For more than a year scammers had set up and used a fake Facebook page pretending to be NZME’s Hokonui Breakfast host Luke Howden.
For months the fake scam page had been keeping a low profile, while copying Howden’s posts, including interactions with listeners and photos in a bid to look legitimate.
Then last week the page struck after messaging loyal listeners pretending to be the real radio host, telling them they had won a weekly prize that featured on Howden’s show every Friday.
The scammers also went back through some of Howden’s posts that were more than a year old telling people who had entered a competition that they had won a prize.
They then asked listeners for their bank account details.
Speaking to The New Zealand Herald, Howden, who is a new father, said he originally found it comical that someone would want to impersonate him – until he received a flood of calls from concerned listeners.
“I was cleaning gutters at home when my phone started going off. It kept going off for five minutes straight. I had half a dozen messages and a few missed calls and thought it was a family emergency,” he said.
“People were sending me screenshots of a fake page pretending to be me contacting them telling them they had won a prize. At first, I thought it was quite comical but it was frustrating as well.
“These scammers are…
