Types of Scams
These scams often come unsolicited via email and are usually one of two
types.
- Nigerian letter type scams - this is where a supposed 'relative' of a
senior government official in mainly African countries writes
asking for assistance in getting funds out of their country.
They offer a percentage of the sizeable amount of money to you as
a reward for them using your bank account to clear the funds.
- Estate type scams - these scams often originate out of the
United Kingdom and claim to be an estate company trying to track
down beneficiaries for a deceased estate. They usually ask
for money to be sent to cover the legal fees associated with
lodging a claim and then disappear from contact with your money.
Affinity fraudsters prey on people who trust each other,
particularly members of religious, social, or cultural groups. They
use the trust that exists within these groups to help steal money.
These promotions advise that you could come into a fortune if
only you send funds to mail boxes for talismans, golden eggs or
fortune telling guides to personal wealth. The material is normally
bulk mailed from overseas though it appears to be specifically
written to you (thousands of others may have been mailed the same
request).
Be wary of replying to mail that advises you that you are about
to come into riches.
Banking scams use technology to steal consumer information which
can then be used to access money in people's bank accounts.
Common variants include 'phishing' where scammers replicate a
bank's internet banking website and obtain customer details and
skimming where devices are fitted to ATM machines and EFTPos
terminals to obtain card details.
These are services selling software and systems which guides people betting
on horse races. Be wary of investing in such programmes without
consulting with independent investment advisors and careful reading
all the available material. Most of the schemes do not offer racing
information for New Zealand tracks.
This scam usually occurs in association with on-line auctions.
A fake bidder offers to buy a product over the internet and sends a
cheque for more than the agreed amount. The bidder then
contacts the seller and asks for the additional money to be refunded
by money order. Once the seller sends the overpayment, the
bidder then cancels the original cheque leaving the seller out of
pocket.
These scams usually follow a major international disaster and
pose as a charity raising funds for victims of the disaster.
This promotion offers a unique investment opportunity with high
returns for very little risk. It is often only available to 'a
very few investors' and it demands consumers make very quick
decisions. These investments frequently don't exist at all and
investors lose all their money.
"Identity theft" is the takeover of a person’s identity by
utilising stolen personal information, or fraudulently obtained,
forged or stolen identity documents.
Identity theft often results in the takeover of a victim’s
existing bank accounts or by the fraudulent operation of new
accounts opened by the perpetrator in the victim’s name.
Any of the types of scams mentioned in Scamwatch could find you
through the internet, and all the same warnings equally apply. The
most common internet scams reported involve phoney investments in
work from home schemes and pyramid selling schemes.
The internet makes it even easier for high tech touts to hide,
shut down, or move on. Clever websites may look legitimate and be
more convincing than newspaper advertisements.
The scam involves sales people from a publishing company
contacting a business and falsely claiming that the business agreed
to advertise in a particular publication. This is also called "false
invoicing" or "false billing". The scam primarily targets small
businesses. It is a breach of the Fair Trading Act to engage in pro
forma invoicing.
These scams claim that the recipient has won a major
international lottery. To release the money the person must
send through a payment to cover administration costs. This money then disappears and no further
contact can be made.
In a typical pyramid scheme a potential member is asked to pay to
join the scheme. The only way to advance is to recruit others,
who also pay to join. If enough people join then the pyramid
grows. These schemes are illegal in New Zealand.
These scams often appear in the classified adverts of a
Newspaper. They offer ways to make large amounts of money by
simply stuffing envelopes from home.
Telephone callers from bogus overseas firms ring New Zealanders
with offers to buy or trade shares. They are plausible and
persistant but people who deal with them inevitably lose their money.
Vanity press or publishing is the generic term for schemes that
provide the opportunity for authors to be published - but at their
own expense. While some of these publishers may be up front about
the type of publishing they offer, some schemes run literary
competitions in which everyone actually wins a prize. Or they advise
people that they have been specially chosen to be published.
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