A woman who tried to send $30,000 to a fake boyfriend in the United States refused to believe bank staff who told her she had been scammed.

The woman tried to make the transfer via BNZ earlier this year.

Staff questioned her about what the money was for and she eventually revealed it was so her boyfriend, whom she had met on the internet, could come to New Zealand.

“The customer had unfortunately fallen victim to a relationship scam. She had started an internet relationship with a man who she believed was the head surgeon in a hospital in Kabul,” said BNZ head of financial crime Ashley Kai Fong.

“She provided a faked letter purporting to be from the United Nations demanding a payment of $30,000 to secure a new surgeon to replace him and to pay for his travel out of Afghanistan so that he could come and live with her in New Zealand.

“The customer even had a photo of the man, but unfortunately it was found through a google image search to be a plastic surgeon working on the west coast of the United States.”

She did not believe bank staff who tried to tell her she was being scammed and continue to transfer money to the scammer. The bank applied lower transfer limits to her account to try to stem the losses.

“These scams are meticulously built over many months, with the scammer creating what feels like a totally genuine and real relationship and strong emotional bond with their victim before they pull off the scam itself,” Kai Fong said.

“We presented her all the facts, and she just didn’t want to accept it. In her mind, and in her heart, this was a genuine relationship. She so intently believed in the relationship that our facts didn’t register with her.

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“This is sadly all too common with relationship scams. Even when we do get a good result and the customer accepts they’ve been duped, the emotional fallout is intense – it feels every bit as real as a breakup and their lives are turned upside down. There are ongoing repercussions in their lives and with subsequent relationships with others.”

He said people who were caught out by relationship scams tended to be vulnerable and looking for companionship. “It doesn’t take too much for somebody who is feigning some interest to gain the trust of that person. In all honesty, it’s quite heart-breaking.”

Scam victims had often been socially engineered, he said, and customers would sometimes lie to avoid questions.

New research from BNZ shows that nearly 80 per cent of New Zealanders have been targeted by a scam and nearly a quarter have been a victim. The bank is running a Scam Savvy Week, from Monday until Friday.

The research also reveals that one in five New Zealanders believe organisations aren’t doing enough to keep their personal information safe.

Kai Fong said, with the country in lockdown, more people were online and there was an increased risk of falling victim to scams.

“Lockdowns create a unique opportunity for scammers. They’re not only mimicking missed online deliveries but also offering expedited Covid tests and vaccinations for a fee. These are a depraved and hideous scam that prey on people’s uncertainty, worry, and heightened stress levels.

“Remember, there is no cost to get a jab or a test. They are free and always will be. If you receive an email like this, report it to Cert NZ and if you’re unsure if its legitimate or not, ring Healthline.”

“Everyone knows there’s no such thing as a get rich quick scheme..."

Kai Fong said the bank was seeing a rise in the role of cryptocurrencies in investment scams, and nearly a third of people under the age of 44 had been targeted by a crypto scam.

“Everyone knows there’s no such thing as a get rich quick scheme, but this year we’ve all seen the stories about crazy crypto valuations and it’s starting to affect people’s judgement.

“In that context, otherwise outlandish claims of huge returns that would normally be filtered out, now seem almost plausible. We’re seeing people promised huge double or even triple digit returns for crypto investing.

“But instead of a clever new investment product delivering them riches at the other end, there’s a scammer taking their money and giving them nothing in return,” he said.

Cryptocurrencies were also beginning to show up in other scams as the scammers rely on its anonymity and lack of regulation to extract stolen money.

“We’re now seeing scammers make direct transfers to cryptocurrency exchange services from victims accounts. At that point the money is as good as gone, quickly transferred on market to a traceless cryptocurrency like bitcoin, and then transferred on again to a totally unidentifiable ‘wallet’ elsewhere in the world, where the scammer can easily and cleanly transfer it back into a currency of their choice,” he said.

Other common scam types were remote access scams and scams masquerading as government services.

Kai Fong said people should be sceptical of anything that seemed suspicious. Any messages that came out of the blue with a sense of urgency should make people wary. “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”

The sooner people reported a scam, the more likely they were to get their money back, he said.