Online Scams In New Zealand Are A Growing Concern?
Newstalk ZB
A key feature among the string of problems staring an otherwise peaceful and joyous country like New Zealand isn’t just the lack of birth rates, while the ditto can also be said about Australia. In fact, the rising rate of online scams in New Zealand is a major problem that’s wreaked havoc for the common Kiwi, whether self-employed or engaged elsewhere for vocation. And that said, this rising rate of online scams in New Zealand has caused the country’s population a massive loss of around $23 million, no lame amount! The general feeling in the country is that the tactics deployed by the fraudsters to con New Zealanders have been cunning than usual and convincing in equal measure. In fact, one of the most widely read of all Kiwi news outlets- New Zealand Herald- recently came out with a real-life account of a man conned by online scammers that took the country by surprise. It turned out that a New Zealand local living in the country lost a whopping $5 million in regards to a bogus scheme. It was revealed that the massive sum was lost to a dubious inheritance scam, while the average amount of loss with regards to this particular scam turned out to be $9801 per victim. If that’s not baffling, then one wonders what is? But upon investigation, the authorities have chanced upon something concerning. One wonders what concerns the victims that they do not report these major crimes and illicit occurrences? And the reality may surprise not only the fellow Kiwis but those witnessing this mind boggling problem in New Zealand from another country. It turns out that the experts happen to believe that the victims of the online scams in New Zealand are either too embarassed to report their losses or are stuck about as to which agency to turn to. Surprising as this may sound, but this really is the truth. Here’s a slice of information in regards to the said matter from New Zealand Herald:
“Online safety organisation Netsafe released the scam loss figures to mark the start of Fraud Awareness Week which aims to inform Kiwis about how dangerous and sophisticated scams have become.”
But all of that said, a question arises.
Just what are the most common forms of scams prevalent in New Zealand to have swept an entire nation?
It appears that the most common means of conning people is to scam them from precious money by threatening to release their intimate pictures online, an aspect commonly referred to as sextoration scam.
In this particular case, a fraudster pretends to have illict, intimate recordings of an individuals which he or she uses to blackmail the conned via a huge sum of money.
In many cases, e-mails from these scammers even seem convincing as they tend to contain the victim’s own current or former passwords, actually sourced by the conman from a previous security breach (of the victim).
Furthermore, it is worthwhile to note what New Zealand herald reported in the said development on its website:
Scammers regularly use well-known brands, like Countdown, New World or Harvey Norman in texts and emails where they tell the victim they’ve won a prize – often a supermarket voucher or mobile phone – or that they’ll win something if they fill in a survey.
The online survey asks for personal details and sometimes credit card details to pay for the shipping of the prize.
But the highest average losses were to prize and grant fraud – where people are led to believe they’ve come into a large sum of money – where 202 victims lost $27,691 each. This totalled $5.59 million in losses.