Spark warns of scam after Northland customer's suspicious call from 'polite lady with a Kiwi accent'

A Northland man was quick to realise a phone call he received purportedly from Spark was a scam and he's urging others to be careful.

When an elderly Northland man received a phone call from a "polite lady with a Kiwi accent" saying he was behind with the Spark bill and risked being cut off he was worried.

The 83-year-old, who did not want to be named, said he has a Medic Alert on his landline and thought he could be at risk if the phone was cut off so thought he'd better pay the bill.

But something didn't quite smell right so he hung up, suspecting it could be a scam, and so it proved. He's now warning others about this latest scam.

"The funny thing was that if they had a foreign accent I would have suspected straight away that it was scam. But she had a Kiwi accent and sounded totally plausible," he said.

"I thought if it was Spark they'd ring back, so when she didn't I contacted Spark and they told me it's a scam. She sounded so convincing, but there was just something suspicious about the whole thing and I had to think twice about it, which is why I hung up on her."

The phone scam is one of several doing the rounds at the moment.

In a statement to the Northern Advocate, Spark said over recent years there had been an increase in scammers pretending to be from well-known companies like Spark and trying to trick or intimidate people into handing over personal information, or allowing access to their personal computers.

"These fraudsters often monitor corporate activity and mimic their methods of communication, so it can be difficult for customers to tell the difference between what's genuine and fake.

"The most important things to remember is that Spark will never call customers out of the blue to ask for personal details like bank account, credit card, or internet banking details, request access to your personal computer or laptop, tell you you've been hacked, or threaten to disconnect your broadband.

"If you receive an unexpected call from someone claiming to be from Spark who asks for something of this nature, end the call immediately. If you think you may have handed over personal information to a scammer, be sure to phone your bank immediately. If you think you've received a scam call, you can report it to us by emailing scamhelp@spark.co.nz and we will work to verify the scam and block the offending numbers."