With Christmas fast approaching, Police are encouraging people to be aware of online phishing scams.

The holiday season can already be a stressful time, and the last thing you want is to lose large sums of money to a scam.

A phishing scam is an online scam, where the offender pretends to be a trustworthy person or organisation to try and get a victim’s personal information.

Police has received a number of phishing scam reports with offenders targeting people who are selling items or services online like Trade Me and Facebook Marketplace.

The offenders pretend to be an interested buyer, and urgently request to buy your product and arrange a courier pickup.

The victim receives a fake courier website link to complete a verification process asking for personal details, like bank account numbers, passwords, and phone numbers.

Once provided these details, the offender uses these to access a victim’s bank account, tricking the victim into proving any multifactor authentication code sent from the victim’s bank.

The money in the victim’s bank account is then taken by the offender once access is gained.

Police are urging members of the public to be cautious, especially when someone in person or online is asking you to give them money or your personal details like bank accounts and passwords.

Never comply with a request asking you to provide or ‘verify’ your online banking details. Legitimate organisations will never ask you to do this. If you are unsure if it is real, please contact your bank by the phone number on their official website or go to your nearest branch.

If you receive a courier website link from a potential buyer, this is likely a scam. Please do not fill out the verification process. Use the social media/trading platform’s reporting tools to report the scam and the user involved. You can also make a report to Netsafe at report.netsafe.org.nz(link is external).

If you have handed over your online banking details, contact your bank immediately and suspend your account.

If you think you have been scammed (provided your banking details and/or suffered a loss), please gather as much information you can and make a report to Police online through 105.police.govt.nz(link is external) or call 105.

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