The text alerts were probably genuine, but the “staff member” at the end of the phone wasn’t. Paul Charman reports on how an out of the blue call resulted in a small fortune being stolen.
A Te Kūiti woman defrauded of $48,000 by scammers on August 6 has received $40,000 back from her bank.
The remaining $8000, which was the limit of a credit card account emptied by the scammers, is still outstanding.
Alison (not her real name) said she felt stupid for not spotting the scam but had not been on her “A game” the day the scammers struck.
She spoke to The News on condition we didn’t identify her – and was able to give an insight into the tactics of the thieves.
The BNZ subsequently told her the $40,000 had been deposited into an account run by Revolute, an English company similar to Travelex. The bank contacted Revolute and arranged to retrieve the money.
The fraudster, who sounded like a young woman, called in the early evening telling Alison that she was from the BNZ fraud team.
“She said she believed that I had been scammed. But apparently at the same time I was getting text alerts from the BNZ saying I might be being scammed, so it all sort of fitted in and I just went ahead basically.
“I think the text alerts were genuine, but I didn’t realise the caller was the scammer.
“I was suspicious because she didn’t speak clearly. She had an ordinary voice, spoke quite fast and was not issuing clear instructions. But there was no accent – I felt like she was a New Zealand person.”
The scammer asked Alison what make of her phone she was using, and to list her other devices used for mobile banking.
“She said I needed to uninstall my BNZ app which I reluctantly did. She then emailed me codes which I had to repeat back to her and put into my BNZ app, but as I’d just uninstalled, I couldn’t do that.
However, the process to that point had enabled the scammers to access to Alison’s accounts.
Alison heard from the real BNZ the next morning. They had been trying to phone her during the scam, but she missed their calls because she was already on the phone.
“They had been suspicious and put a hold on the transactions, but not a block, so I guess that’s why they were able to get some of the money back.”
Alison said she felt stupid but had been vulnerable at the time. While recently overseas the neighbours’ stock ruined her garden, then she’d caught Covid upon her return and was recovering when the scammer struck. What message would she pass on to others?
“Certainly if you are suspicious don’t be afraid to hang up on the caller; don’t ever believe they need to know what brand of phone you are using. And don’t think you are being rude by ending the call. Just hang up if you’re not sure and ring your bank.”
