Kiwis lose millions to offshore scammers

Ripu Bhatia Reporter from Community News

Police are warning the public to be vigilant and wary of calls from phone scammers following a rise in complaints recently which have seen some victims lose tens of thousands of dollars.

Detective Sergeant Kelly Corby from the Auckland City Financial Crime Unit said an investigation, named Operation Hyattsville, is looking into more than 20 complaints from victims who have lost money in the past couple of months to phone scammers operating overseas.

One of these victims, 80-year-old Auckland City resident Marion, was conned by the scammers in a video posted today on the Auckland City District Police Facebook page.

Marion had $10,000 taken from her account after a caller convinced her that there was an urgent issue with her Spark account and they needed to access her computer remotely to fix the issue.

The convincing scammer asked Marion to download the Teamviewer application which allowed them to access her computer before asking for her banking details.

Fortunately, Marion’s bank got in touch after noticing suspicious banking activity and the money was able to be recovered.

Detective Sergeant Corby said unfortunately in most instances the victims are not as lucky as Marion, with several million dollars lost by Kiwis to these offshore scammers in the past few months alone.

“We are not talking about small amounts of money. On average, each victim has lost around $30,000 and these losses are absolutely devastating for our victims,” he said.

“Phone scams are nothing new, however we are concerned after seeing a growing trend of cases recently where victims have been conned over the phone.”

Corby said if you think you are a victim of a phone scam, you need to act fast and notify your bank immediately.

“There is a simple way to stop yourself from being a victim. Do not give your personal banking information out over the phone and do not allow the person over the phone to access your computer,” he said.

“There is no legitimate reason that a company will need to access your computer remotely. Do not download any application which allows them to access it.

A similar investigation by the Auckland Financial Crime Unit last year, Operation Deadwood, resulted in Police charging 18 people for money laundering offences after hundreds of phone scam victims lost more than $2.5 million.