Netsafe’s CEO Brent Carey says:
$2billion
“As the rise of scam victims - and the total cost of their losses - persists in New Zealand, Netsafe continues to look for innovative ways to disrupt scammers, launching yet more products and services to prevent and support victims of scams.
Scams are a growing problem in New Zealand and costs to the economy are estimated to be $2billion annually.
New Zealand’s response to scams lags behind other OECD regions and there are government-backed calls on the banks to invest in technological upgrades. Crucially, there is no government funding for incident response and victim remediation.
Yet in recent research by Netsafe and the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, 53% of New Zealand respondents admitted to a significant emotional impact post-scam.
Only 15% of people who try to recover their funds lost to scams are successful."