Scammers lure Whanganui man into iTunes voucher con

Michael Hawk says he had to sell computers, a TV and a cellphone to get the vouchers.

When Whanganui man Michael Hawk was told he had won $200,000 as part of a Facebook promo, he couldn't see past the dollar signs.

He was given the news on Facebook and he was told to contact a "John Matthew" who he found on the social networking site.

"I told him I was wanting to know about the promo and he said he had to check if I was on the list," Hawk said.

"He came back and said I needed to get two iTunes cards worth $100 each and send pictures of them to him via the messenger."

Hawk ended up sending $450 worth of the iTunes vouchers before alarm bells rung.

By then it was too late, and Hawk never heard from his possible benefactor nor saw his $450 again.

"I had to sell mine and my partner's computers, our TV, a cellphone just to get those vouchers," Hawk bemoaned.

"I was doing scrap metal to get some money as well to pay for the vouchers."

He admitted he shouldn't have fallen for it, but as he was struggling financially he was lured by the possibility of a large payment to turn his life around.

His is one of many stories of money lost to online fraud.

In 2017 Netsafe reported $609,689.30 was lost to online scams and Community Law legal advocate Bronwyn Rogers says the schemes are getting smarter.

"Using the iTunes forum, there is literally nothing that can be done [to get the money back]. A lot of these scammers are from overseas, which presents jurisidictional issues obviously.

"There are such a multitude of variety of scams and they are becoming a bit more sophisticated."

Her advice was to contact Community Law or Age Concern for advice if there were any doubts about an online transaction.

Family and friends may also be able to give advice, but that wasn't always easy, she said.

"The difficulty for a lot of the poor people that have been targeted is sometimes they're embarrassed to admit they've been conned.

"They need to understand that these scams are becoming more sophisticated and it is easy to get caught up and then rapidly feel like they've lost control."

Rogers said she was seeing an increasing amount of romance scams lately.

"The romance scams are probably the most difficult - we do see a number of those.

"The more recent experience that we've had is women being scammed by males online.

"The amounts of money are being asked for are frequently done through Western Union ... you can't get that back."

Hawk accepted his money was gone but wanted his story told so others would not fall into a similar trap.