Scammers posing as the IRD asked an 87-year old Pukekohe woman to buy $2500 worth of Prezzie cards.

A Pukekohe woman has avoided losing thousands of dollars to a scammer posing as an IRD employee.

Pukekohe Police Constable Nick Richards said the 87-year-old woman received a phone-call last Monday from a man posing as an Inland Revenue Department (IRD) employee.

He informed the woman she had defrauded the IRD by $2250 and she had been summoned to appear in court.

However, the man said if she paid the $2250 back she wouldn't have to go to court.

The man then instructed the woman to load the funds on Prezzy cards and to give him the card details over the phone.

Prezzy cards are pre-loaded credit cards that can be loaded with up to $1000.

Richards said after she returned home from buying three Prezzy cards valued at $2500, the man then instructed the woman to buy $1700 worth of iTunes vouchers.

"The guy was still on the phone, he'd actually hung on," Richards said.

The woman went to buy the vouchers at The Warehouse Pukekohe, but the shop employee refused to sell her any, said she was being scammed and told her to go the police station.

"The lady who came up here she was in bits - absolute bits," Richards said.

"She was beside herself thinking about court and probably wasn't thinking straight at the time."

Luckily, Richards was able to get in contact with Paper Plus Pukekohe and the owner was able to cancel the Prezzy cards before any money was taken.

Richard said without the community's support the woman would have been left thousands of dollars out of pocket.

He then returned the woman's home, and discovered the scammer was still waiting on the phone.

"I basically told him that the card numbers she'd given him were useless, and basically told him to stop scamming people."

Recently, there had been an increase in scammers targeting the older generation, Richard said.

"We tend to find the older generation are more trusting, the younger generation are a lot more skeptical and will ask questions."

Richards said Government departments never traded in Prezzy cards or iTunes vouchers, and people should never hand out banking details over the phone.

Scams to be aware of, Richards said, included scammers posing as police officers seeking payment for fines and immigration calling about deportation.

He also said computer viruses were another way scammers gained access to bank account detaills, and they'll often use Western Union to wire money so funds can't be traced.

"My advice would to be very skeptical, hang up and if you have fallen victim to something like that come into the police station and report it."