Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Police say record serial numbers so ‘we don’t have to give stolen goods back to thieves’

Leanne Warr
By Leanne Warr
Editor - Bush Telegraph·Hawkes Bay Today·
1 Dec, 2022 12:30 AM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Burglaries can happen to anyone, so people need to take steps to prevent them. Photo / 123RF

Burglaries can happen to anyone, so people need to take steps to prevent them. Photo / 123RF

Police are urging people to add another small task to the pre-Christmas getaway checklist - recording the serial numbers of their electronic goods.

Making sure that if your things get stolen, police officers can get them back for you was the message from Dannevirke police to a group of mostly senior residents this week.

Sergeant Gary McKernon was speaking on the subject at a luncheon held for those who took a series of workshops earlier in the year at Tararua Reap.

Sergeant Gary McKernon, of Dannevirke police, had advice for residents on keeping their valuables safe or being able to get them back if they get stolen. Photo / Leanne Warr
Sergeant Gary McKernon, of Dannevirke police, had advice for residents on keeping their valuables safe or being able to get them back if they get stolen. Photo / Leanne Warr

“It occurred to me that I’m not in amongst inexperienced people,” he said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

“If I have to stand here and tell you to lock your doors and windows when you go away, then we’ve been failing for a very long time.”

McKernon said for those planning on going away over the Christmas and New Year period, it was a matter of running through checklists, such as having a good relationship with the neighbours and making sure mailboxes were cleared, as well as keeping valuables out of sight.

He emphasised the importance of getting serial numbers of anything electrical that was expensive, or taking photographs of jewellery and anything of value.

Those photographs and serial numbers could be handed on to a family member or someone they trusted to store the information, or could be saved or any cloud-based service online, he said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

“It’s so frustrating when we do raids on places and we get electronic equipment and we know it’s stolen. We don’t have the serial numbers to say they’re stolen. And we have to give them back. It hurts. It really hurts.

“Take the serial numbers down [and] store them somewhere safe.”

McKernon said while there wasn’t a big problem with burglaries in Dannevirke, he had worked in South Auckland where there tended to be between 30 and 40 a night.

Scams were a much bigger issue here, with more scams than burglaries reported in the area.

“I’m sorry to say your age group is the main target. Because technology might not come so easily for some of you,” he said.

For most people, when they were growing up, they would be familiar with streets they had to stay away from and were able to keep themselves safe through local knowledge.

But the internet brought that problem into people’s homes, McKernon said.

“And you can’t see it coming. Your local knowledge doesn’t mean a thing.”

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Kiwis reported $6.5 million lost in scams in the last quarter of 2021. Photo / NZME
Kiwis reported $6.5 million lost in scams in the last quarter of 2021. Photo / NZME

He said in the last quarter of last year, Kiwis reported $6.5 million lost on scams, but the true number couldn’t be known because some victims might be too embarrassed to report it.

Such scams as cold calling, where the caller claimed to be from the IRD, telling the victim they owed $1000 and that there were bailiffs ready to come and take their car.

“They rush you,” McKernon said.

Then the next day, the people would call again and say there had been a mistake and the amount was actually $5000.

“They just keep coming at you until they bleed you dry.”

Another scam was tech support where they might claim to be from a bank or other company saying that someone has tried to get into an account and the victim’s laptop had been compromised. So the victim would be asked for the serial number of the laptop.

“They’ll tell you how to find it. They’re very helpful.”

Once a prompt came up on the screen, the victim would be told to click “yes”, which would give them access so they could “make sure your computer’s safe for you”.

“If you do get caught out by that, what do you do?” McKernon said.

“The very second you think, I pressed yes and I should have pressed no or not pressed anything at all, get your computer unplugged from the power supply.”

He said then unplug the Wi-Fi and cut them off and advised taking the computer to an expert to ensure it hadn’t been compromised.

Another scam was phishing scams where an email addressed to a victim might say they’ve won the lottery but they had to pay a fee to claim the winnings.

“These scams are there because they work. This scam goes out to thousands. They reel you in. I suppose that’s why they call them phishing scams.”

Buying online was another issue, but where most shopping websites like Farmers and The Warehouse were genuine, others, for example, Facebook Marketplace, might be a bit more risky because buyers couldn’t do their due diligence and look at the seller’s history.

McKernon also suggested that those planning on going away should not post anything on social media, especially photos, until they returned, so as not to advertise they weren’t home.

He said if people were unsure if something was a scam, police would be happy to take a look and provide advice.

“It’s far easier for us to help out with that than take the report that your life savings are gone.”


Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawkes Bay Today

Watch: 'Go buddy, go'- seal catches waves with locals at popular surf spot

09 Jul 03:19 AM
Hawkes Bay Today

Ute flips onto beach in Hawke's Bay

09 Jul 02:48 AM
Hawkes Bay Today

'Very efficient': Fine-sweeper car snaps more than 5000 parking violations in five months

09 Jul 02:05 AM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Watch: 'Go buddy, go'- seal catches waves with locals at popular surf spot

Watch: 'Go buddy, go'- seal catches waves with locals at popular surf spot

09 Jul 03:19 AM

Michael Farr reckons the seal he filmed rode the waves 'better than some of the locals'.

Ute flips onto beach in Hawke's Bay

Ute flips onto beach in Hawke's Bay

09 Jul 02:48 AM
'Very efficient': Fine-sweeper car snaps more than 5000 parking violations in five months

'Very efficient': Fine-sweeper car snaps more than 5000 parking violations in five months

09 Jul 02:05 AM
Seal playing in the surf at Te Awanga Beach

Seal playing in the surf at Te Awanga Beach

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP