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TOM PULLAR-STRECKER

The Government should be chasing down internet fraudsters overseas, as they do with drug runners, not just relying on consumer education, according to an Australian expert.

Government estimates suggest Kiwis may lose close to $450million a year to internet scams, though the figures are hard to be sure of, and may be inflated.

Kicking off Fraud Awareness Week yesterday, Commerce Minister Craig Foss said the Consumer Affairs Ministry had "always believed education was the key" to combating scams, partly because many were run from overseas.

But Alistair MacGibbon, director of Canberra University's Centre for Internet Safety, told a conference organised by the ministry and Trade Me in Wellington that while education was critical, it was "a really hard slog".

"I believe that along with consumer education there are systemic issues that governments around the world need to deal with," he said.

"Being overseas shouldn't be stopping investigations. If anyone has ever investigated complex drug matters they will know that they go offshore. New Zealand and Australia and other countries have been pretty good at posting police to drug hotspots overseas.

"That is exactly what needs to be done when it comes to internet-based crime."

Ministry spokesman Alistair Stewart believed most scams went unreported but acknowledged its claim that Kiwis were losing $448m to scams annually was based on extrapolating international data and "may be inflated".

There have been suspicions security software companies have overstated the scale of losses to generate more demand for their products.

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Government urged to hunt offshore scammers