Cold calling scam

Scammers are becoming increasing sophisticated in their approaches to deceive their victims into believing they are credible and that immediate payment is required to remedy the problem. Methods of payment can vary in the form of a bank transfer, providing credit card details, or vouchers such as iTunes.

Cold calling anyone in the world is reasonably inexpensive due to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls which delivers voice communications over the Internet. Localised telephone numbers can be sourced to look like the caller is based in NZ or through the use of the technology to spoof (impersonate) the caller ID number.

There are varying types of techniques used by scammers to impersonate an authority to either pressure or entice their victim and commonly misrepresent themselves as the following:

• Immigration Department
• Tax Department
• Technical Support or PC Repair Company
• Telecommunications Provider
• Internal Affairs

Look for the signs of cold calling scams and their associated behaviour which may include:

• Always be alert to blocked or unknown telephone numbers on your caller display before answering the call
• Beware of any requests made over the phone for your financial details and/or personal details
• Identify the unreasonable demand for you to make immediate payment whilst remaining on the call
• Do not comply with any request for someone on the phone to have you install software to give them full access to your computer

• Scam alerts

  Be aware of recent scams and learn more about how scams work.

• Case studies

  Stories to show how different types of scams work.