Email and phone calls scams to cost up to USD 0.5 bln per year – Westpac report

According to Westpac NZ’s head of financial crime and security, in the last 12 months, the bank’s financial crime team has prevented more than USD 22 million of fraud from occurring. Moreover, most fraudulent activities go unreported, thus New Zealanders may be losing up to USD 500 million each year to cybercrime and scams run through email, phone calls, text, mail, and door knocks.

The survey of 1003 people aged 18+, found that people were most worried about fraud when using their cards online (44%), followed by sharing their card details over the phone (18%), and when overseas (10%). Other findings in the survey show that when it came to those most susceptible to scams or fraudulent transactions, 30% considered their parents to be most at risk, followed by grandparents on 26%.

These results highlight the growing importance for customers to keep their information, such as usernames, passwords and banking PIN numbers, safe.