Linda Hall: Paranoia, then laughter - the text from IRD looked like a scam, but it turned into a ‘joke’

The text saying I was entitled for a refund turned out to be from IRD after all. Photo / NZME

THREE KEY FACTS

• Identifying scams is getting increasingly more difficult.
• But thousands of New Zealanders are collectively owed hundreds of millions in unclaimed funds, most of it easy to claim
• Consumer Protection, Scamwatch has some tips on how to check for scams.

* Linda Hall is a horse-riding lifestyler who has worked for Hawke’s Bay Today for 31 years and now pens a fortnightly column. She lives in semi-rural Hawke’s Bay.

OPINION

Paranoid - unreasonably or obsessively anxious, suspicious, or mistrustful.

That’s about how I’m feeling about scams right now.

The world is full of people trying to get their hands on other people’s money and they are getting more sophisticated by the day.

Someone I know posted online about receiving a new debit card after being scammed.

A day or two later she received a call from a blocked number (yes that set alarm bells ringing but it’s not unusual for the person to get calls from blocked numbers).

The caller identified himself and said he was from her bank’s fraud protection service and they had detected some suspicious activity.

He gave the spiel about calls being recorded for quality, etc, and was “polished and convincing”.

He then sent a text from a number she had received previous texts from. Luckily, she was still suspicious and asked lots of questions.

Then another call came through from an Auckland number. She quickly hung up and answered the incoming call who identified themselves again as her bank’s fraud protection.

The caller had the same scripts but said the text was the key for the scammer who was trying to process several transactions from the UK as he was speaking to her.

The bank noticed the activity, blocked the transaction and cancelled the card.

So, I thought ‘ahhhh no’, when I received a text from IRD saying “Hi IRD here. You have a credit or refund owing but we don’t have your bank account details. Update your bank account on myIR. Do not reply to this message.”

I’m not going to do that.

I was just going to ignore it, but then I thought what if this scammer has sent the same message to lots of people?

So I rang IRD. It was a big decision because I thought I was going to lose at least two hours of my day waiting on the phone.

The Napier office wasn’t open at 9am so I phoned the NZ office. After the big spiel about pushing 1 for this and 2 for that, I had to listen to a recording and answer lots of questions which mostly I just guessed the answers to.

Finally there was a ringtone. And then to my utter surprise and delight after about 12 rings someone answered.

More questions to identify myself which was perfectly fine.

Then the lovely helpful lady said, “Yes it was us that sent the text.”

Now I was getting excited. A refund yahooooo.

How much is it? I asked, dreaming of a trip to Fiji perhaps, or I’d be happy with a couple of nights in the South Island visiting family. Her reply: “Twenty cents.”

I laughed - so did she.

Not a scam, but a joke. Would 20 cents worth of petrol even get me down the driveway? I guess I’m staying home.