Fraud Squad

“If New Zealanders knew there was one central agency that could help them, we would know how big this problem really is.”

ONE CLICK AWAY

Thank you for your May cover story The Power of Persuasion, putting the spotlight on the explosion in frauds and scams, and the misery this form of crime wreaks on families. As one of the people interviewed, working in fraud investigation and prevention at the Commission for Financial Capability (CFFC), I was stoked to see you highlight the fact that no one is immune from these criminals’ increasing sophistication, and we are all just one click away from becoming their next victim. We need to shift the blame from the victims to the offenders, and acknowledging we’re all at risk will help change that mindset.

Another move that would help New Zealand victims is the establishment of a central scam agency. The splintered nature of fraud-reporting organisations makes it hard for victims to know where to turn. There’s Netsafe for online scams; CERT (the Cyber Emergency Response Team) for cyber-security fraud such as “sextortion”, blackmail, phishing and malware; the FMA (Financial Markets Authority) for investment scams; the Department of Internal Affairs for spam and (until recently) postal scams; IDCare for identity theft; telephone companies for phone scams; the police; and, for general information, Consumer Protection, Scam-watch and us.

Each organisation does a fantastic