Surely we are not that dumb

Stuff reports:

Police are warning against “too good to be true” overseas scams aimed at tricking New Zealanders out of millions of dollars.

Detective Senior Sergeant Aaron Pascoe said a recent survey of money-remittance agencies suggested New Zealanders were sending more than $100 million a year to “high risk” countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and the Ukraine.

“How much of this is fraudulently obtained or laundered funds is unclear but the figure is likely to be in the tens of millions, given the low rate of reporting of this type of occurrence,” he said.

One person had recently reported a fraud, where he paid $17,000 to “release” supposed lottery winnings.

Pascoe said that by working with remittance agencies police identified nine other victims, and found that a further $250,000 had been sent overseas to the same scammers.

How can people still be falling for those? I can understand it ten years ago when they were new, but surely everyone has heard of the scams by now.

I guess a new one is born every day after all!