The most common phone scams in New Zealand right now

The caller ID says it is Inland Revenue, and there is a warrant for your arrest over unpaid tax. Or your bank's fraud team calls about a suspicious transfer you never made. Or a text from NZ Post asks for a small redelivery fee. Phone scams targeting New Zealand share one skeleton: stolen authority, manufactured urgency, and a payment or detail that must move right now. Learn the current scripts and most of these attempts die in the first ten seconds.

IRD and government impostor scams

Tax and government impersonation is a perennial favourite with scammers because it weaponises fear of authority:

• The IRD tax threat: a recorded or live caller claims you owe back tax and face arrest, deportation, or a court case unless you pay immediately, often by gift card, wire transfer, or crypto.
• The "suspended number" variant: your IRD number or identity has supposedly been linked to criminal activity and must be "verified" by handing over personal details.
• Police and agency threats: callers posing as NZ Police or other officials, quoting fake case numbers and demanding secrecy.

The real Inland Revenue does not demand immediate payment by phone, does not take payment in gift cards or crypto, and does not threaten arrest on a call. Any caller doing those things is a scammer, whatever the caller ID shows.

Bank fraud-team impersonation

This is among the most financially damaging scams in the country. The script runs like this:

1. A text or call warns of suspicious activity — a transfer, a login, a purchase you never made.
2. The caller spoofs your bank's real number, so ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Westpac, or Kiwibank appears on your screen.
3. The "fraud analyst" reads back details about you harvested from data breaches, sounding thoroughly official.
4. You are asked to read back a one-time code, approve a push notification, or move money to a "safe account".

No New Zealand bank will ever ask you for a one-time code, ask you to move money to protect it, or ask you to install remote-access software. If a caller claiming to be your bank asks for any of these, hang up and call the number on the back of your card.

Fake courier and delivery texts

With online shopping volumes high, fake parcel messages impersonating NZ Post, CourierPost, Aramex, DHL, and NZ Couriers are everywhere:

• A text claims your parcel is held and needs a redelivery fee or address confirmation.
• The link leads to a convincing fake courier site that harvests card details or installs malware.
• Some variants arrive as missed-call or voicemail lures rather than texts.

Real couriers do not demand surprise fees by text link. If a message mentions a parcel, open the courier's official app or tracking page yourself and check there. Never tap the link in the text.

Prize, lottery, and investment lures

"You have won!" remains one of the oldest scripts because excitement short-circuits scepticism:

• Fake prize and lottery calls: you have won a lottery you never entered, but must pay taxes or fees upfront to release the winnings. Real winnings never require payment to collect.
• Supermarket and voucher texts: fake Countdown, New World, or Pak'nSave vouchers that harvest personal details through survey-style pages.
• Investment cold calls: unsolicited offers of crypto, forex, or "guaranteed return" schemes, often with slick websites and pushy advisers. Unsolicited investment offers by phone should be treated as scams until proven otherwise through the official Financial Markets Authority channels.

Wangiri one-ring calls

The wangiri trap is beautifully simple: your phone rings once from an overseas number and stops. Curiosity prompts a callback — straight to a premium-rate line that charges heavily per minute, with recorded messages engineered to keep you on the line. Signs of wangiri include single rings from unfamiliar country codes, repeated calls at odd hours, and numbers you have no connection to. The defence is equally simple: never return a one-ring call from an unknown overseas number. If it matters, the caller will ring back or leave a message.

Red flags that apply to every scam

Whatever the costume, the same tells appear again and again:

• Urgency: pay today, act now, or face consequences.
• Secrecy: do not tell anyone, keep this confidential, stay on the line.
• Untraceable payment: gift cards, crypto, wire transfers, cash, or moving money to a "safe" account.
• Code requests: any one-time passcode read aloud over the phone hands account access to the caller.
• Emotional pressure: fear, excitement, sympathy — the stronger the feeling, the more you should slow down.

What to do when you spot one

Hang up or delete the message without engaging, then report it: forward scam texts to 7726, report scam calls and texts to Netsafe at netsafe.org.nz, and contact your bank and NZ Police immediately if money or details changed hands. A call-blocking app like NoCall adds a real-time layer that flags known scam numbers before you pick up.

The scripts change costumes every year, but the skeleton never changes: borrowed authority, urgency, secrecy, and a payment that cannot be reversed. Break any one of those and the scam collapses.