DistantNews
Support us
🇳🇿 New Zealand /Crime & Justice

Whanganui District Council pays $309,654 to scammers through altered invoice

From NZ Herald · () English

Summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Outcome reported
  • Whanganui District Council paid nearly NZ$310,000 to a fraudulent bank account after scammers altered an invoice intended for German company Velotrack.
  • The council identified the fraudulent payment in January 2023, while Netsafe warned that increasingly sophisticated scams can affect any organisation.

A nearly NZ$310,000 scam targeting Whanganui District Council shows that even public organisations can fall victim to increasingly sophisticated fraud, Netsafe says.

The council discovered in January 2023 that an international payment made the previous December had gone to a fraudulent bank account. The money was intended for German-based company Velotrack, but the invoice had been altered.

an enormous amount of creativity

· Sean LyonsNetsafe's description of the methods used by scammers.

Netsafe chief online safety officer Sean Lyons said scammers displayed “an enormous amount of creativity” in finding ways to deceive their targets. The case has been presented as a warning that organisations are not immune to invoice scams.

anybody can fall victim

· Sean LyonsHis warning about the risk scams pose to organisations.
About this summary

Originally published by NZ Herald. Summarized and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog