zealanders,
but the majority of the scams that we're talking about
are across multiple countries where there are different staging steps
across multiple countries. It breaches laws in different countries, but
the laws are very different, and so it makes the
(15:37):
kind of the response much harder. International cooperation is a
huge part of this and is, as we say, I
think absolutely necessary if we're going to start making significant
inroads because when the victims here in New Zealand, but
yet the perpetrators are in Belgium, I have no idea
why I picked on Belgium, but they just came through
my mind. What that really needs is coordinated effort between
(16:02):
agencies and organizations in New Zealand and agencies and organizations
in Belgium to try and get a handle on both
ends of that problem. And it's that coordination that I
think can reduce the time between when the scams happen
and when we start to get a kind of footholder
grasp on who's doing it and then try to close
(16:25):
down those operations. Because These things are not about individuals anymore.
This is not somebody in a darkened room with a
hoodie on perpetrating a scam. These are, you know, complex
commercial albeit criminal organizations, organized prime groups that these are
who are perpetrating these scams at the scale that we're
(16:45):
seeing it, and that requires coordination and cooperation right across
the globe.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
I have curated a list of the top one hundred
scammiest ads I have been served over the past six months,
and I bought them off. But I did it to
answer the age old question, what if it's not a
scam and it changes my life forever? This is what
everyone says right before they get scammed. We've got a watch.
You guys are about to see the most epic ad
(17:14):
you've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
My favorite Carbonox watch is the new X Ranger. Let's
take a look and see how tough it is.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
It is able to with stand up to ten pounds
of weights.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
He's making his words longer on purpose to sound cooler.
It's working. I kind of love this guy. I kind
of really like that ad. Let's test it if I
can break this thing. I'm not sure I can look
that guy in the eyes anymore. All right, the Olkley's goodness,
it didn't look like this in the ad. This was
eighty dollars form factor. Fire never felt this masculine before, honestly,
(17:50):
all right, let's try to break it zero stars, bro
Come on, are.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
There any groups of people in particular who are susceptible
to these kind of or any kind of scam? Really?
I mean, we've got my dad here who immediately set
told a scammer that he loves them. He is of
the older generation. So but does it affect everyone or
the older people I suppose more susceptible. It's nicely for
(18:26):
my dad.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's a really good question. And I think that there's
a perception. I think a lot of people have a
perception that the older people are more susceptible two scams.
I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think susceptibility
comes in the time and the place. It comes from
(18:49):
the type of scam that's being put before people. I
think often if there is a type NFL was pushed
on that with my arm twisted up my back, I'd
say it wasn't about age or demographic or socioeconomic states
of any description. It's probably about capability and confidence. It's
(19:10):
about people's familiarity with a particular technology. It's about their
confidence to push back when somebody is putting them under pressure.
It's about their ability to stop thinking and breathe in
those situations and say, hang on, I've got a bad
feeling about this. Something instinctively is wrong, and therefore I'm
(19:33):
going to say no. Even if the person on the
other end of the scam is saying that they're from
the police or from the government, or they're threatening them
in some way, or they in the case of those
Hello Mum scams that you mentioned before, where you know,
as those things progress, sometimes what people are hearing is
that their loved one is in danger or in harm,
(19:54):
or even in some extreme cases hearing messages directly from
their loved ones that they're you know, physically being harmed
at the time. Do we have the capabilities to stop
and say, you know, is this likely? Is this realistic?
Can I get somebody else's opinion that they're the people
who are less likely to be scammed? But there are
(20:14):
scams that target people that clearly are not older. But
there are target scams that target people who are. If
the right story at the right time when you're in
the right state of mind, comes across your mailbox or
your phone screen, whatever it might be, any one of
us is susceptible to that scam. And I think it's
(20:37):
really important that we all remember that none of us
are scam proof. There could be a scam out there
that makes you think, oh this is real, or oh
I must act. You may not have seen it yet,
and great if you haven't. But thinking that that any
of us are immune because of how old we are,
where we live, or what platforms were on is probably
risky thinking.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
And I suppose that we should all be on our guard.
Given Black Friday sales are coming up, it must just
be scam Christmas times.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
It's nearly as big as Christmas time. You're right, it is.
It is scam Christmas time, and you know, scam operations
know that this is one of those times of the
year when people are probably more active in online retail
and they definitely definitely take advantage of that, and you know,
for the reason that people maybe are more likely to
(21:32):
be buying things, but also because it's a time that
we're all probably that little bit more bombarded with messaging
from legitimate organizations that creates a kind of fog, if
you like, of those sort of offers and makes it
a little harder I think for all of us to
discern and differentiate the the what's real from what's not.
(21:55):
And scammers will absolutely jump on that that that moment,
those times where they think maybe that might be enough
just to push Somebody who was cautious on Thursday are
going to be a little bit less cautious on Black
Friday because they're so chasing hard for that stainlessteel frymepan
And if someone suddenly puts that offer in front of me,
(22:18):
then then maybe I'm going to take the risks. So
it is definitely a busy time for the scammers, and
Christmas will will be too. The unfortunate thing that means
it's also going to be a really disappointing time for
a number of New Zealanders when those things just don't
turn up.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Well, I know what you want for Christmas now, Sean,
thanks for joining us, no problem at all. That's it
for this episode of the Front Page. You can read
more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enziherld
dot co dot enz. The Front Page is produced by
Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also our editor.
(22:57):
I'm Chelsea Danielscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio or
wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for
another look behind the headlines.
Kiyota.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. It's been
revealed that Kiwi's lost a record three billion dollars to
scams this year. That's a thirty percent increase from two
point three billion last year. Net Safe and the Global
(00:30):
Anti Scam Alliance State of Scams in New Zealand report
shows that scammers are getting more sophisticated and victims are
facing persistent barriers to reporting and recovering their losses. So
how should we protect ourselves and who should be held accountable?
Today on the Front Page, netsafe's Sean Lyons is with
(00:53):
us to break down the latest figures and discuss how
New Zealand can better prepare itself for the evolving world
of scams. First off, Sean, let's dive into the report.
How many kiwis have experienced a scam within the last
twelve months.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, we're now talking about fairitys to the interest. From
the figures that we've been able to together, we're saying
probably close to more than eight percent, So eighty two
percent from our report are experiencing a scam at some
point in the last year, So this is not about
occasional access. And if you kind of extrapolate the figures,
you're probably talking about a person experiencing, you know, over
(01:35):
one hundred and fifty different scam attempts in a year,
so that this is something that we're seeing regularly. For
a lot of people, it's probably becoming the norm. So
this is not something you might go, you know, and
drop the sandwich when you see it's the kind of
thing that now you're probably saying, okay, here's another one.
And there's there's good things about that, but there's also
some concerns around it. When things become really normal, when
(01:58):
we start to become maybe a little bit sort of
more casual about things, we might become a little bit blase,
if we're trying to use the French word. And that's
a concern I think is when we start to feel
that things are a bit normal, maybe sometimes our guard
goes down. We look for spotting one thing. When the
scams change a little bit, then perhaps that's where some
(02:18):
of us are being caught out. So it's definitely much
more normal, as I say, but it doesn't mean that
we're all we're all defended against it unfortunately, and we.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Talk about experiencing scams, it's not actually people who have
fallen victim to them, but you've just encountered it on
a daily basis.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah. Absolutely, So for some people, that might be that
they're you know, they're sick and tired of getting the
seventy fifth text in the last two months from to
say that they owe a toll, or that they've been
through a tunnel or something, or that there's a parcel
waiting for them at a post office. That doesn't sound
quite right. So people will see and spot those that
that's what we really mean. But in amongst those, there'll
(02:57):
be some people that experience a much more realistic or
much more plausible message social media, email, whatever it is,
and they'll actually follow through. So somewhere in those numbers
are unfortunately people who are also falling victims to scams
as well, And.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Because is that generally the way to go, they cast
a wide net as wide as possible, and just hope
someone buy its. Because I got I myself got one
of those messages saying Hi Mum, I've lost my phone
or something. It's like, now, I'm not a mother normal,
i'd probably ever be one so, but there will be
some mothers that have actually got someone of that age,
(03:34):
perhaps living out of home or living in different country.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Absolutely so that there is definitely the kind of the
scattergun approach. I suppose there's one way to put it
that you know, you buy from somewhere, somebody buys from
somewhere a list of email addresses, it might be narrowed
down to a country, it may not be, and they
just fire out an email message or a text message
or whatever mechanism they've got for contacting people. So there
are definitely those, but there are also so scams that
(04:02):
can feel and maybe are a little more targeted. And
now that's not to say that there's somebody out there
that's picked on you. You know, that's not someone that
said right today, I'm gonna scam Sean. But what might
be occurring, we think in some of those situations is
where there's data out there that might have been leaked
when somebody broke into a computer system, with a whole
lot of other sort of generally available information. People can
(04:24):
piece these things together and then direct a scam that
might feel an awful lot more targeted. I think that
the best way might be the difference between getting a
message from a bank one that you might have heard
of but don't use, and then getting a message that
comes from a bank that you do use. Now, that
could either be just luck of the drawer scatter gun,
(04:45):
or it might be that that particular scam is targeting
customers of a particular organization, And it's those times that
in both those situations, they can feel a lot more personal.
And when they feel personal, they can often feel a
lot more real. And that's maybe the first step that
scammers will go through to try and get us hooked in.
If they can find something that really talks to us
(05:07):
to use that phrase, then that they're probably over their
first hurdle. That they're not all the way through the gate,
but they're certainly over the first hurdle.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Right. So I've got another example here. I got a
message from my brother saying is this you or is
our dad getting scammed? The message read, Hi, Dad, messaging
you from my tablet a sim travel plan. My old
numbers no longer working since I changed networks. Please reply
so I can send you my new number. My dad
(05:35):
then replies Oki dokie love you xxx. Now, because he
has replied that has he ended up on some master
list somewhere where they're like, they've got a live one.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I think that's probably enough to get him categorized in
a different way, maybe on an existing list. I don't
think that's single them out for any kind of special treatment.
But what they're doing there is that they probably have
just got a whole list of contact details. They're looking
for people that are prepared to respond. Now the fact
that he has responded and said Okki, love you and
it was a from dad, maybe someone's going to assume, Okay,
(06:11):
here's a contact number that is a dad, and because
they're a dad, maybe they'd be more susceptible to a
sort of parent based scam. So yeah, that's a common
technique used. It is much more of that scatter gun.
But again it's the steps that they take to take
what might be millions of contact details and try and
(06:33):
whittle it down to a smaller number, a more manageable
number for them, that they can start to have a
more focused attack on.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
In terms of some common scams, what you've mentioned the tolls,
the getting a message from your bank, we've messaged my dad,
falling forth, whatever that was. In terms of common ones,
that are going around at the moment. I mean, I
don't really hear too much of the Nigerian prints anymore.
Is he doing all right?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I think he may have reinvented himself into a retail
job perhaps because we're certainly seeing a lot more of
the retail based scam. Look that the mechanism of the
Nigerian princes what they used to call a four to
one nine scam because it fitted a Nigerian penal code
that was covered under this. It's those kinds of investment
(07:23):
scams are definitely still around. They don't look like they did.
They certainly don't come in on fax rolls, which is
the scams that I remember back back in the very
early days, but the mechanisms are the same. We're definitely
seeing retail scams as the biggest single category. Now. Some
of those might originate in offers that come in by emails.
Some of those might be because people are browsing for
(07:44):
certain products and coming across different sites. Investment scams, so
people offering you get rich quick schemes, prizes, lotteries, grants,
those kinds of things that the grant for being a
one full citizen, unfortunately is one that's been around for
a long time and is still going around because who
(08:05):
doesn't want to think that their government's identified them as
just a superb person and are going to get a
whole lot of money as a result. But there are
some scams that are constant that those would indicate what
ones that are. But also what we do see continually
is the change in what is that that very basic
scam to have elements of that, but to look very differently.
(08:27):
So probably the greatest example for us over the last
few years is the kind of merging of a romance scam,
a traditional you know, I meet you on a site online,
former relationship with you. Originally, romance scams would all then
be about I need some money because my mother's ill,
or I've been arrested, the things that we're very very
(08:48):
familiar now, those scams are often rather than pivoting into
just give me some money, often they're pivoting into I've
got a great investment opportunity for you, and I've been
in in this cryptocurrency or these shares for a while.
We should invest together like a romantic investment. And so
they're they're they're using one scam, they're they're piggybacking a
(09:11):
second one off of it. They are changing their tactics
depending on what's working now that might be working on
the individual or from what they know is working generally.
So you know, the mechanisms of scams are very similar
that the ways in which scammers use them, the scale
and which they're using them, and I guess the tenacity
(09:32):
to a lot of to a great extent that that
scammers are prepared to apply to these things are what's
changing and our indications, unfortunately of the success that they're experiencing,
just how profitable these things are for for for scammers.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
This guy Jeculously came to New Zealand border the plane
and May last year as part of a crime synder
gift in. What they were doing was cold calling all
the victims, mostly elderly, and pretending that they were part
of a COVID police operation trying to catch bad crookeld
bank staff and counterfeit notes. What they'd do is they
(10:11):
would send this guy Jack Kennessey over by taxi to
the elderly people's homes and ask them to have withdrawn
large sums of money up to twenty thousand dollars, and
they'd hand it over when he used.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
The special code word.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
And they managed to get more than three hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, within the space a day after arriving, within the
space of fourteen days, mister Hennessy had visited twenty one
residences and he managed to get three hundred and thirty
seven thousand dollars and none of that money was ever recovered.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And you mentioned retail scams. What does that entail that
you pay for something you never get at Basically.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah, that's probably the biggest one. But there are some
that you pay for something and what arrives is not
what you thought. Certainly heard of people purchasing goods and
then photographs of the goods arriving, and so people then saying, well,
we didn't scam you. You didn't check the fine print
or where people will order one product and then a
(11:12):
totally worthless and ridiculous other product arrives, and they, rather
than saying it's a scam, they tried to bury themselves
in it being a logistics erra or an ordering error
or a system error. But the majority of them would
be you know, I'm looking for some sneakers, try and
find some they are at one price on one site
that I know really well, and then I come across
(11:32):
somewhere that's selling them a little bit less or a
different color that I couldn't get anywhere else, and I
think I'm going to take a risk on that, and
then those products just simply never ever arrive and when
I go back and try and text some match, and
the likelihood is that the website or the contact that
I was dealing with has disappeared into the ether. So
(11:53):
that that would be the kind of main mechanism of
retail scam And unfortunately that's hitting quite quite a considerable
number of New Zealanders this year, as it has in
previous years.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
How does New Zealand's scam exposure compare internationally? So are
we keeping up the pace with global trends or kind
of falling behind in prevention efforts.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I think we are. We are comparable to to lots
of the countries that that that we talk to. Scamming
is not although the the impacts are very local, it's
it's absolutely a global enterprise. It's a global business. I
(12:38):
think many of the people that carry out the scams
would have have almost no idea originally where their targets were.
That that that might come that might come over in
the conversations that we have, But I don't think we
are particularly more vulnerable than than any of the other countries.
Certainly that that that the netsafe would would talk to
(13:00):
most countries are facing similar problems, similar losses, but but
but by population, similar mechanisms. That there's there's lots of
really great prevention work that goes on, there's lots of
really great awareness raising that that that goes on. And
I think you know, when you stop people in the
streets and if you ask them about the different scams
that are out there or their experience, they would probably
(13:21):
be able to tell you, you know, with some detail
about the scams that they had recognized. And I think
that's a really good sign. But we still see losses.
We know that that scammers are becoming increasingly more sophisticated,
more determined, as I mentioned before, and that means that
the things that we recognized as a scam yesterday. You know,
(13:43):
you mentioned our friend the Prince a while ago that
you know, anybody that tried to send out a message
that that that looked like look like one of those scams,
I think you know, most people would recognize that that's
just not not real, but with a slightly different dressing,
with a slightly different story, with a slightly different mechanism,
(14:04):
Throw a few websites in, throw a few convincing videos in,
a few fake news stories from media outlets that look
real but actually aren't, and a lot of people could
probably and actually do still lose money to the to
what is basically the same scam, but just looking an
(14:24):
awful lot looking off a lot different to how it
might have done. So I think as a nation we
do a good job both in prevention and awareness, but
unfortunately there's a lot more to it than just prevention
and awareness.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So that's safe and the Global Anti Scam Alliance recommend
an international network of anti scam centers. How realistic do
you reckon that is for New Zealand to be a
part of.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
I think it is fairly realistic that there are lots
of organizations here that that that work in the space.
There are lots of organizations who's customers are the targets
of scams. And you know, like I said before, the
many nations, most nations, all nations, I imagine, have the
same issue. But it is absolutely a transnational crime. This
(15:15):
is not There are obviously frauds and scams that go
on inside New Zealand perpetrated against New Zealanders by New Zealanders,
but the majority of the scams that we're talking about
are across multiple countries where there are different staging steps
across multiple countries. It breaches laws in different countries, but
the laws are very different, and so it makes the
(15:37):
kind of the response much harder. International cooperation is a
huge part of this and is, as we say, I
think absolutely necessary if we're going to start making significant
inroads because when the victims here in New Zealand, but
yet the perpetrators are in Belgium, I have no idea
why I picked on Belgium, but they just came through
my mind. What that really needs is coordinated effort between
(16:02):
agencies and organizations in New Zealand and agencies and organizations
in Belgium to try and get a handle on both
ends of that problem. And it's that coordination that I
think can reduce the time between when the scams happen
and when we start to get a kind of footholder
grasp on who's doing it and then try to close
(16:25):
down those operations. Because These things are not about individuals anymore.
This is not somebody in a darkened room with a
hoodie on perpetrating a scam. These are, you know, complex
commercial albeit criminal organizations, organized prime groups that these are
who are perpetrating these scams at the scale that we're
(16:45):
seeing it, and that requires coordination and cooperation right across
the globe.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
I have curated a list of the top one hundred
scammiest ads I have been served over the past six months,
and I bought them off. But I did it to
answer the age old question, what if it's not a
scam and it changes my life forever? This is what
everyone says right before they get scammed. We've got a watch.
You guys are about to see the most epic ad
(17:14):
you've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
My favorite Carbonox watch is the new X Ranger. Let's
take a look and see how tough it is.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
It is able to with stand up to ten pounds
of weights.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
He's making his words longer on purpose to sound cooler.
It's working. I kind of love this guy. I kind
of really like that ad. Let's test it if I
can break this thing. I'm not sure I can look
that guy in the eyes anymore. All right, the Olkley's goodness,
it didn't look like this in the ad. This was
eighty dollars form factor. Fire never felt this masculine before, honestly,
(17:50):
all right, let's try to break it zero stars, bro
Come on, are.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
There any groups of people in particular who are susceptible
to these kind of or any kind of scam? Really?
I mean, we've got my dad here who immediately set
told a scammer that he loves them. He is of
the older generation. So but does it affect everyone or
the older people I suppose more susceptible. It's nicely for
(18:26):
my dad.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's a really good question. And I think that there's
a perception. I think a lot of people have a
perception that the older people are more susceptible two scams.
I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think susceptibility
comes in the time and the place. It comes from
(18:49):
the type of scam that's being put before people. I
think often if there is a type NFL was pushed
on that with my arm twisted up my back, I'd
say it wasn't about age or demographic or socioeconomic states
of any description. It's probably about capability and confidence. It's
(19:10):
about people's familiarity with a particular technology. It's about their
confidence to push back when somebody is putting them under pressure.
It's about their ability to stop thinking and breathe in
those situations and say, hang on, I've got a bad
feeling about this. Something instinctively is wrong, and therefore I'm
(19:33):
going to say no. Even if the person on the
other end of the scam is saying that they're from
the police or from the government, or they're threatening them
in some way, or they in the case of those
Hello Mum scams that you mentioned before, where you know,
as those things progress, sometimes what people are hearing is
that their loved one is in danger or in harm,
(19:54):
or even in some extreme cases hearing messages directly from
their loved ones that they're you know, physically being harmed
at the time. Do we have the capabilities to stop
and say, you know, is this likely? Is this realistic?
Can I get somebody else's opinion that they're the people
who are less likely to be scammed? But there are
(20:14):
scams that target people that clearly are not older. But
there are target scams that target people who are. If
the right story at the right time when you're in
the right state of mind, comes across your mailbox or
your phone screen, whatever it might be, any one of
us is susceptible to that scam. And I think it's
(20:37):
really important that we all remember that none of us
are scam proof. There could be a scam out there
that makes you think, oh this is real, or oh
I must act. You may not have seen it yet,
and great if you haven't. But thinking that that any
of us are immune because of how old we are,
where we live, or what platforms were on is probably
risky thinking.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
And I suppose that we should all be on our guard.
Given Black Friday sales are coming up, it must just
be scam Christmas times.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
It's nearly as big as Christmas time. You're right, it is.
It is scam Christmas time, and you know, scam operations
know that this is one of those times of the
year when people are probably more active in online retail
and they definitely definitely take advantage of that, and you know,
for the reason that people maybe are more likely to
(21:32):
be buying things, but also because it's a time that
we're all probably that little bit more bombarded with messaging
from legitimate organizations that creates a kind of fog, if
you like, of those sort of offers and makes it
a little harder I think for all of us to
discern and differentiate the the what's real from what's not.
(21:55):
And scammers will absolutely jump on that that that moment,
those times where they think maybe that might be enough
just to push Somebody who was cautious on Thursday are
going to be a little bit less cautious on Black
Friday because they're so chasing hard for that stainlessteel frymepan
And if someone suddenly puts that offer in front of me,
(22:18):
then then maybe I'm going to take the risks. So
it is definitely a busy time for the scammers, and
Christmas will will be too. The unfortunate thing that means
it's also going to be a really disappointing time for
a number of New Zealanders when those things just don't
turn up.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Well, I know what you want for Christmas now, Sean,
thanks for joining us, no problem at all. That's it
for this episode of the Front Page. You can read
more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enziherld
dot co dot enz. The Front Page is produced by
Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also our editor.
(22:57):
I'm Chelsea Danielscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio or
wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for
another look behind the headlines.
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