Catfish Casanovas, fake extortion and blackmail scams on the rise: PI says lonely women vulnerable

Romance scammers are cashing in more than ever before, a cybersecurity agency says. Phishing scams target the naive, and catfishing scams target the lonely. Photo / Herald montage, 123RF

Lonely people, including wealthy middle-aged women, are increasingly falling for scams, a private investigator says.

Government cybersecurity agency Cert NZ today revealed financial losses reported from scams have leapt to an all-time annual record of $20 million.

The real number is likely to be much higher due to the under-reporting of scams.

“Mainly it’s financial and romantic, hand in hand, really a huge amount,” private investigator Julia Hartley Moore said of scams she’d recently been made aware of.

She said one woman recently said “I’m not going to live long” when explaining why she was so desperate to get romantically involved with somebody she’d met online.

The woman blamed loneliness for getting duped online and Hartley Moore says she was shocked when asking about the scam victim’s age.

“I thought she must be 99. She said 52. They’re desperate to find someone.”

Hartley Moore said it was increasingly common for wealthy middle-aged people to send money to shady characters met online.

“It’s a sob story. I don’t know what’s happening to New Zealand... They’re desperate to find someone.”

Some scam victims would downplay their losses, telling the investigator they only sent “a little bit” of money.

“By the time this comes to light they’ve already done so much damage to themselves,” Hartley Moore added.

Cert NZ said its latest annual summary showed reports were down slightly on the previous year, but financial losses jumped up 19 per cent to $20m.

That increase was mostly due to a spike in the third quarter.

Cert NZ director Rob Pope said the amount lost to online scams and fraud was especially worrying.

He said the agency received almost 2,300 reports about scams and fraud last year.

The decrease in overall reports was due to a huge decline (88 per cent) in reports of malware.

But the top three scam categories were all increasingly common.

Those three types were phishing and credential harvesting, scams and fraud, and unauthorised access.

“In fact, when malware is excluded from total reporting counts there is a 15 per cent increase in reports from 2021,” Pope added.

There were no large-scale campaigns targeting New Zealanders, such as 2021′s ambitious Flubot courier text scam.

“However, we did see smaller campaigns, such as unauthorised money transfer scams, that targeted individuals for large losses,” Pope said.

In last year’s third quarter, Kiwis reported losses of $7.9m to scams and fraud. The average loss was $11,367.

There was also an increase in fake extortion and blackmail scams reported to Cert NZ, and the agency said it received a new report roughly every three days.

Across the entire year, unauthorised money transfers were the most lucrative scam category, causing $5.9m in reported losses.

A flurry of scams have this week targeted customers of ASB, SBS and Kiwibank.

Some of the scams hope to exploit the rising popularity of term deposits.

Chris Walsh, CEO of investment comparison site Money Hub, said the scams arrived as interest rates for term deposits rose from 1 per cent or 1.5 per cent to 6 per cent.

Walsh said the latest rackets often stemmed from people looking online for the best term deposits.

“They will see a Google ad and they will put in their details.”

Then they get a phone call from someone making an offer.

“People do have $100k in their bank account, $800k and they are interested and because someone sounds nice on the phone they believe it,” Walsh added.

“But also they are being told, we need copies of your passport, we need to make sure your ID checks out, and so they are giving away all this information.”

Walsh said many scam victims lived rurally or had sold an asset, which meant they had money in the bank.

But he said normal retail banks did not call up asking people if they wanted to invest in a term deposit.

Walsh said term deposit scams were attractive for fraudsters because they often involved big sums of money handed over in one hit.

- Additional reporting by Tamsyn Parker

FOR HELP:

Cert NZ: Individuals, small businesses can report a cyberattack, get advice: www.cert.govt.nz

Financial Markets Authority: https://www.fma.govt.nz/scams/

Privacy Commissioner: Complaints about privacy breaches. 0800 803 909 or privacy.org.nz/your-rights/making-a-complaint/

ID fraud: Department of Internal Affairs advice: dia.govt.nz/Identity - Are-you-a-victim-of-identity-theft

IDCare: Backed by the Ministry of Justice and its counterpart in Australia. Assistance freezing your credit record, regaining control of your online identity after an ID theft: idcare.org

Netsafe: Report online bullying, hate speech, dangerous content: netsafe.org.nz

NZ Police: Report cybercrime online scams, online child safety issues: police.govt.nz/advice-services/cybercrime-and-internet

Dept of Internal Affairs: Report spam, banned content, child exploitation: dia.govt.nz/About-the-Digital-Safety-Group