A social media scam involving recently deceased councillor Jim Hopkins has been described as “horrific” by the Waitaki District mayor. The scam, which has appeared prominently on Facebook, features an article imitating RNZ’s layout and style. The scam article suggests that Mr Hopkins made a lot of money from investments and asks the reader to donate $430 into the fake-listed scheme. It includes a fake “transcript” of an interview between his son David and Otago regional councillor Michael Laws, a host on Sean Plunkett’s The Platform. The report also includes a document purporting to be Mr Hopkins’ last will and testament. Mr Hopkins, also an author and entertainer, had been a Waitaki District councillor from 2007 until his death last week. © Allied MediaA scam offering money from Jim Hopkins will has appeared online. Waitaki District Mayor Mel Tavendale was particularly upset about the scam. “It’s just horrific to see people using the loss of a very valued member of our community for personal gain. “And please be sure when you are online that you check the authenticity of things.” Deputy mayor Rebecca Ryan was also appalled by the scammer’s behaviour. “Anyone trying to profit from others’ sadness in such a horrible situation is disgusting. “It’s disgusting behaviour, it’s horrible. “It’s such a difficult time for a lot of people, and for anyone to be taking advantage of that . . .” RNZ chief news officer Mark Stevens was similarly disgusted. “This is a serious misuse of our name and imagery, and the name of one of our journalists, in fraudulent advertising that undermines the trust RNZ has spent over 100 years building with the public. “It is particularly egregious given that Jim Hopkins passed away only recently — using his name and image in this way is a further, unwarranted hurt to his family and all who knew him.” RNZ was seeking removal of the content by Facebook platform owner Meta. © Allied MediaA scam offering money from Jim Hopkins will has appeared online. NetSafe security manager Sean Lyons said the basic premise and skeleton of this type of scam “has probably been around for an exceptionally long time”. “You could probably put pieces of this right back to princes with gigantic bank accounts looking for places to transfer money. “You can put it back to environmental credit schemes and all sorts of other things that have permeated the online space since people were talking to each other in online spaces.” Scammers often use figures who “appear to have a certain cachet or strength”, Mr Lyons said. He was surprised the demand or suggestion of $430 was so specific. “It must be working out some way for the scammer.” Scams had become increasingly sophisticated, he said. “The original scams were full of mistakes, badly written English, dodgy email addresses. “All of those things, on reflection, have become easy to spot.” He was not sure whether social media sites such as Facebook or X could respond to all the scams all the time, although they should try to respond to them all, he said. “I think certainly when scams are known, when it’s clear that one of those adverts is leading people down the path to what is criminal or potentially criminal transactions, then absolutely those platforms have to take responsibility. “The difficulty is in the speed in which these platforms work. “Sometimes these adverts can be up for minutes and that can be enough to capture who they want to, and then it goes down.”
