At Southey Sayer we care about the environment and are constantly looking for ways to reduce our paper usage, which is why we have made the decision to email out all future invoices and statements.

If you have recently updated your email address please let us know as soon as possible so we are sending these to the correct place. Alternatively if you would prefer to continue having your invoices and statements mailed out to your postal address please let us know otherwise you can expect to receive these by email from now on.

Thank you for your understanding and support with this.

Fraud Awareness Week 2016

No one is immune to being targeted by scammers. People from all walks of life, backgrounds and ages are vulnerable, and everyone must be constantly alert for fraudulent contact.

With this week (13-19 November) being Fraud Awareness Week, we want to remind people in the Wairarapa of the dangers of scams and the need to be vigilant. We all receive junk emails, enticing online advertisements, letters offering a private purchase of shares for a low price, phone calls from people purporting to be people who they are not, and so on.

Our firm is focussing on telling its clients about the need to be careful about business and financial scams. These are the scams that encourage the private purchase of shares and/or property, participation in an investment scheme or a manged fund, investing in a particular business proposal or paying fraudulent invoices. These proposals and communications tend to look very credible and, on the surface, perfectly viable. But of course they’re all designed to steal your money. Tax scams are also prevalent where you’re contacted by someone, either online or on the phone, by someone saying they’re from the Inland Revenue or a tax specialist. The IRD will not contact you in this way, nor will any genuine tax specialist.

As business advisors, we’re also available to help ascertain whether a business proposal is worth considering. The usual advice is, however, if the offer or return seems too good to be true, it probably is!

Keeping yourself safe

It’s important to keep yourself safe from scams online. These include:

• Always keep your anti-virus software and your operating systems up-to-date
• Ensure your passwords are a mixture of letters (upper and lower case), numerals and symbols, and we don’t mean a password such as ‘Abc123!’
• Don’t share passwords with anyone, including typing your password into an email
• If you receive an email from someone you don’t know or a business that sounds odd, delete it immediately
• Don’t click on links or open any files sent to you if you don’t know the sender, and
• Use your common sense; if an offer or deal seems to be too good to be true, it usually is.

Think you’ve been scammed?

If you suspect you’ve been scammed, act immediately:

• Stop all contact with the person or organisation
• Block the email address
• Notify your bank or credit card supplier if money has changed hands, and
• Report the suspected scam to Netsafe, email queries@netsafe.org.nz or call 0508 638 723. You’ll be directed to the appropriate organisation that deals with your specific situation.

We have had reports from a number of clients of people calling them and claiming to be from the IRD and telling them that they are being investigated for tax fraud. The caller requests personal information including the person's IRD number, before threatening them with legal action.

These people work on fear and intimidation, in some cases people are told they must pay a debt urgently or face jail.  

The most common methods used by fraudsters to collect someone's personal information are email and phone scams. These include phoning and claiming to be from Inland Revenue, or sending an email that appears to come from Inland Revenue or a tax refund agency.

Some people have also reported scammers leaving voicemails stating the recipient is subject to criminal action for tax fraud, leaving a phone number for the person to return the call.

If you receive a suspicious email, SMS scam message or a fraudulent call please contact us if you have any questions about your tax position and email phishing@ird.govt.nz and include:

• the email received, or
• the number that the text message or phone number (CallerID) originated from
• any names and call-back numbers given by the text sender or phone caller
• details about the scam including:
  • the amount of tax refund quoted
  • the reference number
  • the information requested, and
  • any other relevant information.