Be warned: If it could happen to Russell Brown, it could happen to anybody.

The tech-savvy commentator and former Computerworld journalist told his Twitter followers late on Thursday: “Just had the worst two hours of my life. Got convincingly scammed, locked out of our bank accounts, and more, crucially, Mum’s.

“They’d started on ours – consolidating all the money into one account – by the time I twigged and changed the passwords. But I couldn’t change Mum’s.

“Because the attached phone number was hers, and she’s seriously ill in hospital. Nurses wouldn’t let us access Mum’s phone, Police couldn’t help – and Westpac’s fraud line is slammed and took an hour to call back.

He added: “Sorted now, with only the hassle of changing everything and waiting for new cards. I called an 0800 number from a text message saying there’d been an authorisation of the mobile app on a new device, spoke to a very smooth English-accented man, missed lots of warning signs, partly because I was pretty strung out from a difficult hospital visit.”

Brown, who said he had done malware scans on his computer, promised more details this morning. Last night, he signed off: “Don’t be a dummy like me, because I wouldn’t wish how I felt this evening on my worst enemy.”

Experts say if you’re in any doubt about an apparent communication from your bank - or any other service provider - you should phone it using a number sourced from its website, or that you’re otherwise confident is correct, not a number included in a text message.

But a key pain point with Brown’s experience was the time it took to make contact with Westpac.

The Herald has asked the bank for comment.

Brown told the Herald this morning, “The Westpac rep who made the call back was both effective and sympathetic and we had things locked down relatively quickly once she called. As she pointed, ‘These aren’t short conversations’ and a lot of people seem to be needing them right now.”

He declined to comment on the sums involved.

Cert NZ says if you do get scammed, it’s imperative that you contact your bank as soon as possible to have the best chance of getting transactions reversed. You should also make contact with the Ministry of Justice-backed ID Care, which can help you freeze your credit reports and take other steps to limit the damage from identity theft.

Banks back awareness doco

On Wednesday, the Banking Ombudsman launched a new series You’ve Been Scammed by Nigel Latta, soon to be broadcast on TV1 and TVNZ+.

The series, funded by the banking industry, “will help to expose how humans are genetically predisposed to fall for scams and it’s getting harder to spot them”, the Ombudsman’s office said earlier this week.”

At least 24,000 hit by bank scams

“In the 12 months to March, more than 24,000 New Zealanders reported to their bank they’d been caught up in a scam. Yet we know the actual number affected each year is far higher,” the Ombudsman’s office said.

“Many people feel ashamed, embarrassed or too scared to report their experiences so many more instances simply go unreported.”

In the four-part documentary series, psychologist Latta will educate viewers on eight different scam types and eight human weaknesses that make all of us vulnerable to being socially engineered.

Spike in online scams

Cert NZ’s most recent quarterly report, for the three months to December, found direct financial losses from cyberscams had spiked 66 per cent to $5.8 million as 264 people lost between $100 and $1000 and 16 lost more than $100,000.

Rob Pope, Cert NZ’s director acknowledges that sheepishness about being scammed likely means the figures are just the tip of the iceberg.

Australia’s big moves

Australia’s Budget 2023 had A$46.5 million ($76.34m) earmarked to establish a co-ordinator for Cyber Security to oversee multi-agency efforts in the event of a cyber incident.

The Australian Budget also saw the e-Safety Commissioner’s annual funding quadruple with a A$131m injection. The equivalent agency here, Netsafe, has a budget of around $4m.

There was A$86.5m to establish a new National Anti-Scam Centre, which will include establishing Australia’s first SMS Sender ID Registry to help prevent scammers from imitating trusted brand names (something we’re over-familiar with here, most recently with incessant “unpaid toll” scam texts).

Those moves were not matched on this side of the Tasman with our Budget 2023.

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is technology editor and a senior business writer.