New Zealanders are being warned about a new internet scam involving counterfeit travellers' cheques.
When Matt McLean tried to fill the spare room in his flat he landed in the middle of an international fraud saga.
"We posted an ad on a website called gumtree.dot.com which is quite popular...in the UK...for finding flatmates and things," McLean says.
The ad worked and they got an email from a South African named Lucy Brown who said she was on her way to Wellington.
"Through the email she seemed quite genuine," McLean says.
Lucy sent the photos she said were of herself.
"When we opened them we all had a bit of a laugh at them because they just looked too good to be true," says McLean.
However they got a much bigger surprise in the mail - $3,500 worth of unsigned travellers' cheques. Brown said her employer had sent too many cheques by mistake and she asked the flatmates to cash them and wire her the extra money.
When McLean's flatmate got to the bank they told her it was a scam and the travellers' cheques were fake. And as the people banking them, the flatmates were at risk of being involved in money laundering on an international scale.
"Under no circumstances should anyone be accepting a traveller's cheque for a personal payment like rent. They should only be used in a face to face environment," VISA spokesman Iain Jamieson warns.
McLean has now received a similar email from a potential flatmate claiming to come from Japan.
Their ad has now been taken down from the website.
