Credit card scam warning

BOGUS: A group of people approached a Tauranga woman's home claiming to be part of a tolling team and asking for her credit card details.

A new scam which seeks to take advantage of Tauranga's newest road has prompted a region-wide warning from the New Zealand Transport Agency.

The agency issued the warning to Bay of Plenty residents yesterday after a group of people approached a Tauranga woman's home claiming to be part of a tolling team and asking for her credit card details.

In exchange for her credit card details and a $3.90 administration fee, they said they would help her set up a toll road account.

The woman declined but her suspicions were raised and she contacted the transport agency after the incident.

The agency urged anyone who had a similar experience to contact police, Hamilton highways manager Kaye Clark said.

"At this stage we have only received one report, and thankfully the woman who reported it to us did not fall for this scam. She contacted the transport agency and went through the right channels to set up her toll account."

NetSafe digital project manager Chris Hails said this was a new scam.

"We average less than a dozen door-to-door scam reports each month ... It's not very common."

A person would have to be very confident to scam someone face-to-face, he said.

"Most people are a pretty good judge of character ... The pitch has to be pretty convincing."

Older people were often targeted by door-to-door scams "and if you're older and retired you're more likely to be at home", he said. "Whenever we get those reports we say always call the organisations directly to check they've got someone in the area."

Any official caller should also have ID that confirmed they worked for the company, Mr Hails said.

Technology had made it easier for scammers to get people over the phone, internet or email these days and a major scam still reaching a lot of people was the phone calls claiming to be a Microsoft employee, trying to convince people to log into their computers and give away their personal details.

NetSafe hoped to protect the public by keeping them up-to-date on the latest scams in their area.

"Obviously people should be very suspicious about signing up to anything presented to them and be careful about handing out personal information or credit card details to avoid identity theft or abuse of their billing accounts," Mr Hails said.

Bay of Plenty Police communications manager Kim Perks said police heard of all kinds of scams from time to time including email, phone and online scams.

"Any scam we hear of concerns us and particularly because a lot of scammers look to prey on more vulnerable people, particularly older people.

"Generally we advise people that no genuine companies would ask for any personal data or credit card details over email or over the phone so people need to be aware of that and never pass that information on without verifying they're talking to the actual company."

If anyone was approached or saw any suspicious behaviour they should report it to police, she said. "Often in these cases we say if it sounds too good to be true it generally is."