Telephone scammer steals $20,000

An elderly Kapiti Coast man has been fleeced of $20,000 by scammers who claimed to be telephone company technicians.

The 79-year-old from Waikanae was phoned out of the blue last Wednesday morning by a man who claimed to be a Spark technician and asked for remote access to his computer to fix his connections.

The Waikanae man said he spent several hours talking to them, and did not give them any passwords.

However, he did provide a BNZ Netguard number, which is used as a security question to access bank accounts.

The callers asked him to leave the phone off the hook and leave the computer on. It continued to be operated remotely, until he became suspicious about 11pm on Wednesday.

He then discovered about $20,000 had been transferred from his account, and called BNZ and police.

‘‘They were very technical, and quite professional. They knew what they were talking about,’’ he said.

‘‘ They downloaded and did systems updates and all sorts of things.’’

Banking staff stopped the access to his accounts, but he was locked out of his computer, and the scammers continued to use it.

They also called him back six or seven times after the money went missing, with further questions.

‘‘I was brassed off. I told them to bugger off.’’

A Kapiti police staff member who helped the man said she was concerned about the psychological effect of such scams on the elderly, as well as the financial impact.

‘‘ He’s really shaken up by the whole thing. It’s really hard to see.

‘‘He put on a very brave face [when he came in to report it], but he didn’t get any sleep.’’

Kapiti Grey Power president Duncan McDonald said he and other members received several similar

calls every month. Losing such a large sum of money would probably affect the man’s quality of living for the rest of his life.

Senior Sergeant Anita Dixon, of Kapiti, said it appeared the money could not be recovered, and any question of whether the bank would compensate the man would depend on the bank’s discretion.

‘‘The window of opportunity to stop international transactions is between one to three hours.

‘‘The offenders are internationals, so the most police can do is send out a crime prevention message and hope potential victims in our community hear it.’’

She stressed that passwords and sensitive personal details should never be given to any caller or in reply to emails, no matter how legitimate the communication seemed.

Spark spokeswoman Lucy Fullarton said the company was concerned about the scam, and put out regular public alerts whenever it resurfaced.

‘‘These guys are really convincing, and that’s why they are cheating people,’’ she said.

‘‘The only long-term solution is for people to be aware that this is happening.’’

Fullarton said callers had indicated the scammers had claimed to also represent other phone companies.

Consumer New Zealand researcher Jessica Wilson said it was up to each bank whether it would compensate victims, but in a similar recent case the bank had ‘‘stepped up’’.

‘‘We expect them to take this issue seriously and help their customers.

‘‘ Particularly where customers have contacted them early on.’’