Toll road SMS scams are rampant
A client recently mentioned to me they had been caught up in a toll road SMS scam. Now the back story is the client was terribly busy with work and was also dealing with a family bereavement at that time. The combination of being both busy and stressed made them vulnerable to the scam. Having been on a toll road my client’s initial reaction was they had not paid the toll when they had and, of course, they followed the links embedded in the SMS message. Further stress and chaos ensued.
But I would never…? Would I?
I remember thinking my client’s circumstances were unique and that I would always be able to readily detect when I was being subject to a scam and therefore, could not fall victim to one. While I have not fallen victim to a fraud, I could easily have done so given the sequence of events that unfolded a couple of days ago when I managed to lose my VISA card while I was out running. Why did I have a VISA card in my pocket while out exercising? That is a whole different story.
Locking it down
Anyway, upon realising the card and me were no longer together, I locked the card via the bank’s mobile app and let the bank know my card had gone missing and that a replacement card would be required. And if that’s where things had ended…so would this story.
The fraud department to the rescue….not
The very next day I was on my way to a meeting when I received a call from a New Zealand cell number. I normally won’t pick up a call from a cell number I don’t recognise, so it was unusual that I decided to take the call. It was a robo-call purporting to be from VISA’s fraud department telling me there was suspicious activity on my VISA account. How helpful! I immediately recognised the call for what it was, hung up and went into the meeting I had to attend.
When I emerged from the meeting I retrieved the scam cell phone number from my call log, reported that to Netsafe, to One NZ and to the bank who said they would elevate it to their fraud department https://netsafe.org.nz/reportanincident/ (more details on how to do this below)
Some people wouldn’t be so lucky
My professional background should mean I am well placed to make an informed assessment about a robo-call from scammers alleging to represent VISA’s fraud department. However, for some in our community the combination of losing their credit card and a scam call from the fraud department the very next day wouldn’t raise any alarm bells. It subsequently could have resulted in them doing things which could cause a significant degree of emotional and financial strain, at least temporarily.
Returning to the case of my client, which is where this tale began, that individual is a very astute professional. It was the confluence of having driven on a toll road and the stress of a remarkably busy workload and a family bereavement that led them to make the wrong decision in respect of an SMS message fraud. The same circumstances could have easily prevailed for somebody else with respect to a credit card loss and a coincidental robo-call about suspicious card activity.
Staying safe online
While these scams might seem to be easy to spot if you are financially literate, scams are becoming more and more successful all the time. All it takes is for a particular set of circumstances to prevail – busyness and stress are two key ones and suddenly you can find yourself treating a fraudulent call as being legitimate. It is conceivable that sometime soon we could be familiar with having a real time conversation with an AI generated synthetic scammer cloning the voice of someone we do trust in the real world – it’s called voice cloning, and it’s already out there. (If openAI can do it to Scarlett Johansson then scammers are not far behind.)
An excellent way to stay up to date with new scams (because they are forever inventing new ones) is to follow Netsafe online – @netsafenz on Instagram, Facebook, X and LinkedIn. They regularly shine a light on all sorts of scams and fraudulent activities. And helpfully Netsafe operates in concert with several other organisations with an interest in lowering the incidence of scams and delivering a safer digital world for all New Zealanders. That and maybe go easy on the exercise!
