Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

The insurance ombudsman is urging customers not to embellish claims for flood damage.

The Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman Scheme (IFSO Scheme), which reviews insurance complaints, said with more frequent flooding events, people could risk their recovery by falsifying statements.

Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman, Karen Stevens, said it’s important to know the consequences of making a false statement on an insurance claim.

“Providing false information can result in your whole claim being declined, not just the items that were inaccurately included. And if you’re found to have committed fraud, then you’ll likely not be able to get insurance in future,” she said.

Stevens said if people are unsure about the details, they should check before submitting their claim.

“Its important to remember that insurance relies on trust. Honesty is always the best policy-especially when so many are relying on insurance to recover from natural disasters,” Stevens said.

The warning follows a recent investigation where an Auckland woman’s claim for flood-damaged household contents was declined.

IFSO Scheme said after the Auckland floods in January 2023, the woman claimed that 43 household items-including large pieces of furniture-had been damaged and thrown away.

But, the insurer’s investigation revealed that some of these items were actually stored at a nearby storage facility.

When questioned, Heather provided a revised list with only 10 items.

The insurer’s findings were that the false statements had been made in support of the claim and, under the policy’s terms, declined the woman’s claim and cancelled her policy.

The customer subsequently made a complaint to the IFSO Scheme, asking them to review the case.

She claimed family members had helped move and dispose of the household items and that she had not visited the storage unit herself.

Despite that, the IFSO Scheme found it was “deliberately reckless” for the woman to claim the items had been thrown out and seek compensation without taking reasonable steps to verify this.

The complaint was not upheld by the IFSO Scheme.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Former Auckland financial advisor David McEwen has pleaded guilty to all charges for breaching a banning order imposed by the financial markets regulator.

The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) previously issued warnings about financial products and related advice provided by McEwen and his associated entities.

It issued a stop order against McEwen in 2023, and criminal charges were filed against him in December 2024 for breaching the stop order.

FMA head of enforcement Margot Gatland said the agency continued to recommend investors contacted by McEwen or related entities report it to the FMA.

“Ultimately, confident participation in the financial markets can only exist if an intrinsic level of market integrity exists, which stop order provisions serve to facilitate,” Gatland said.

The FMA also previously told former or existing clients of McEwen or subscribers to his publication “McEwen Investment Report” to check their credit and debit card statements for possible unauthorised payments.

The FMA said it received complaints from his clients suspecting card payments were made without their permission.

McEwen is due to be sentenced on 14 January.

McEwen was a business journalist prior to his investment career, and worked for well-known publications, including the Financial Times, National Business Review and Reuters.

He later founded his advisory firm Stockfox, and was a director of McEwen & Associates.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Tactics like countdown timers and messages showing items fast running out stock when buying things online are being labelled as insidious by Consumer.

It wants such practices banned, saying their use is completely unregulated in New Zealand.

The strategies are known as “dark patterns” and include the likes of hidden fees and making subscriptions hard to cancel.

Consumer surveyed some 1500 New Zealanders and four about a quarter had kept online subscriptions longer than they wanted, while 40 percent said they ran into problems cancelling something because of dark patterns.

“They’re just things that have crept into the online sphere and sort of taken over, they’re kind of ubiquitous now,” Consumer senior investigative journalist Chris Schulz said.

He told Nine to Noon everyday purchases were riddled with dark patterns so people were manipulated and manoeuvred into doing things they might not want to.

Consumer first started looking into the tactics in April and conducted sit-down interviews with some people after its survey.

“And we just sat there and watched them and talked with them as they did it,” Schulz told Nine to Noon.

“So that was booking accommodation through Booking.com, buying concert tickets through Ticketmaster, cancelling a HelloFresh meal delivery subscription and then purchasing flights through Jetstar,” he said.

“And these four seemingly typical things that we all do every day, they’re riddled with dark patterns now.”

Schulz said Booking.com had “scarcity queues” he said, showing messages like “only one left”.

He said Ticketmaster added hidden fees and had countdown timers that pushed people to make quick purchases.

HelloFresh, he said, had a four- to five-step cancellation process, while Jetstar flights had pre-selected options or pushes toward other options.

“People don’t like them… only 6 percent of respondents came back and said that dark patterns are helpful in any way, so people overwhelmingly don’t like them,” Schulz said.

On Nine to Noon he detailed one case study of an Auckland woman buying concert tickets.

“It was her first concert experience since Covid, she was really looking forward to seeing Pink,” he said.

“So she jumped online, got on the pre-sale and she thought these tickets were going to be $200 each, and by the time she got to the checkout she was ending up paying twice that – they were going to be $400, so for two tickets for her it was $800.

“And she told us that she felt pressured because of the countdown time – she did not want to miss out on these tickets,” Schulz said.

He said the woman said the purchase was “a sad story” and it ended up ruining her experience.

With HelloFresh, Schulz said a lot of people recognised they were about to “endure something pretty traumatic” when it came to cancelling.

“There are multiple persuasive techniques they use to try to get you to stay on – whether that is pausing your delivery service, from offering you points or discounts for your friends, like it is just page after page and it takes so much time and you need to have energy to do this because it is so time consuming.

“And because we do not have any kind of restriction or legislation banning these practices, they have just been allowed to spread.”

Online tactics not regulated

Schulz said there was little data on how much dark patterns were costing people.

“You can use a website from overseas and a consumer here in New Zealand will have a completely different experience as someone where there are rules and regulations in force, in Europe perhaps, where things are a little more stringent and they are sort of leading the way on this,” he said.

Schulz said Consumer was calling for the same in New Zealand, and that Australia was looking to ban a lot of the practices.

“So we could ban unfair trade, these could fall under unfair trading practices, the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs could ban them.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand