Netsafe is a charity and not-for-profit, operating for 45 years.  It gets some funding from government, such as from the Ministry of Justice in reference to the Harmful Digital Communications Act in terms of ‘awful but lawful’ acts by individuals. Abuse and bullying are awful, but largely lawful. Netsafe also gets funding from the Ministry of Education to deliver tools and resources to teachers.

It provides a Helpline where individuals can report any kind of online harm including child sexual material, sharing nudes without consent, mis and dis information, privacy breaches, data breaches and so on. Advice, support, education, and in some cases, the ability to intervene are where Netsafe can help.  The latter is when it can sometimes reach out to the person performing the harm to try and provide some negotiation to resolve harm.

Last year Netsafe received 28 000 reports – 15 000 were about scams and involved NZ$22 million that had been lost, but this is minor compared to estimated harm (as becomes evident further on in the presentation).

Netsafe’s Mission is to support people in Aotearoa to have safe and positive online experiences. There is so much that is positive about the internet. Online shopping became so much easier, digital diaries are so useful. But Netsafe needs to educate us about the risks.

A scam is when someone tricks you into giving them your money, your personal information, financial information or something valuable such as your Paypal or crypto account – usually by pretending to be someone they’re not or by offering something that isn’t real, such as money or goods or services.

There are six dimensions of scams:

·      Target – you are easy to find if you are on social media.

·      Contact method – most common methods used to target New Zealander is by phone, text and email.

·      Method – investment scam, online shopping scam, romance scam. Different age groups and genders are targeted using different methods.

·      Payment – payment by cash, debit card, crypto account, gift card, Paypal account.

·      Status – how recoverable are the funds.

·      Consent – was the payment authorized or unauthorized. Last year in December, banks introduced a system called Confirmation of Payee which is used by the banks to try to reduce the number of payments to someone different from that you expect. They look up the account number to see who it is registered to and check that it matches the name of the payee that you have input.

The Size of the Problem

·      Scams are the most common crime type with US$ 1.3 trillion globally.

·      Half of the world will encounter a scam this week.

·      Only 4% of global scam victims are able to recover their losses.

·      70% of scams are from scam compounds run by organized crime networks (many are in Southeast Asia).

There are around 300 000 people in these compounds who use ChatGPT to ensure there are no spelling mistakes, no grammatical errors, and who share methods (a playbook of scripts of how to successfully scam people).

These people are often victims themselves, recruited through a scam which has advertised a job, only to find that when they arrive at the place of ‘work’ they are imprisoned, tortured, and their passports are stolen. They have KPIs of scams to achieve or they are punished. But even if they are not imprisoned, they stay because they cannot find other work. This is why the scale of scamming has grown so massively.

For New Zealanders, data shows that:

·      23% have lost money in a scam in last 12 months.

·      60% encounter a scam at least once a month, through SMS or email or phone  

·      60% do not report, either because they don’t know who to report to (there are several organisations that operate in the scam space), or they know that the police are not resourced to investigate overseas-based scams, or they feel ashamed to admit being scammed.

·      NZ$3 billion lost to scams is the real cost to NZ.

Common types of scams in NZ

Online shopping scams are the most common and Facebook marketplace is the worst. The second most common are unsolicited money scams eg you have won a prize, click on this link and give us your payment details.  The third most common is investment scams.  Online shopping scams are high volume, low value, while investment scams are low volume, but high value, so are devastating as a result.

There has been a significant rise in two scam types – employment scams, which contact you suggesting you can earn good money working from home, but you find that you have so to spend or invest to get a salary back.

The other increasingly common scam is a sextortion scam, with a 230% rise, which is most likely to target young men, aged 13-17, who are likely to be persuaded to share nude pictures.

They are contacted through Instagram or a similar social media format, with initially something like ‘Hey, I know people at your school, are you friends with ….’ and after a bit of to and fro’, there is a message like ‘let’s share nudes, here’s one of me’ (generated through AI or taken from the internet), then a ransom demand ‘pay me thousand dollars or I’ll share your nude with all your contacts, as I’ve downloaded your contact list’.

Myths about Scams

·      There is a view that scams should be easy to spot – they’re not, spelling and grammar are no longer indications of a scam, and the scammers are sharing what works. We should normalize falling scams as everyone does.

·      Public education will solve everything – this is not true, as the problem is that the scam type and method changes very quickly. Three years ago there was a handful of sextortion scams, now 10 a day are being reported.

·      Only older people fall for scams – it is true that older people are targeted as they have more disposable income, are more trusting and polite and they want to please, making them at risk. But younger people are also targeted. The average loss by an older person is $6000, while a young person’s average loss is $1800.

·      They are only after your money – this is partly true, but they also want your address, phone number, email address, passport number, driver’s license number, social media details.

Once they have personal information, they can create identity theft such creating fake social media accounts in your name, open new loans and credit cards – it is more difficult to do this here in NZ but they can easily do this overseas. They can also use your details to access your contacts to attempt to scam them. If they can access your bank account, they may use it as a mule account for money laundering.

·      All scammers are based overseas – this is mostly true but there are also scammers within NZ. Whether overseas or not, scammers are using NZ businesses and NZ personalities to perpetrate the harm eg purporting to be from NZ Post and saying you need to pay money to collect a parcel, or that you owe money to Waka Kotahi, or asking you to invest with Christopher Luxon / Winston Peters.

 Older people are commonly targeted for:

·      Investment Scams – look out for those offering high returns, or where there is very little info in writing, or limited time of availability (urgency to make the decision), or open to limited number of people or for someone who is cold-calling you (cold calls by investment brokers is illegal). Tips – investigate the provider, check reviews, verify the legal name (registered with ), ring up the contact details. Watch out for the secondary scammer – the person offering to help you recover your money

·      Romance Scams – tips – urgency ‘I need money, only way out is a helicopter, please send money, secrecy ‘don’t tell your family’, changes in the communication style – there are likely to be many different people who are contacting you, pretending to be one person, unwilling to meet in person or unwilling to Facetime or Zoom, however scammers are now using AI to create video or audio. Watch out for a wrong number call to build a relationship.

·      Spoofing, Phishing and Smishing Scams – spoofing is where the scammer can make it look like they are calling from a legitimate number or emailing from a legitimate email address, masking real number or email. Phishing occurs using email, while Smishing uses SMS or text. Tips: If you have been spoofed, phished or smished, block the number on your cellphone and on email report it as ‘junk’ so your email platform will learn it is a scammer. If you have clicked on a link you need to scan your computer or other device for malware. There are free malware checkers available if you google. If you have paid money, ring the bank – it may not be too late to stop the payment.

·      Online shopping Scams – you may think you have responded to the offer by clicking on the link to take you to a NZ business’ website, but you will have gone to the scammer’s website and you’ve just handed over your card details to them. Tips: Instead of clicking on the link, verify the seller by putting the name of the business into your browser. Use a protected payment method – using crypto or gift cards to pay are not, and if you select friends and family on your Paypal account, there is no protection. Hyperlinks are very high risk. Don’t share financial details direct into a website or direct into an email.

·      Grandparent scam – this is when an email or text or AI generated audio phone call using your grandchild’s voice or likeness has something like: ‘Grandma I urgently need $200, don’t tell mum or dad’. Secrecy is a red flag, as is urgency, and if you get to the stage of making the payment, it is likely the payment method will be unusual.

Red flags that you should consider to help avoid being scammed:

·      Unexpected contact

·      Technical issues such as ‘this is Windows Support, there is a problem with your laptop so give me access so I can fix it remotely’

·      Password request from the bank – they will never do this

·      Asking you to verify your driver’s license or passport number

·      Trying to take you off platform eg away from TradeMe’s messaging system or asking you to pay by unusual methods

·      Upfront payment in order to get a reward, eg asking you to pay a deposit for something you have organized to buy

·      Family member rings asking for money which could be generated by AI so ask for visual call eg Facetime or Zoom

·      Untraceable payment methods eg Paypal (if you have selected ‘friends and family’ there is no recourse) or crypto or gift cards

 Further Tips:

·      Check a website to see if it is legit, you can use a Netsafe product “Spot a Scam”

·      Check whether your email address has been sold by going to:

www.haveibeenpwned.com

If you have been scammed – stop any further payment, contact your bank to secure your account, block your card (can usually do this from your phone), report the scam (police, Netsafe at netsafe.org.nz, ID Care NZ), collect evidence of the scam so you can share it with whichever organisation you report to, change passwords, add 2-factor or multi-factor authentication to verify identity.

Questions:

Isn’t Paypal a safe payment method? – not if you enable ‘friends and family’.

What Netsafe products can we use? - ReScam is a email bot, you can forward your email to this bot which will keep the scammer busy, so you should not get more emails from them.

When you buy online you are often taken to a ‘secure payment system’ – how can you tell if it is secure? You could google the most common secure payment systems.

I bought something recently using Fishpond after not using it for some years, only to find that my most recent credit card details popped up, how safe is that? Depends who has saved your details – is it your device or google or is Fishpond.