Man says watch buy was a scam
Wainuiomata man John Carter has been shopping online for over a decade and says this is the first time he has fallen foul of what he describes as a ‘‘pretty bad scam’’ preying on the elderly.
Last month Carter, 68, saw an advert on MSN New Zealand for OshenWatch, described on the watch seller’s website as a heart monitor and a fitness tracker, with Bluetooth.
On May 26, he bought a discounted watch for $49 but instead was charged $207.96 for it. He had not yet received the watch, and had been unable to contact the company.
‘‘The watch is advertised as being able to do an ECG graph of your heart. It’s much more convenient to do on your phone than wait for an ambulance if you have a heart attack, so it’s really preying on the elderly this one,’’ Carter said.
‘‘They don’t send you a receipt for your purchase, and then they withdraw pretty much anything they want out of your account.
‘‘I’ve been buying things online for the last decade and I’ve never had any trouble with the financial transactions.’’
He searched online and saw other people complaining about being hugely overcharged when they bought an OshenWatch, and not receiving the watch.
He was told that Kiwibank could not stop the transaction, even though it was alerted about the scam in advance, and he had to wait 10 days before it could dispute the withdrawal.
KiwiBank spokeswoman Kara Tait said the bank could not do anything until a credit card issuer completed an authorisation process, which could take up to 10 days.
The issuer could cancel a transaction, if it was suspicious, at any time during the authorisation period.
If the bank refunded a customer’s money before the 10-day period was up, the issuer could then cancel the transaction so the customer not only did not make the payment but also received a refund, she said.
After 10 days, the bank could contact a customer and begin to resolve the dispute.
Netsafe chief executive Martin Cocker said there had been no flags raised about MSN NZ, a news aggregator website that carried advertising.
‘‘They do have processes in place to detect fraudulent traders or people who are known to be scammers, but we do see a few scamming ads get through.’’
There had been a 30 per cent jump in scams in general reported during lockdown, he said.
‘‘You really do have to exercise caution at all times when you’re operating online, especially when you’re doing any trading, because it is very easy to create something which is fake but looks real,’’ Cocker said.
Scams and fraud online were not
‘‘Clearly at the point at which you’re paying for anything online it’s good to do your research, especially if it’s not a place you’ve traded with before.’’ Martin Cocker Netsafe chief executive
always easy to spot, he said.
‘‘Banks can be very good at refunding credit cards when there is no fault, if someone got hold of the cardholder’s information and made a transaction. But where people deliberately make payment, banks are reasonably less sympathetic. So if you purchased a watch online from a scam site, you as the purchaser were in charge of every part of that transaction.’’