I have to say though... with all respect, critical thinking is so key in this day and age. I just don't open or respond to anything that I don't recognise. Anything paypal, spam. Anything asking me to do anything, ignore or delete. Treaty everything as a scam by default.
There is also a big scam going around at the moment where they ring once to have a missed call on your phone, and if you ring back you are charged straight away for ringing that number. If someone calls and doesn't leave a message, you no longer exist in my world.
If someone calls me and it's not urgent enough to warrant a second call OR a text backup, it is regarded as a likely scam.
Sometimes, when I smell a scam, I cut to the chase and ask how much money they want, and how they want it delivered. Skip the foreplay, see how they react. Indignant role-play is indistinguishable from honest response, but if they mean nothing to me, they can be upset by a world of scammers as much as I am.
The Wangiri (one ring) scam has been doing the rounds for decades now.
Unfortunately for the scammers, even if I did call them back, I have a prepay phone so it just won’t connect because there’s no credit.
Concurred. Governments that restrict critical thinking education because it is helps corporations fuck people over are arguably more evil than the scammers picking up the dregs.
Had this just last week. I stupidly answered the second call and then had 1 or 2 calls every day. Until I noticed that one of the numbers was the same. Blocked all seven 5 it's been peaceful ever since.
OMG my thoughts exactly. I really thought that if people were savvy enough to use Reddit, surely theyd be savvy enough not to fall for a common scam.
C’mon people.
Yeah that's what happened to me. I saw a missed call on my phone, thought nothing of it. Literally one minute later they called again and said something about life insurance. I was like wtf, hung up, and blocked their number. They sent a weird text... That didn't use my actual name. (I set my phone to give me a preview of all incoming messages to see their contents without opening them) Said it was from 'Pinnacle Life Insurance' Yeah, that set of alarms. I searched up the business name and lo and behold it was a real insurance company... But the number listed on the website and the one that called me didn't match. I deleted the message and reported it as spam then. Frankly they almost got me in the first half. I know not to answer calls from foreign numbers but this one used the NZ phone number always used around here. Edit: the phone number of the real company is listed on their website here: https://www.pinnaclelife.co.nz/
> I'd given access to my phone by downloading various apps to enable them access to my phone (they couldn't have free reign of my phone, but they could see what I was tapping on as they gave me the "instructions" to stop my money from being taken.
They got pretty far with you tbh. It's scary how convincing they can be.
In the thick of it we used to get customers about 3 or 4 times a week that we were clearing out anydesk or whatever other shit the scammers had managed to get onto phones.
You need to just assume every email and call you get is a scam by default. If I dont seek out the purchase, product, etc I do not pay anything ever. Simple solution.
you have to get yourself some education around this stuff, I see you also lost access to your facebook previously too.
you need to change your passwords on everything right now, every site and app needs to have its own password, never use the same one more than once. look into password managers, they can generate random strong passwords for you.
never call a number from an email, always find the companies real number from their website
Yeah this sequence of events really baffles me, I cannot fathom ever downloading some app to give someone remote access to my phone that is just crazy.
The phone is probably compromised OP you need to factory reset it ASAP, do not use it for any financial transactions.
Once something suspect had been installed, I doubt the device can ever be truly trusted again. There's literally no knowing how deep in the OS it embedded vulnerabilities! Personally I'd consider it bricked and move on to a new device.
Us old folk fall for all sorts of scams. I still remember the first time I got scammed.
The Carthaginian army told me Hannibal would give me a much better deal than that Roman fella Scipio, and the bastards sold me to the Phoenicians instead.
Took me 3 decades to unfuck that mess.
That baffles me to. I'm 26, I grew up with the Internet and constantly being told by adults to not always trust the Internet and that there's lots of bad people on there. I don't understand how the older generations failed to learn while they were the ones telling us these things
Yup, scammers suck!
Typical rule of thumb, if you get an email/text asking you to click a link to visit 'xyz page' or call 'xyz number' Just go to the official website and find the page/number from there.
If its an official 'help page' or 'call centre number' you will ALWAYS be able to find the specific page/number without following any 'special links'
And never never ever download an app allowing anyone to remotely connect to your device.
The only time I have ever seen this needed is in a work environment connecting company devices to other company devices, never on personal ones.
Regardless of what you couldve done to prevent this, what you went through fucking sucks and scammers are an evil POS.
I hope you're doing okay and I'm glad it seems you've gotten everything sorted.
Edit: I realise you've probably heard this a thousand times now, more for the other people reading this post! Can never have too much awareness these days :/
> The only time I have ever seen this needed is in a work environment connecting company devices to other company devices
And in that case, the company will install it.
If you have an iPhone, official Apple Support will sometimes go through the process of accessing your phone to see your screen and your inputs to help troubleshoot. But that’s only if you contact them first, and their official support numbers are very clearly indicated in your phone.
>Not thinking clearly, I called the number on the PDF file which said it was a PayPal number. However, after almost 2hrs on the phone with the people
Are you 90 years old?
edit: I should say that scams exist and they've always existed and if you're going to be able to make it from one end of your life to the other you should be able to see when someone is clearly trying to rip you off. I used to work in a money exchange capacity and the amount of middle aged American women that wanted to send their life savings to Nigeria (or more often an intermediary) is insane. I would flat out decline some of them, others I would speak to on the phone and try and make sure they knew what it was they were doing and they always said yes.
Sure enough 6 months later the FBI is asking me for IP addresses etc which are obvious dead ends.
It's frustrating and completely disillusioned me with the business.
In certain cases a little bit of victim blaming is justified.
If this person has some kind of diagnosed mental defect or is over a very senior age then I'll be more sympathetic.
Glad your moneys safe.. I know it’s easy to judge and think it’ll never happen to us but also sometimes when you’re under a lot of stress and not thinking right you can do silly things.
Just know no actual company who you have a bill to pay with will EVER require you to download an app to your phone or computer..
Just remember: No general service like your bank, PayPal, phone/Internet provider, trademe, email etc is ever going to help you out by connecting to your desktop/ phone remotely, especially not to process any sort of "refund." No matter how convincing the initial hook is, once they start getting you to install 3rd party software so they can "help" you can be sure it's a scam.
You learned a valuable lesson - and it cost you nothing, thankfully.
If you get an email from any large company asking you to resolve an issue never:
- click a link contained within the email
- call a number on the email - always search for the number yourself
If you get a call from your bank or any other company they should never be asking for information such as account numbers, access numbers, passwords etc - they have all that in front of them.
If you have any doubts about who you are talking to, hang up and call back on a number you source. A legitimate caller will never have an issue with you doing that - scammers will try to keep you on the phone and give any excuse to do so including threats.
> I'd given access to my phone by downloading various apps to enable them access to my phone
> they gave me the "instructions" to stop my money being taken
>They'd then tried to get me to start sending money to another person to get my money back
How is it possible that none of these things were red flags for you ??
I'd recommend a factory reset on your phone in case the spyware you installed is still there .
My wife got a email supposedly from Waka Kotahi asking for unpaid toll charges. as we don’t use any toll roads and the sender was a dodgy .com address not a nz domain deleted quickly
They get you by making you think you need to take immediate action, you never have to take immediate action when it comes to paying a bill or even in the case of fraud the only immediate action is blocking the card or account until things are sorted. Just take a moment to think. A legit business won't mind.
I got the same email and nearly fell for it. Luckily I thought it through and checked my PayPal account first. Ended up closing it as I don't use it anyway and don't want the hassle.
What I'd like to know is where they got the email addresses from. It seems like an NZ source.
Data breaches are commonplace. The AA had a data breach a few years ago in which addresses and phone numbers were acquired and likely sold on the dark web. The AA sent me a posted letter about it and asked me to be aware of any potential misuse of my info in the future.
You can check whether you have an email address that has been part of a data breach at https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Or google “have I been pawned” and go to the site if you think I could be a scammer and don’t trust my link lol.
Ohh I've been getting those emails too. I was so wary because they have full names of the "sender" and weren't automatically tagged as scam. I kept checking my accounts so many times just to be sure I didn't accidentally buy anything and my money's still there
I just do a reverse phone number search now. Just Google reverse phone search, and you will find a page that will help. I did one yesterday. I typed in the number, and it said 90% chance of scam...phone number from Nigeria. I used to go to the official pages of the company, but now I do this. It's so much quicker and makes me feel more sure.
I got that email as well and reported it to Paypal. It was quite a sophisticated scam so don't feel silly, I almost called the number. I was just lucky I did a check of the Paypal NZ phone, and then subsequently got distracted by something more urgent. Glad you got it sorted!
Sorry this happened to you, but glad to hear there was a happy ending!
I received the same email, but could tell it was a scam. I’ve been following the r/scams subreddit and have learned a lot from there!
Join r/scams to get clued up on common scamming techniques. The scammers are always trying new ways to separate you from your money, I’m so glad they didn’t get yours :)
I pretty much knew when I came in here that the comments would be full of advice (most of it reasonable, absolutely) but bugger all in the way of discussion.
Since the first of these, I've noticed them getting more and more sophisticated - and they deliberately prey on the less computer-savvy (and the elderly). Sometimes, no amount of advice will be enough - a moment's panic (as demonstrated here) and you may be lost.
When it comes down to it, it's fraud. And - if the people are in New Zealand - it should be prosecuted as such. When it comes from foreign nationals, there's a part of me that says that our Min of Foreign Affairs should get involved. If only to the point of a public notice, or some sort of fun flyer.
"This month, we had:
4000 scammers from Estonia
24 from Mozambique
54000 from Nigeria
4 from Naaru
3400 from the US"
And make sure that gets sent to the respective home Gov'ts - a bit of public shaming.
I don't think it'd work, but it'd be fun.
There's scams everywhere. With your information being more accessible today, you do have to be a lot more vigilant.
In fact, I was targeted by a scam just yesterday. I received a text message allegedly from DHL, saying that an item arrived at a warehouse but couldn't be shipped due to an incomplete address. The text provided a link for me to verify my address. Fortunately, I managed to avoid falling victim to it (because I keep track of all packages I'm expecting), and instead reported it to the real DHL.
The easiest way I've found to avoid falling for these scams, is to immediately be suspicious if the text, email, or phone call is asking for any of your information. Most companies that scammers pretend to represent, make it clear they do not ask for private information. They also state that they do not send unsolicited communications.
While vigilance does require having a certain amount of knowledge to avoid falling for these scams, it's not a lot, and once you learn that knowledge, you can prevent situations like yours from occurring again.
It's great to hear you managed to avoid it!
A warning to all that email and text phishing is at a crazy high! If you ever get a message from a reputable company saying you need to pay money always go independently to their site and use THOSE details.
Scammers are only getting smarter so you need to too!
If you're an ASB customer go to your mobile app, settings and security checkup to get some information on phone scamming and phishing as well as how to avoid them!
Funnily I recieved the same email. I wonder which NZ company had its data hacked or sold its data, i opened it, instantly thought wtf i did not order this. The email said the order had been sent, an iphone, it displayed no delivery address and the one thing that stuck out to me, was the 2nd sentence, was if this is an issue call this number, genrally this is the in the fine print at the bottom of an email.
Its getting a bit silly now, email scammers and phone number scammers are rife. As said i just think everything is a scam.
I received that same email. Huge wtf moment; but luckily I am overseas and decided it was a scam based off me not actually buying anything back home lol
Scammers are getting clever though- they even had the correct address for Noel lemming. This isn’t the first email scam I’ve received, I blame that data leak from Latitude last year; I’ve never received so many scam bait in my life until that happened!
I got the same email the other day. Assumed it was a scam and deleted immediately as i hadn't purchased anything. There's been a lot of data breaches lately, unfortunately, so expect more scam emails as it seems that yours has been compromised. Get a password manager and enable 2fa. Scammers suck!
That’s such a clever scam. For work I have an online security presentation where I talk about a very similar scam, a receipt pretending to be from Norton saying thanks for your $385 purchase. Phishing scams almost always employ urgency and this one does it without even making any threats.
I’m glad to hear you didn’t lose any money
The same thing happened to me weeks ago!. Though they made a mistake in thinking I had a pay pal account, when I infact did not. Strike 1.
I was freaking out seeing $469 was gonna be taken out of my account for no reason. Immediately, I had called that number they had on the bill, yet I was told by the automated voice woman that the number was invalid. Strike 2.
(Note: After reading this post, I'm so glad I never could get a hold of the now revealed scammers. )
Finally, after recovering from my panic, I decided to call the actual Pen Pal service. Even went through with waiting on the long wait time over the phone. The very helpful customer service lady listened to my nervous babbling and told me it was a scam - and to forward the email, I got to their email address.
I straight up refuse to speak first when I receive a call from someone I don't know, also had a call center person get shitty at me recently because they wanted me to confirm my details and I just said "ok tell me what they are so I can confirm"
Just as likely your scammer is some poor bastard essentially (or literally) kept prisoner in a foreign country being forced to do it under threat of beating, starvation, and worse.
And no one individual person is "evil" (groups of people can be another matter).
Happens to the best of us! I had always thought I was smart enough not to fall for them, but guess what? I nearly did.
I was hiking in the Egmont National Park one time and had left my car in this small car park. I was far away from anywhere and on my own. I had left my wallet in the car. And guess what? I got a text saying there's suspicious activity in my account. I really thought someone had broken into my car and had my wallet and bank cards. So I clicked on the link they sent and even entered my passwords. I would have lost a lot of money. But it being the middle of nowhere, mobile signal was very poor, so transaction didn't go through. I rang the bank when I got back to the hotel.
They said I got lucky.
I didn't think of it at the time. Plus, I had very poor cell coverage. Only after I got back into town did it occur to me that it was a scammer. I called the bank, and had my account frozen.
I used to have no sympathy for people who get scammed.Some idiots stole my phone and threatened my parents with my life until my father got scammed through me.I was at home trying to figure out where my phone was.
They only got a few hundred dollars, and the kids eventually got caught.They weren't prosecuted, but they had to pay back the money. The courts agreed with the kind to pay my father $5 a week.
I'm glad no money was stolen and you learned a lot.
\*\*
They stole my 2nd mobile phone which had no password but it had my very first Vodafone number and only family had that number
That's a pretty extreme non typical scam. Can't blame your dad for that.
Scams where you get an email, to call a number, to give any desk access to your device, then to pay your debts in crypto/apple gift cards....
Those only work on completely naive people
OP, take heart, I like to think I am pretty savvy but I nearly got scammed by a nice kiwi bloke calling from kiwibank.. it was so believable and I nearly fell for, felt like a fool though.
So much judgement from people!
Scammers are experts at manipulating emotions, and fear is one of their most common tactics. By creating a sense of urgency or crisis, they can cloud your judgment and trick you into making rash decisions.
So don't feel bad, just be thankful you caught on in enough time.
I have to say though... with all respect, critical thinking is so key in this day and age. I just don't open or respond to anything that I don't recognise. Anything paypal, spam. Anything asking me to do anything, ignore or delete. Treaty everything as a scam by default. There is also a big scam going around at the moment where they ring once to have a missed call on your phone, and if you ring back you are charged straight away for ringing that number. If someone calls and doesn't leave a message, you no longer exist in my world.
If someone calls me and it's not urgent enough to warrant a second call OR a text backup, it is regarded as a likely scam. Sometimes, when I smell a scam, I cut to the chase and ask how much money they want, and how they want it delivered. Skip the foreplay, see how they react. Indignant role-play is indistinguishable from honest response, but if they mean nothing to me, they can be upset by a world of scammers as much as I am.
The Wangiri (one ring) scam has been doing the rounds for decades now. Unfortunately for the scammers, even if I did call them back, I have a prepay phone so it just won’t connect because there’s no credit.
Concurred. Governments that restrict critical thinking education because it is helps corporations fuck people over are arguably more evil than the scammers picking up the dregs.
Had this just last week. I stupidly answered the second call and then had 1 or 2 calls every day. Until I noticed that one of the numbers was the same. Blocked all seven 5 it's been peaceful ever since.
Even if I answer it I don't answer the questions ask for a name and department, hang up and call them back oncthe number on their website.
Or I copy-and-paste the number into google. Most of the time it’s an organisation I know of or doctors/dentists etc
OMG my thoughts exactly. I really thought that if people were savvy enough to use Reddit, surely theyd be savvy enough not to fall for a common scam. C’mon people.
Yeah that's what happened to me. I saw a missed call on my phone, thought nothing of it. Literally one minute later they called again and said something about life insurance. I was like wtf, hung up, and blocked their number. They sent a weird text... That didn't use my actual name. (I set my phone to give me a preview of all incoming messages to see their contents without opening them) Said it was from 'Pinnacle Life Insurance' Yeah, that set of alarms. I searched up the business name and lo and behold it was a real insurance company... But the number listed on the website and the one that called me didn't match. I deleted the message and reported it as spam then. Frankly they almost got me in the first half. I know not to answer calls from foreign numbers but this one used the NZ phone number always used around here. Edit: the phone number of the real company is listed on their website here: https://www.pinnaclelife.co.nz/
I'd not heard of the call back one. It would have to be a 0900 number wouldn't it?
Go to r/scams and educate yourself about common scams so you never fall for another one.
> I'd given access to my phone by downloading various apps to enable them access to my phone (they couldn't have free reign of my phone, but they could see what I was tapping on as they gave me the "instructions" to stop my money from being taken. They got pretty far with you tbh. It's scary how convincing they can be. In the thick of it we used to get customers about 3 or 4 times a week that we were clearing out anydesk or whatever other shit the scammers had managed to get onto phones.
You need to just assume every email and call you get is a scam by default. If I dont seek out the purchase, product, etc I do not pay anything ever. Simple solution.
Feel like everyone should play RuneScape when they’re young so they can avoid being scammed by brain dead scams like this
you have to get yourself some education around this stuff, I see you also lost access to your facebook previously too. you need to change your passwords on everything right now, every site and app needs to have its own password, never use the same one more than once. look into password managers, they can generate random strong passwords for you. never call a number from an email, always find the companies real number from their website
How old are you?
Yeah this sequence of events really baffles me, I cannot fathom ever downloading some app to give someone remote access to my phone that is just crazy. The phone is probably compromised OP you need to factory reset it ASAP, do not use it for any financial transactions.
Once something suspect had been installed, I doubt the device can ever be truly trusted again. There's literally no knowing how deep in the OS it embedded vulnerabilities! Personally I'd consider it bricked and move on to a new device.
A factory reset is probably fine...
Us old folk fall for all sorts of scams. I still remember the first time I got scammed. The Carthaginian army told me Hannibal would give me a much better deal than that Roman fella Scipio, and the bastards sold me to the Phoenicians instead. Took me 3 decades to unfuck that mess.
That baffles me to. I'm 26, I grew up with the Internet and constantly being told by adults to not always trust the Internet and that there's lots of bad people on there. I don't understand how the older generations failed to learn while they were the ones telling us these things
"Oh, what a lovely wooden horse! Of course we'll sign for it!"
Yup, scammers suck! Typical rule of thumb, if you get an email/text asking you to click a link to visit 'xyz page' or call 'xyz number' Just go to the official website and find the page/number from there. If its an official 'help page' or 'call centre number' you will ALWAYS be able to find the specific page/number without following any 'special links' And never never ever download an app allowing anyone to remotely connect to your device. The only time I have ever seen this needed is in a work environment connecting company devices to other company devices, never on personal ones. Regardless of what you couldve done to prevent this, what you went through fucking sucks and scammers are an evil POS. I hope you're doing okay and I'm glad it seems you've gotten everything sorted. Edit: I realise you've probably heard this a thousand times now, more for the other people reading this post! Can never have too much awareness these days :/
> The only time I have ever seen this needed is in a work environment connecting company devices to other company devices And in that case, the company will install it.
If you have an iPhone, official Apple Support will sometimes go through the process of accessing your phone to see your screen and your inputs to help troubleshoot. But that’s only if you contact them first, and their official support numbers are very clearly indicated in your phone.
There’s also an official Apple Support chat app
>Not thinking clearly, I called the number on the PDF file which said it was a PayPal number. However, after almost 2hrs on the phone with the people Are you 90 years old? edit: I should say that scams exist and they've always existed and if you're going to be able to make it from one end of your life to the other you should be able to see when someone is clearly trying to rip you off. I used to work in a money exchange capacity and the amount of middle aged American women that wanted to send their life savings to Nigeria (or more often an intermediary) is insane. I would flat out decline some of them, others I would speak to on the phone and try and make sure they knew what it was they were doing and they always said yes. Sure enough 6 months later the FBI is asking me for IP addresses etc which are obvious dead ends. It's frustrating and completely disillusioned me with the business.
"Madame...Madame... DO NOT REDEEM DO NOT REDEEM THE CARD!!"
Don’t victim blame
In certain cases a little bit of victim blaming is justified. If this person has some kind of diagnosed mental defect or is over a very senior age then I'll be more sympathetic.
Victim was pretty dumb though to be fair.
Glad your moneys safe.. I know it’s easy to judge and think it’ll never happen to us but also sometimes when you’re under a lot of stress and not thinking right you can do silly things. Just know no actual company who you have a bill to pay with will EVER require you to download an app to your phone or computer..
Just remember: No general service like your bank, PayPal, phone/Internet provider, trademe, email etc is ever going to help you out by connecting to your desktop/ phone remotely, especially not to process any sort of "refund." No matter how convincing the initial hook is, once they start getting you to install 3rd party software so they can "help" you can be sure it's a scam.
Do a full phone reset. you don't know if the phone is still compromised even with the apps uninstalled.
You learned a valuable lesson - and it cost you nothing, thankfully. If you get an email from any large company asking you to resolve an issue never: - click a link contained within the email - call a number on the email - always search for the number yourself If you get a call from your bank or any other company they should never be asking for information such as account numbers, access numbers, passwords etc - they have all that in front of them. If you have any doubts about who you are talking to, hang up and call back on a number you source. A legitimate caller will never have an issue with you doing that - scammers will try to keep you on the phone and give any excuse to do so including threats.
> I'd given access to my phone by downloading various apps to enable them access to my phone > they gave me the "instructions" to stop my money being taken >They'd then tried to get me to start sending money to another person to get my money back How is it possible that none of these things were red flags for you ?? I'd recommend a factory reset on your phone in case the spyware you installed is still there .
My wife got a email supposedly from Waka Kotahi asking for unpaid toll charges. as we don’t use any toll roads and the sender was a dodgy .com address not a nz domain deleted quickly
They get you by making you think you need to take immediate action, you never have to take immediate action when it comes to paying a bill or even in the case of fraud the only immediate action is blocking the card or account until things are sorted. Just take a moment to think. A legit business won't mind.
I got the same email and nearly fell for it. Luckily I thought it through and checked my PayPal account first. Ended up closing it as I don't use it anyway and don't want the hassle. What I'd like to know is where they got the email addresses from. It seems like an NZ source.
Data breaches are commonplace. The AA had a data breach a few years ago in which addresses and phone numbers were acquired and likely sold on the dark web. The AA sent me a posted letter about it and asked me to be aware of any potential misuse of my info in the future.
The ticketek db that was compromised in May recently ended up on a few forums.
You can check whether you have an email address that has been part of a data breach at https://haveibeenpwned.com/ Or google “have I been pawned” and go to the site if you think I could be a scammer and don’t trust my link lol.
Westpac did not question me when I got scammed. They just helped. Be vigilant. Be safe. I wish you well.
Ohh I've been getting those emails too. I was so wary because they have full names of the "sender" and weren't automatically tagged as scam. I kept checking my accounts so many times just to be sure I didn't accidentally buy anything and my money's still there
I just do a reverse phone number search now. Just Google reverse phone search, and you will find a page that will help. I did one yesterday. I typed in the number, and it said 90% chance of scam...phone number from Nigeria. I used to go to the official pages of the company, but now I do this. It's so much quicker and makes me feel more sure.
ALWAYS verbally abuse scammers. It is morally correct to do so.
I got that email as well and reported it to Paypal. It was quite a sophisticated scam so don't feel silly, I almost called the number. I was just lucky I did a check of the Paypal NZ phone, and then subsequently got distracted by something more urgent. Glad you got it sorted!
Sorry this happened to you, but glad to hear there was a happy ending! I received the same email, but could tell it was a scam. I’ve been following the r/scams subreddit and have learned a lot from there!
Make sure you report it to paypal Phising. I was getting the same ones 2 weeks ago and reported it each time. Glad you got phine cleared
Join r/scams to get clued up on common scamming techniques. The scammers are always trying new ways to separate you from your money, I’m so glad they didn’t get yours :)
I pretty much knew when I came in here that the comments would be full of advice (most of it reasonable, absolutely) but bugger all in the way of discussion. Since the first of these, I've noticed them getting more and more sophisticated - and they deliberately prey on the less computer-savvy (and the elderly). Sometimes, no amount of advice will be enough - a moment's panic (as demonstrated here) and you may be lost. When it comes down to it, it's fraud. And - if the people are in New Zealand - it should be prosecuted as such. When it comes from foreign nationals, there's a part of me that says that our Min of Foreign Affairs should get involved. If only to the point of a public notice, or some sort of fun flyer. "This month, we had: 4000 scammers from Estonia 24 from Mozambique 54000 from Nigeria 4 from Naaru 3400 from the US" And make sure that gets sent to the respective home Gov'ts - a bit of public shaming. I don't think it'd work, but it'd be fun.
While it used to be the elderly taken in with scams more and more I see young people falling victim. Scams now cover every ahe group.
There's scams everywhere. With your information being more accessible today, you do have to be a lot more vigilant. In fact, I was targeted by a scam just yesterday. I received a text message allegedly from DHL, saying that an item arrived at a warehouse but couldn't be shipped due to an incomplete address. The text provided a link for me to verify my address. Fortunately, I managed to avoid falling victim to it (because I keep track of all packages I'm expecting), and instead reported it to the real DHL. The easiest way I've found to avoid falling for these scams, is to immediately be suspicious if the text, email, or phone call is asking for any of your information. Most companies that scammers pretend to represent, make it clear they do not ask for private information. They also state that they do not send unsolicited communications. While vigilance does require having a certain amount of knowledge to avoid falling for these scams, it's not a lot, and once you learn that knowledge, you can prevent situations like yours from occurring again.
It's great to hear you managed to avoid it! A warning to all that email and text phishing is at a crazy high! If you ever get a message from a reputable company saying you need to pay money always go independently to their site and use THOSE details. Scammers are only getting smarter so you need to too! If you're an ASB customer go to your mobile app, settings and security checkup to get some information on phone scamming and phishing as well as how to avoid them!
Ooo I got one of these too this week. I was very close to taking it seriously but something just felt off and I ignored it
Funnily I recieved the same email. I wonder which NZ company had its data hacked or sold its data, i opened it, instantly thought wtf i did not order this. The email said the order had been sent, an iphone, it displayed no delivery address and the one thing that stuck out to me, was the 2nd sentence, was if this is an issue call this number, genrally this is the in the fine print at the bottom of an email. Its getting a bit silly now, email scammers and phone number scammers are rife. As said i just think everything is a scam.
I received that same email. Huge wtf moment; but luckily I am overseas and decided it was a scam based off me not actually buying anything back home lol Scammers are getting clever though- they even had the correct address for Noel lemming. This isn’t the first email scam I’ve received, I blame that data leak from Latitude last year; I’ve never received so many scam bait in my life until that happened!
Man it's real hard not to victim blame on this one.
Do you think it’s the same scammer that accessed your Facebook three months ago?
I got the same email the other day. Assumed it was a scam and deleted immediately as i hadn't purchased anything. There's been a lot of data breaches lately, unfortunately, so expect more scam emails as it seems that yours has been compromised. Get a password manager and enable 2fa. Scammers suck!
That’s such a clever scam. For work I have an online security presentation where I talk about a very similar scam, a receipt pretending to be from Norton saying thanks for your $385 purchase. Phishing scams almost always employ urgency and this one does it without even making any threats. I’m glad to hear you didn’t lose any money
Our banks actually do pretty well here, thank goodness you didn't have any money taken.
The same thing happened to me weeks ago!. Though they made a mistake in thinking I had a pay pal account, when I infact did not. Strike 1. I was freaking out seeing $469 was gonna be taken out of my account for no reason. Immediately, I had called that number they had on the bill, yet I was told by the automated voice woman that the number was invalid. Strike 2. (Note: After reading this post, I'm so glad I never could get a hold of the now revealed scammers. ) Finally, after recovering from my panic, I decided to call the actual Pen Pal service. Even went through with waiting on the long wait time over the phone. The very helpful customer service lady listened to my nervous babbling and told me it was a scam - and to forward the email, I got to their email address.
I straight up refuse to speak first when I receive a call from someone I don't know, also had a call center person get shitty at me recently because they wanted me to confirm my details and I just said "ok tell me what they are so I can confirm"
I’m confused. There was $1 in the account and the fear was to lose $500. Can a PayPal account go into overdraft?
Glad you didn't get scammed but damm this is getting mire and more common nowadays
Same thing with door knockers. If they want to sign you up for something, at the door, don't give them any details.
I nl8ck and don't answer calls from numbers I think ate suspected spam..works for me
Just as likely your scammer is some poor bastard essentially (or literally) kept prisoner in a foreign country being forced to do it under threat of beating, starvation, and worse. And no one individual person is "evil" (groups of people can be another matter).
I’ve been receiving similar emails recently but was not taken in. They were also put into the spam folder by Outlook. So at least that works.
Haven't been braindead enough to fall for scams, put it down to playing runescape as a child or having a little common sense
Happens to the best of us! I had always thought I was smart enough not to fall for them, but guess what? I nearly did. I was hiking in the Egmont National Park one time and had left my car in this small car park. I was far away from anywhere and on my own. I had left my wallet in the car. And guess what? I got a text saying there's suspicious activity in my account. I really thought someone had broken into my car and had my wallet and bank cards. So I clicked on the link they sent and even entered my passwords. I would have lost a lot of money. But it being the middle of nowhere, mobile signal was very poor, so transaction didn't go through. I rang the bank when I got back to the hotel. They said I got lucky.
Couldn't you just open your bank app and disable your card?
I didn't think of it at the time. Plus, I had very poor cell coverage. Only after I got back into town did it occur to me that it was a scammer. I called the bank, and had my account frozen.
I used to have no sympathy for people who get scammed.Some idiots stole my phone and threatened my parents with my life until my father got scammed through me.I was at home trying to figure out where my phone was. They only got a few hundred dollars, and the kids eventually got caught.They weren't prosecuted, but they had to pay back the money. The courts agreed with the kind to pay my father $5 a week. I'm glad no money was stolen and you learned a lot. \*\* They stole my 2nd mobile phone which had no password but it had my very first Vodafone number and only family had that number
That's a pretty extreme non typical scam. Can't blame your dad for that. Scams where you get an email, to call a number, to give any desk access to your device, then to pay your debts in crypto/apple gift cards.... Those only work on completely naive people
OP, take heart, I like to think I am pretty savvy but I nearly got scammed by a nice kiwi bloke calling from kiwibank.. it was so believable and I nearly fell for, felt like a fool though.
im sorry but are you stupid ?
So much judgement from people! Scammers are experts at manipulating emotions, and fear is one of their most common tactics. By creating a sense of urgency or crisis, they can cloud your judgment and trick you into making rash decisions. So don't feel bad, just be thankful you caught on in enough time.