International Fraud Awareness Week resources

Personal Banking
#1

It’s the final day of International Fraud Awareness Week and what a week it has been! We’ve informed you about NZBA’s new guide to keeping safe from online scams as well as sharing our top tips for PIN security. We’ve also shared information on how to stay safe when shopping and banking online and how to avoid phishing scams To finish off the week we’re going to share some of the best places you can go to get current information regarding scams.

First and foremost, the forum you’re in right now is the perfect place to find out what’s happening with the latest scams. If there’s anything you can do to keep the crooks at bay, we will share our tips with you here on the BNZ Community!

For further information on scams check out these websites:
www.scamwatch.govt.nz
www.netsafe.org.nz
www.cert.govt.nz
www.police.govt.nz
www.ageconcern.org.nz

Lastly, make sure you tune back in from Monday 27 November to Friday 1 December as it’s Cyber Smart Week and we’ll be posting some really beneficial information on cyber awareness!

In the meantime, if you think you may have been taken in by a banking scam you should contact BNZ immediately on 0800 ASK BNZ (275 269) or +64 4 924 0499 as soon as possible.

#2

A new trick almost caught me out last night: a phone call from ‘BNZ INSURANCE’ at 8:15 p.m.! I told the caller
that I would prefer if he called me a bit later, just before 9 p.m. He never called, and also had his caller-ID suppressed (making it an anonymous call).

Next morning I checked: Neither BNZ INSURANCE nor BNZ had any record of anyone calling me.

As you’ll know, BNZ make automated calls to check if you were happy with the BNZ Call-Centre’s service. These calls are generated by a computer For obvious reasons they do not transmit a caller-ID.

Who else makes anonymous calls? Many market research companies and - at election time - political parties.
Apart from them? Probably people/organisations who want to stay anonymous…

Tom Butz

#5

Today’s NZ Herald wrote about an ANZ customer’s plight: lots
of money was taken out of his VISA-card while/after he was in Australia.

The following could be interesting for many VISA-cardholders:

  1. No Internet Banking is possible without the secret number printed on the back of the card.

  2. Payments/withdrawals do not require this secret number but either the PIN-number (not printed on the card) or a signature. BTW, Singapore requires both and the signature goes on the docket (belt-and-braces syndrome?).

How can someone use your credit-card without your consent?
After copying all the details including the secret number and using them for Internet transactions.

Fix:

a) make sure nobody can see/take a photo of/copy the secret number

b) deface/rub out the secret number. In this case
you would need to remember it (in your head).

c) use a VISA-Debit card and transfer the exact amount
of the purchase to it either using telephone banking or Internet Banking immediately prior to the transaction. Modern smartphones are pretty good at Internet Banking. I’ve tried it a few times, even on a Raspberry Pi 3 microcomputer. Once the transaction has gone through, there should not be any balance left on the VISA-Debit card, and any subsequent attempts to use it would result in DECLINED (locked after 3 failed attempts).

China could be a special case: when we went there. even the secret number was printed on the docket (and probably also on the docket’s carbon copy). That would be in line with the
attitude that everyone should know everything about everyone else. The BNZ replaced that card straight away.

Tom Butz

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