Westpac and police have warned people to not engage with the scammers.
It comes as police made 13 arrests in the North Island on Wednesday, over a sophisticated nationwide phone scam.
The alleged scammers were convincing their victims to hand over money by claiming to be Spark and/or the police
Detective Sergeant Kevin Blackman said the total gained from the scams was about $2.5 million.
Some people had lost tens of thousands of dollars and one person lost $250,000.
The 12 men and one woman, aged between 21 and 33, are facing money laundering charges.
Westpac warned its customers last week about a ‘robocalling’ scam, in which the scammers say they are from the bank’s “card fraud team” and ask the person to download a piece of software.
A Westpac spokesman said it received regular reports from both staff and customers about the scam.
Police also warned people about another scam in Canterbury, where an ‘employee’ of a fake online electronics store posts ads online to recruit casual employees to sell mobile phones.
“They are offered a commission on sales. The ‘employees’ are sent links for mobile phones to their email address to post on Buy, Sell, Trade, Exchange pages on Facebook,” police said.
“When a consumer contacts the ‘employee’, they pass the scammer’s bank details and the customer completes the purchase. Several days later, not surprisingly, the phone doesn’t arrive for the customer and the commission doesn’t arrive for the ‘employee’.
“The ‘employee’, even though they haven’t done anything wrong, appears to be part of the scam.”
Police are reiterating “if it looks too good to be true, it is.”
“Be very, very wary of online advertisers promising easy ways to make money or products that are cheaper than retail. Someone’s going make money but it won’t be you,” police said.
