A story on the NZ Herald website and unfortunately it’s a scenario that elderly people are susceptible to. As the cabbie says, the Post Shop would likely have alerted the woman to the scam, but it was good to stop it early on. We’ve lost count of the number of such calls we’ve had. In the early days we used to have fun with them, but nowadays we just hang up.
A vigilant Paraparaumu Taxis driver has helped prevent an elderly woman from being scammed.
Florence Haines went to the Parkwood Retirement Village in Waikanae after a taxi request from a resident.
The resident, an elderly woman, wanted Florence to take her to 14 Mahara Place, Western Union.
“I said to her Western Union was actually the New Zealand Post Shop and that the Western Union was where you receive or accept money.
“I asked her if she was going to be receiving some money and she said ‘no I’m going to pay my computer’ and she explained that she needed to pay someone some money to get a number released so her computer could work.
“I said ‘it’s a scam’ and she should use local if she was going to get her computer fixed.
“She said ‘no they will reimburse me’ and I told her they wouldn’t.”