Online phishing scam NZ Police notification
With Christmas fast approaching, Police are encouraging people to be aware of online phishing scams.
The holiday season can already be a stressful time, and the last thing you want is to lose large sums of money to a scam.
A phishing scam is an online scam, where the offender pretends to be a trustworthy person or organisation to try and get a victim’s personal information.
Police has received a number of phishing scam reports with offenders targeting people who are selling items or services online like Trade Me. The offenders pretend to be an interested buyer, and urgently request to buy your product and arrange a courier pickup.
The victim receives a fake courier website link to complete a verification process asking for personal details, like bank account numbers, passwords, and phone numbers.
Once provided these details, the offender uses these to access a victim’s bank account, tricking the victim into proving any multifactor authentication code sent from the victim’s bank.
The money in the victim’s bank account is then taken by the offender once access is gained.
Police are urging members of the public to be cautious, especially when someone in person or online is asking you to give them money or your personal details like bank accounts and passwords.
Never comply with a request asking you to provide or ‘verify’ your online banking details.
Legitimate organisations will never ask you to do this.
If you are unsure if it is real, please contact your bank by the phone number on their official website or go to your nearest branch.
If you receive a courier website link from a potential buyer, this is likely a scam.
Please do not fill out the verification process.
Use the social media/trading platform’s reporting tools to report the scam and the user involved.
You can also make a report to Netsafe at report.netsafe.org.nz.
If you have handed over your online banking details, contact your bank immediately and suspend your account.
If you think you have been scammed (provided your banking details and/or suffered a loss), please gather as much information you can and make a report to Police online through 105.police.govt.nz or call 105.
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flossy63 Community SuperuserYes, about 6 weeks ago, I put fragile kitchen stuff on FB Market place, Clearly stating cash on Pick up only, within half an hour I had 2 different ones with similar stories on different items, I Immediately blocked them, as knew it was a scam,
Yes, went back to my local pages only & removed my stuff from Market Place,
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S Community SuperuserEditedKia Ora All,
If anyone has clicked on any email Links to these sites Remember to run your Device through a malware And anti-virus check.
Emails can be forwarded directly through to TradeMe's Trust & Safety Team using the abuse@trademe.co.nz email address enabling TM a heads up on taking action on accounts & offenders.
After forwarding the email to TradeMe filter it through to your spam/junk folder enabling your Service Provider to block it on that Level also.There are several different scams which may play out this time of year - TradeMe cover some common ones in the following Help page Links... Vehicle history report scam – Help - Trade MeKeep a vigilant eye & stay safe - Thanks for the Heads up - Cheers.0 -
Yes I got told also they were doing it on FB too, cant be to careful these days with these scammers, recently I got a email in my junk mail from Paypal saying:-
Here's your invoice - Charge for Unauthorized Activity, Quickly let us know [a phone number was added] sent you an invoice for $399.99 USD Due on receipt. You don't have any payments with this seller in the last year. Dont recognise this invoice with a link to report it...
Now it looked all legit with Paypals letter head and written formatting etc, links to everything to check if it was legit even the US address of Paypal at the bottom, with links to identify phishing etc etc, it looked real... but what was missing was firstly it didn't have my personal name in addressing me firstly on the top and the email address it came from was from some pobox.com which isnt paypals plus I'm sure paypal wouldn't say Here's your invoice, thats bad grammer they would say Here is your invoice and address me personally by namesake, nor would Paypal add a phone number with a invoice, so I deleted it instantly.. the funny thing is lol.. I have no money in the Paypal account and havn't had for years, so they wont get anything from it anyway, yet also I havn't had any further notifications from Paypal asking me about this invoice for payment or anything, so I think I sussed that scam out.. So be aware they are getting more email savy & tricky!..
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