Editorial: Scams target gullible

Rotorua's Christina Phillips was charged for her part in an international scam. Photo / Stephen Parker

As the world becomes more online focused, so too do criminals.

It was amazing to hear a Rotorua woman's story this week about how she got caught up with a man involved in an international scam and found herself before the courts guilty of committing a crime.

She is just one of thousands of gullible New Zealanders falling prey to online scammers.

Christina Phillips was this week convicted of obtaining by deception after she allowed her bank account to be used by an African man to traffic money in an international scam.

On the face of it, it's simple to say the woman was foolish and should have known better.

But this man befriended her on Facebook, chatted to her online for years and loaned and paid back small amounts of money (which was no doubt a cunning ploy to gain her trust).

She admits she was stupid, but said there were others in Rotorua who had been caught up in similar scams.

She said she knew of some who had been scammed $20,000 or $30,000.

Rotorua police tell us these types of complaints are being made to them on a weekly basis.

That's a scary thought. There are many gullible and lonely people in Rotorua who could easily fall for this.

I personally know of a local man who continually believes the women he meets from foreign countries online genuinely need money to buy plane tickets to fly to New Zealand to see him.

This man is definitely gullible and only harmlessly hopes to find true love, but despite the best efforts of his friends and family to convince him otherwise he is continuing to be sucked in by these scammers. Meanwhile, he is losing thousands of dollars of his hard-earned cash.

So what do we do to stop them?

These scammers won't go away. They are earning good money off people willing to take a punt.

The only solution is to spread the word and somehow get wiser.