Diana Clement: Lessons I learned in 2023

In 2023, Diana Clement wrote articles about everything from the cost of Costco, to how banks fail to protect customers from scams. Photo / Jed Bradley

Personal finance isn’t a hamster wheel with the same stories coming around and around. There is some of that. But every year there are new concepts, new takes on the tried and tested, and new jaw-dropping moments.

In 2023 I wrote articles about everything from the cost of Costco, to how banks fail to protect customers from scams.

Let’s start with Costco. Back in January myself and three friends jumped in the car and headed west to the bright lights of Costco. The biggest shock was that one of my friends, who we’d only called en route to the west Auckland store, spent a staggering $900. What I found personally is that most of the items I wanted to put in my trolley were actually more expensive than at Pak’nSave. The few that were cheap, such as cheddar cheese, were produced overseas, and I’d rather support New Zealand food producers. The other thing I learned from that article is don’t criticise people’s toilet paper choices. Sure toilet paper is cheaper at Pak’nSave. Readers told me: “hands off our toilet paper”. Kiwis really like wiping their bums with Kirkland three-ply.

Another eye-opener this year was how remiss our banks are in protecting customers from scams. I’ve been aware for a long time that New Zealand banks don’t match the payee name with the account when we make payments, which is standard practice in countries such as the United Kingdom. If the bank account name doesn’t match the person or organisation you think you’re paying, the payment will be stopped, saving many a potential scam victim. When I asked Payments NZ why it had ditched a trial of matching here, I was blown away by the Kafkaesque explanations. Matching was a side angle to the article I was writing, so most of the interaction didn’t see the light of day. Six months later, I’m still speechless.

For the record my colleague Lane Nicols has done some great work this year highlighting how poorly the banks treat scam victims. More of his articles can be found here: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/author/lane-nichols/

Another eye-opener for me on the fraud/scam front this year was how artificial intelligence [AI] facilitates scammers. Bad actors need just a few minutes of a voice recording on social media or elsewhere, to mimic someone’s voice using AI. I watched one video where a journalist listened to his father being fooled that computer-generated voice was his son’s. One mother told CBS News that she picked up the phone to hear the voice of her 15-year-old daughter crying: “Mum, these bad men have me. Help me, help me, help me.” The girl was safely tucked up in bed at home, however. Had she been away somewhere, the mother could have been fooled into paying a ransom.