Bruce Munro takes a look at the newest scams that are robbing often job-insecure, cash-strapped New Zealanders of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The prospect of months without work and pay was worrying her.
For most secondary school teachers, NCEA practice exams herald the final push before an extended summer holiday.
But for relief teachers such as Michelle (not her real name), they signal work is about to peter out for up to three months - a long, dry stretch when, as a casual worker, there is no paid annual leave.
The middle-aged Otago woman’s dwindling bank account and news of growing numbers of unemployed jobseekers sat heavy in her gut.
So, when a social media message appeared, inviting her to apply for online work done from home, the dream solution seemed to have dropped into her lap.
Michelle clicked the link.
A week later, she was rueing ever having seen what, it was now clear to her, was an employment scam.
Online scams are growing in size and velocity. And sitting out front, proud as a chromed, plastic hood ornament on a thirsty, 2025 Remuera tractor, is the task scam.
Last year, New Zealanders were scammed out of an estimated $2.3 billion. Almost a third of that, more than $600 million, was lost to the shiny illusion of well-paid, online work that turned out to be a cheap gambit to steal from cash-poor people struggling to get paid work in a Hunger Games job market.
Michelle filled out the application form and promptly received a reply from "Alice" asking if she would like to know more about the job.
Yes, she would.
"Do you know Noel Leeming?" the next message asked.
Yes, she did.
"Our main job is to improve the reviews of various products and help other Noel Leeming merchants to find the best products and increase their sales. This will attract more online shoppers which will generate profits and we will reap the rewards!"
A couple of exchanges later, Alice promised, "No matter where you are in this job, as long as you have a mobile phone or a computer, you can start your money-making journey".
The job, Michelle was told, was to click on products to improve their star rating and attract more online shoppers.
For every 38 "tasks", she could earn $100-$150.
On top of that, seven days’ consecutive work would earn an extra $500.
A month of 7-day working weeks would earn an extra $2600.
"Would you be interested in this job?"
Yes, she certainly would, but it was getting late.
"No problem. We’ll contact you tomorrow."
The next day, Michelle was directed to create an account on an online site, nzd-nlwork.top.
Alice urged Michelle to register quickly because "upon successful registration the platform will give you $20" but warned her "there are only a limited number of jobs available".
Over the next week, she spent up to three hours a day being trained and performing tasks that were little more than clicking "submit" on apparent receipts for items including $799.40 Apple watches and $150.43 high-waisted culottes - all under the bright red banner of the nationwide technology and appliance store.
She was also led through the labyrinth of nzd-nlwork.top’s convoluted, cryptocurrency-related payment system.
At one point, Alice messaged, "If the training account shows a negative number, please send me a screenshot as this is a lucky bonus you get that allows me to get a higher salary reward".
Later, Michelle was told,"When you get a lucky bonus, you need to use your own money to buy USDT [a cryptocurrency] to complete the task".
This move is straight from the task scam playbook.
"It’s a task scam," writes illcalluwtpartysova on an online Reddit discussion board thread dedicated to scams.
"You will hit a ‘Lucky Bonus’ which changes your balance to negative. They then get you to sign up to a crypto wallet and buy USDT and ‘temporarily deposit it’ into your ... account so you can finish your tasks. Then voila, your fake balance will be higher than it was before!"
That Reddit contributor signed up to the scam site but did not pay any money.
Others on the thread were not so lucky.
"I’ve recently been victim to this scam and unfortunately lost some money to this, with seemingly no withdrawal in sight," nemoori wrote on the Reddit thread, last month.
"Would you know if there’s a way to get deposited money back?"
In theory, the crypto funds can be withdrawn as real cash. In practice, because it is a scam, that never happens.
Noel Leeming has confirmed the site has nothing to do with its business.
"That is definitely not our partner and we do not hire people to write positive reviews," Noel Leeming chief operating officer Jason Bell told The Mix.
"We weren’t aware of this website ... we think it sounds very suspicious and advise no-one go near it."
The Noel Leeming-branded task scam site has disappeared but may well have already made a comeback in a different guise.
Six months ago the scam was circulating as thenoel-leeming.top.
When Michelle saw it, it had morphed to nzd-nlwork.top.
Domain name extension .top, which can be registered by anyone, belongs to Jiangsu Bangning Science & Technology Co, in China.
Last year, .top was the second most common website suffix used worldwide for phishing attacks designed to scam people of sensitive information or install malware on their digital devices.
Financial losses due to scams are on the rise, New Zealand’s independent online safety organisation Netsafe says.
Last year, New Zealanders lost $2.3b, an increase of $200m on the previous year, Netsafe’s chief online safety officer Sean Lyons says.
The average amount of money lost per victim was $3100.
Lyons estimates employment-related scams account for 28%, or $644m, of last year’s losses.
That is backed up by a Euronews investigation. It revealed job scams, mostly targeting WhatsApp users, grew to become a global phenomenon in less than 12 months.
The broadcaster’s journalists found that in 2023, in the UK alone, about 1000 people a day were receiving fake job messages.
Some individuals reported losing more than $220,000, Euronews said.
Job scams masquerade in different forms. They range from scammers posing as representatives of well-known companies and fake job interviews to requests for personal information and training for jobs that do not exist.
The common thread is the desire to deceive in order to milk money from victims.
Those conducting the scams are the same people who carry out romance-based cryptocurrency fraud, United States-based cybersecurity firm Proofpoint says.
In a report posted late last year, Proofpoint said the fraudsters, known as "pig butchers", had repurposed the romance-based scam, which needed victims with money to lose, to a new, untapped market - financially insecure, work-hungry victims.
It is worth the effort because, while payouts on job scams are smaller, the pool of those desperate for paid work is much larger.
It is not even certain those scammed are interacting with real people.
The rise of artificial intelligence - and with it the development of ever-more capable chat-bots - is likely making the scammers job cheaper and easier.
It is easy to see why task scams are on the rise in New Zealand.
Whether it is those having to work two jobs to make ends meet or those unable to get enough work to pay the bills, people are doing it tough.
More than 220,000 people were working a second job alongside a full-time job last year, up from 187,000 in 2019, according to Stats NZ.
In the past year, the unemployment rate has risen from 4% to 5.1%. Over the same period, the number of job seekers who are underutilised - either unemployed, underemployed or wanting work but no longer looking - has grown by 46,000 to 385,000 people.
Consumer NZ spokeswoman Sahar Lone says the rise in the number of New Zealanders participating in the insecure "gig economy" is having a detrimental effect.
"Sadly, this has made many New Zealanders vulnerable to a rapidly growing swindle called an employment or job scam," Lone says.
The trap job scammers set is the "sunk cost fallacy".
They aim to lure the skint and desperate into incrementally increasing how much of their own real money they use to buy fake cryptocurrency, all on the promise of greater rewards for their ever-greater investment.
At some point, susceptible victims fall down the sunk-cost hole; thinking they have to keep going because they have already invested so much.
Lone says task scams can cause victims emotional and psychological distress and should be reported to Police.
"The cost of living is going up. A lot of people are already struggling, living pay cheque to pay cheque, and so they’re maybe looking for additional work.
"Scammers take advantage of that to deceive people out of their money."
It is affecting a lot of people.
Netsafe chief executive Brent Carey says nearly 18% of New Zealanders have been directly affected by scams, with 53% of all scams occurring on mobile apps and social media.
Only 17% of scam victims managed to recover their losses, 43% attempted but failed to retrieve funds and 23% did not try.
Carey is alarmed by the high rate of under-reporting, which he says limits support for victims and enables scammers to operate unchecked.
"We need to reverse this downward trend in reporting and recovery and encourage a community-wide response to make New Zealand safer from these online predatory behaviours."
Netsafe, New Zealand’s banks, Consumer NZ and other consumer protection agencies are calling for government support to establish an independent, broad-based Anti-Scam Centre, enabling a co-ordinated response to the growing threat of scams.
The new Minister of Consumer Affairs, Scott Simpson, who last month replaced Andrew Bayly, says he is concerned by the harm scams are inflicting and wants a more effective response.
"Scams cause incredible financial and emotional pain, and they take many forms," Simpson says.
"There is a lot of good work that goes on across government to combat scams, but it has largely been siloed."
He will not, however, be saying yes to the call for an independent anti-scam entity.
"We have launched a work programme to bring industry and government together ... I envisage determining a lead government agency, who will function similar to an Anti-Scam Centre."
After a few days of intermittent clicking on supposed Noel Leeming products, and no sign of any pay she asked - "How do I get my profit?"
"Now I’m just training you."
"So, you get today’s profit, not me?"
"Now it’s just training." - Michelle was becoming increasingly dispirited and suspicious.
She did sign up for a cryptocurrency account. But by now she had enough questions to resist giving up any of her own money - despite Alice’s encouragement that greater rewards lay just a payment away.
"Why does Noel Leeming want people to do this," Michelle asked Alice.
"How does that ‘increase the exposure of merchants’?"
And then, "Hey Alice, are you a real person?"
To which, came the reply, "If you are worried, you can stop contacting me. I don’t have time to talk to you so much.
"I am very busy and need to train other people ... If you need a part-time job, I welcome you ... Opportunities only come to those who are prepared."
How to stymie scammers:
1. Stay sceptical of unexpected links: Avoid clicking on unsolicited links.
2. Verify the source: Always confirm requests for personal or financial information by directly contacting the organisation through their official contact methods.
3. Report scams quickly: Reporting scams to Netsafe, Police, or your bank helps prevent further losses and strengthens community defences against scammers.
4. Waste scammers’ time: Re:Scam is Netsafe’s cutting-edge AI tool designed to waste scammers’ time by responding to fraudulent emails in the most time-consuming way possible. The idea is to keep scammers busy talking to bots, so they have less time to target real people. To date, Re:Scam (rescam.org) has replied to 49,948 fraudulent scam emails and wasted 5045 hours of scammers’ time.
Source: Netsafe
