Erik Estrada from 1980s series CHiPs fronts ANZ anti-scam campaign

Thursday, 11 July 2024

Actor Erik Estrada played Frank “Ponch” Poncherello in 1970s and 80s cop show CHiPs.

“I understand there's scammers all over the place,” says TV star Erik Estrada who is back on New Zealand TV screens again after a decades-long absence.

Estrada played Frank “Ponch” Poncherello in 1970s and 80s cop show CHiPs alongside Larry Wilcox as his highway patrol buddy Jon Baker.

The show ran for 139 episodes ending in 1983, but the CHiPs pair are back in an Age Concern and ANZ advertising campaign to educate the public to hang up on cold-callers, and to reject unsolicited texts and emails.

Speaking from his home in the US, Estrada said he was pleased to have a part in fighting the scam wave hitting New Zealand as he had seen the scale of the scamdemic in his home country.

Not only has he been the target of scammers himself, but crooks frequently posed as him on social media to con people into parting with their money.

“I have people constantly coming up to be saying, ‘Hey, I hope the money I sent you helped you’. I say, ‘You sent money?’ [They say] ‘Well, I've been talking to you for six months on Facebook’,” Estrada said.

CHiPs' star Erik Estrada talks about his link-up with Age Concern and ANZ in the fight against scams.

ANZ’s research indicates the majority (69%) of over 65s are well-schooled in recognising scam calls, texts and emails, but that still leaves many at risk.

“We need to educate the elderly mom and dad. We’re empowering grandma. We need to protect them,” Estrada said.

Scammers were sophistocated, and could be intimidating, he said, but“you don’t have to be scared of these people”.

“You have a right to just hang up and blow them off because they want to get in your cookie jar. They want to get into your pocket. They want to just take from you.”

ANZ and Age Concern have used CHiPs as a nostagic touchpoint in their campaign to educate the public on scams.

Banking Ombudsman Nicola Sladden said public education was only one of the legs of New Zealand’s defences against global and local scammers.

“There is no doubt bank customers have to do their bit by, for example, protecting their passwords and PINs and being alert to suspicious texts and emails, but they also need to be able to go about their banking in a safer online banking environment,” she said.

Sladden is frustrated at progress, especially on the Government getting social media companies to keep scammers off their platforms.

After a wave of bad publicity earlier this year, ANZ and other banks began sharing information about mule accounts, and have pledged that by November they will have deployed a “confirmation of payee” system to make it harder for scammers.

“Banks need to make significant improvements to their fraud detection systems to keep pace with the complexity of scams,” Sladden said.

Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly has put banks on notice to improve fraud protections.

But, she said, there also needed to be clear rules governing reimbursement of fraud victims, and mandatory codes of practice for banks, telecommunication companies and digital platforms governing their responsibilities in preventing scams and their liability in the event of a scam.

In March, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly, who last month visited the Singapore scam centre, ordered banks to come up with improved fraud protections, or the Government would set standards for them.

That included Bayly telling banks to improve their voluntary code on when banks would compensate customers from fraud losses.

Former banker and campaigner for better bank fraud defences Janine Starks said New Zealand should follow the UK, and force banks to compensate victims of scams unless they were grossly reckless.

However, banks have also been trying to get the Government to help set up a national anti-scam centre involving police to coordinate a national scam defence strategy.

Sladden said: “We need to turn up the heat on these criminals by establishing a centralised body to gather intelligence, share information and introduce disruptive counter-measures, such as taking down fake websites and freezing ‘mule’ accounts, as the Singaporeans and Australians have done so successfully.

“I am frustrated at how slow digital platforms were to take down scam websites. We need regulations requiring them to do so as soon as alerted to the fact a website is a front for scam activity,” Sladden said.

Alan Thomson, head of customer protection at ANZ, said it was not only older people who were susceptible to being scammed.

“These individuals are incredibly skilled at creating a sense of urgency, a sense of trust, and manipulating people,” said Thomson, speaking at the launch of the CHiPs campaign at Age Concern in Avondale, Auckland this week.

In 1985 Eric Estrada was in New Zealand at the height of his global fame to help raise money in a TVNZ Telethon.

In June, the Ministry of Justice’s Crime and Victimisation Survey indicated there were over 600,000 incidents of fraud and cybercrime in the past year.

Thompson related how social media was a hotbed of scams.

“If we look at Facebook marketplace, we know there will be about 30,000 Kiwis scammed on Facebook Marketplace this year, at least.

“One in three advertisements on Facebook Marketplace are malicious in intent,” he said.

It was on social media that Estrada said crooks posed using his identity to scam people.

He felt he had a duty to use his celebrity for good.

His tie-up with Age Concern and ANZ was not his first in New Zealand.

In the 1980s, Estrada appeared on a telethon in New Zealand.