1 Aug 2023

Scams, your bank and you: who should pay?

From Nine To Noon, 9:05 am on 1 August 2023

Nine to Noon looks at the rise of online financial fraud and whether banks could be doing more to protect their customers' losses.

Millions are being siphoned off unsuspecting Kiwis each year  - the latest report from the government's Computer Emergency Response Team or CERT - put financial losses at nearly $6 million in the first three months of the year.

That's a 66 per cent jump on the first quarter of last year - and likely an underestimate of what's really going on, due to under-reporting.

But what's happening if you're a victim of a scam? How likely are you to be able to recover your money and what role does - or should - your bank play in that?

The banks have been criticised by Consumer NZ for failing to provide better protection for their customers, as technology increases the sophistication of the swindle.

Kathryn speaks to Consumer's chief executive Jon Duffy about whether the New Zealand Code of Banking Practice is enough to protect Kiwi bank users from a good con.

Also Bronwyn Groot, who knows exactly how good the scammers are. She sees it everyday in her work as an anti-scam consultant for QRisk, and before that she was Fraud Education Manager at the Commission for Financial Capability and penned a book called The Little Black Book of Scams, which has just been republished through Netsafe.

Photo: 123RF