Spot a crypto scam before it reaches your bank account

How big is the crypto scam problem in New Zealand?

Big, and hard to pin down. Netsafe and the Global Anti-Scam Alliance estimated that New Zealanders lost around NZ$3 billion to scams of all kinds in 2025, up from NZ$2.3 billion the year before. That figure comes from a survey, not counted losses, so treat it as an order of magnitude. The same research found about 78% of victims told their bank and only about 36% got anything back.

Reported losses are much smaller but rising. The National Cyber Security Centre, which runs Own Your Online, recorded NZ$6.8 million of direct losses in the last quarter of 2024 — including a record 17 incidents over NZ$100,000, with investment and cryptocurrency scams among the most costly types — then NZ$7.8 million, NZ$5.7 million and NZ$12.4 million in the first three quarters of 2025. No agency publishes a crypto-only total, but crypto is the payment rail of choice in the investment and romance scams that drive the large losses.

Crypto ATM scams: the cash-to-crypto trap

Crypto ATMs have become the last step in many New Zealand scams, because cash pushed into a machine lands in the scammer’s wallet in minutes, with no bank able to stop it. In March 2026 the Banking Ombudsman described two cases: a woman who withdrew NZ$31,500 for what she thought was a job, told her bank it was for a car, and fed it into a crypto ATM; and a man who put nearly NZ$65,000 into machines over six months for what he believed was an investment. Ombudsman Nicola Sladden called a request to withdraw cash and deposit it into a crypto ATM a major red flag.

The head of the Police Financial Intelligence Unit, Daniel Frost, told 1News in 2025 that scammers steer victims to ATMs precisely to get around bank checks — and that the machines are not as anonymous as criminals assume. The Government dropped its planned ATM ban in July 2026 and may cap cash purchases instead; our Bitcoin ATM guide and regulation explainer cover where that stands.

The scripts scammers use on Kiwis

Impersonation. A caller claims to be from IRD, the Police, your bank’s fraud team, Spark or a tech company. Your account is “compromised”, you owe tax, or your money must be moved to a “safe account” — which turns out to be a crypto wallet or an ATM. IRD and the Police do not take payment in crypto (real IRD contact about crypto is covered in our crypto tax guide), and your bank will never ask you to move money to protect it.

Romance and “pig-butchering”. A friendly match on a dating app, WhatsApp or LinkedIn spends weeks building trust, then mentions a crypto trading platform where they’ve done well. You start small, see impressive gains on screen, invest more, and discover you can’t withdraw without paying a “tax” or “unlock fee”. The platform is fake; the balance never existed.

Fake jobs and tasks. Paid “tasks” — rating products, boosting apps — that require you to top up an account with crypto before you can collect your earnings. The Ombudsman’s NZ$31,500 case began this way.

Fake platforms and impostor sites. Polished websites that copy real brands or invent new ones and push them through social media ads and messaging apps. Some even supply forged documents to look credible.

Recovery scams. After you’ve lost money, someone offers to get it back — a “blockchain forensics” firm, a lawyer, or someone posing as the FMA or an international agency. They want an upfront fee or more crypto. The FMA’s recovery scam warning is clear: these are second scams aimed at people already hurt by the first.

Recent FMA warnings worth knowing

The FMA publishes a running list of scams and warnings, and 2026 has been busy. In February it flagged Texitcoin as an unregistered business, and in May the Aurum Foundation. With the National Reserve Bank of Tonga it issued a joint warning about BG Wealth, DSJ EX and TXEX — a network the regulators linked to 813 websites and 30 entities, targeting people in both countries. In August it warned about Baliex Limited, which handed prospective investors an audit report bearing the branding of an accounting firm that says it never audited Baliex; the FMA also found the director’s passport was not genuine.

Impostor sites are a constant. In late 2025 the FMA warned about lookalike OKX websites, and it has flagged imitations of the defunct Kiwi-Coin exchange such as kiwi-ex.com. Kiwi-Coin itself stopped trading on 1 January 2026 and Easy Crypto on 30 March 2026, so any site claiming to offer trading under those names now deserves extra suspicion. The FMA’s fake platforms page explains the common features.

Red flags at a glance

Money mules: when you become part of the scam

Some “jobs” and P2P trades turn you into the laundering step. Someone sends money into your bank account and asks you to buy crypto with it or forward it on. The NZ Banking Association and Police warn that this is money laundering, whatever the story: your account can be frozen or closed and you can face prosecution. ANZ reported a rise in mule accounts among 17–34-year-olds. If you sell crypto peer-to-peer, the buyer’s NZD could be stolen, which is why our P2P guide recommends sticking to escrow and verified counterparties.

What about exchange hacks and collapses?

They happen, but they are a different risk from scams. New Zealand’s best-known case is Cryptopia, the Christchurch exchange hacked in January 2019 and later put into liquidation; the High Court ruled in 2020 that the coins it held belonged to its customers on trust, but returning them took years. More recently, the Serious Fraud Office opened an investigation into Digital Asset Exchange Ltd, the operator of the Dasset platform. The lesson from both: an account on a platform is a claim against a company, not coins in your hand.

You can limit that exposure by keeping only what you are actively trading on an exchange and moving longer-term holdings to a wallet you control, by spreading large balances, and by noticing early warning signs such as delayed withdrawals or sudden changes to terms. None of that protects you from a scammer, though — in a scam you send the money yourself, which is why the checks below matter more.

How to check a crypto platform before you pay

Five minutes of checks beats months of chasing. Search the company’s legal name on the Financial Service Providers Register — note that registration is not the FMA vouching for a firm, but its absence is telling for anyone claiming to be a New Zealand business. Search the name and web address on the FMA warnings list and on IOSCO’s I-SCAN, which gathers alerts from regulators in more than 150 countries. Type the address into your browser yourself instead of clicking an ad or a link someone sent you.

Then test it: deposit a small amount, withdraw it to your own bank account or wallet, and only then consider more. Keep your crypto in a wallet you control — our wallet guide explains seed phrases, which you must never share with anyone, including “support staff”. For the regular buying routes, start with our step-by-step buying guide.

Been scammed? Who to contact, in order

1. Your bank, immediately. Call the number on your card. Banks now run 24/7 scam reporting and may be able to stop or recall a payment.
2. Police. Call 105 or report online; call 111 if you are in danger or the scammer is at your door.
3. Netsafe or Own Your Online. Report to Netsafe or the NCSC via Own Your Online; forward scam texts free to 7726.
4. The FMA if a platform, adviser or investment offer was involved, through its scams page.
5. The exchange you used, with transaction IDs and the scammer’s wallet address, so it can flag or freeze funds.

Keep everything — screenshots, chat logs, wallet addresses, receipts from ATMs — and expect follow-up “recovery” offers once you’ve been listed as a victim. Ignore them all.

What NZ banks must now do to protect you

Since 30 November 2025, the main banks — ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Kiwibank, Westpac and others — have been bound by new scam commitments in the NZBA Code of Banking Practice. They include purpose-based warnings before higher-risk payments such as investments, Confirmation of Payee name checks, systems to detect high-risk payments with power to delay or block them, round-the-clock scam reporting and sharing mule-account data between banks. If a bank fails those commitments, it may have to compensate you; if you disagree with its decision, the Banking Ombudsman Scheme is free. That extra friction is also why a bank may question a legitimate payment to an exchange — our banks and crypto guide explains how to handle it.