Deaf woman scammed over Facebook

New Zealand Deaf Woman defrauded by Facebook scam writes Nicola Murphy for Auckland Now (10/11/11).

Roi Stephens usually ignores messages telling her she's won an international lottery draw.

But she thought information about a sweepstake from someone who appeared to be her Aunt must be genuine.

Now the hearing-impaired Henderson resident is almost $1300 out of pocket after being told she'd ''won'' $20,000.

She received a message through Facebook last month from a fraudster who had hacked into an Aunt's account and sent messages to her contacts suggesting they enter the lottery draw.

The email was written with poor spelling and grammar but Stephens didn't think anything of it because English is her Aunt's second language.

She entered the draw and was notified she had ''won'' but was required to send money for supposed fees for a man to travel from Nigeria to deliver her winnings.

The man called, texted and emailed Stephens regularly to make sure she was sending the money.

She had already sent him $1280 when she read an article about online scammers and the penny dropped.

''I just thought 'oh my God, what am I going to do?''' she says.

Stephens had sent the man money she had been saving for a new hearing aid.

The mother-of-three says the situation has been difficult and emotional for her and her family.

''I feel bad but it's been a learning curve.''

When Stephens went to a dairy to transfer the money via Western Union, the owner warned her it was a scam.

He comes across such cases like Stephens' at least once a month.

''I try not to enter into customers' business but if they are regulars I know them well, I ask them if they know the person they're sending the money to.''

Stephens recommends social media users keep their sites private so only approved parties can see their profiles.

Henderson community constable Debi Leahy says the people behind the scams are getting more creative.

''With the deaf community, if you look at what's on their Facebook pages and you read their conversations, it's obvious that they're deaf.''

She says the scammers take advantage of this, as they do with older people or those on dating sites who they perceive as lonely and therefore easily drawn in.

Leahy says money transferred through Western Union is impossible to trace and recommends people only transfer send money to those they know.

She receives at least one call a week about scams, both before and after money has been sent.

''It's nothing to be ashamed of,'' Leahy says.

''Sometimes you're just caught at the wrong moment and you've got a load of bills to pay or you're feeling the recession and you're not thinking rationally,'' she says.