Hundreds targeted in immigration phone scam

Visa holders are being warned about an increasing number of phishing scammers pretending to be immigration officers.

CERT NZ said the phone calls begin with an automated voice claiming the recipient has visa issues.

The call would provide language options in English and Chinese, whereby if English is selected the call would be disconnected; when Chinese is selected, a scammer would then request personal information and claim the person needed to pay to resolve their visa issues.

CERT NZ senior analyst Sam Leggett said they received more than 400 reports of such phishing scams towards the end of last year, the highest number of reports for an individual type of immigration phishing scam.

Leggett said various scams using the immigration narrative are increasing, at a time when New Zealand is seeing a record number of migrants.

“We’re also seeing other forms of this… we also see fake websites being stood up that claim to offer services in terms of getting your visa before actually travelling to New Zealand. We also see job scams in this space too, where scammers are pretending to be employers or recruiters, claiming there’s a job opportunity in New Zealand.”

Immigration New Zealand said it received 417 complaints about phone scams targeting visa holders last November, dropping to 15 in December.

Meanwhile, CERT NZ is still urging visa holders to stay vigilant and report any suspicious activity to its website.