[ad_1]
Police are warning landline users of an increase in the number of people being scammed by phone scammers out of thousands of dollars.
Three Auckland men, ages 20-30, were charged in connection with alleged money laundering after an 84-year-old victim lost nearly $ 10,000 after receiving a phone call from someone pretending to be from Spark.
According to the police, the way it works is that the caller manipulates the victim into unknowingly allowing him remote access to his computer and bank account. Detective Sergeant Bridget Doell says the scammers are likely locals working for an offshore entity.
“There are a variety of ways that people are scammed and it is generally the same method, probably globally. People are contacted through their phones, primarily landline numbers, and we believe from some research that we’ve done it in the past, mostly from overseas scammers, and they managed to manipulate callers into accessing their computer through a TeamViewer application that gives them access to their accounts. And that’s where it starts. “
An example of the scam is that people are told that if they do not give access to their computer to fix their email, they will lose all access to the email.
“They pretend to be from big name companies, Microsoft, Spark … They use a dialing app, so they probably just call many, many random numbers in New Zealand.”
Often the victims are the most vulnerable, the elderly, who are at home during the day and still have landline numbers.
“They claim they are from Spark and need to click on a TeamViewer application. Once the scammer guides them to that … and that gives them access to the computer and access to their accounts.
“The victims who have been called do not realize that this is really the case and money begins to flow from their accounts on the online computer.”
Detective Doell said earlier this year that someone lost up to $ 250,000.
“If anyone doubts a phone call you have, or if someone guides you to open an application on your computer. Just don’t do it. No one will ask or call you to do so.”
