The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) published a report regarding an increase in scams towards investors in the country. Most of the scammers target consumers, while pretending to be respectable businesses operating in New Zealand.
With COVID-19 triggering a boom for online business and e-commerce activities online, scammers have treated the digital space as a hunting ground for targeting individuals and companies. Their efforts are aided by the fact that business registration data is available publicly online – meaning that the scammers can better impersonate legitimate companies as they conduct their attacks.
Most of these scams are done through website phishing attacks, email, social media, or phone calls. Victims are lured via a link that directs them to a bogus website, which in turn steals all of the victim’s email passwords. The scammers then start to observe email exchanges and try to infiltrate communications, posing as either side of the conversation in an attempt to manipulate invoices to their advantage.
From 1 April to 5 November this year, the FMA released 61 warnings, with data highlighting many of these scams where a legitimate business is impersonated via social media accounts and fake websites. Investment scams surrounding cryptocurrency and investment software were also widespread. Men are more susceptible to scams than women, and people over 70 years old are more commonly approached by scammers.
The FMA advised investors to remain sceptical of investment schemes, and to look out for certain discrepancies when evaluating proposals. These may include inconsistent data concerning website addresses or phone numbers.