Think you’d never fall for a scam? Nigel Latta proves how easy it could be in You’ve Been Scammed

RECAP: I’ve always been fairly confident in my ability to not fall victim to scams.

I grew up with a world-class hacker for a brother who drilled security into me for years. I have two-factor authentication for all my accounts.

I check for spelling mistakes and look out for scam-looking email addresses.

I guess you could say confidence has made me fairly complacent when it comes to staying vigilant.

Yet in the first episode of You’ve Been Scammed by Nigel Latta, we’re told confidence and complacency are the two things that can make us vulnerable to scams.

Uh oh.

It kicks off as you’d expect any scam show to start. Audio plays of a person being scammed by someone masquerading as a member of a fraud prevention team. A Netsafe expert points out all the tricks they used – speed, confidence and not giving the victim a chance to stop and take heed of what was happening.

Still, we’d never fall for it, right?

But, it’s when Latta compares a scam to a magic trick, and pulls in help from Brendan Dooley – a mentalist and magician – to prove how easily he can thwart unsuspecting participants that it becomes scarily obvious how easily people can fall into a scam trap.

Con artists are confidence artists, Latta tells us, as he uses two key scam tricks – distraction and confidence – to swipe watches and ties from his unsuspecting participants as they’re wearing them.

And it’s easy to see how it works. You’re in a room with Nigel Latta – and Nigel Latta will never deceive you. You feel safe, but also distracted by the fast-paced action of backstage. Before you know it, you’re being handed a box of your personal belongings you didn’t even realise were missing.

Only one person catches Latta and his thieving cohort in the act.

Once again, says Latta, confidence can be our downfall. The scammer uses both ours and theirs against us.

Anyone who uses social media is familiar with what comes next – the impersonation scam. We’re given the same information we’ve all been told countless times before – never disclose your PIN, passwords or personal information to police, banks or anyone over the phone.

We meet podcaster Frances Cook who talks about the sheer number of social media impersonator profiles are out there in attempt to scam her followers.

One of those followers was stoked to get a message from Cook before realising he was being taken for a ride.

“It would feel like a friend has stabbed you in the back,” Cook says about people preying on her fans.

But again, it’s when Latta takes the role of bad guy that the scenarios go from something that will never happen to very possible.

To highlight our complacency with social media information, reusing PINs or sharing personal information, Latta plays the role of mind-reader.

In the eyes of the next participant, Latta seems to be doing something pretty magical – he guesses where he’s from, hobbies and even that he once had a beard. Before taking a stab at his bank PIN.

Magic? Nope, we’re told. The personal stuff was all found on social media – and the pin had been handed freely to a member of the production team when asked to provide a handful of four-digit numbers.

And let’s be honest, we’re all pretty complacent with handing over information through social media, right?

If we’re not quite convinced (and terrified) by our complacency yet, Latta once again takes the role of bad guy, and makes a phishing site – complete with dodgy email address, misspelled last name and incorrect website address in an email to more than 100 people.

More than half opened it.

Never trust me, laughed Latta. But if we can’t trust the most trustworthy personality on our televisions, just who can we rely on?

Now that we’re well and truly nervous about just how much personal information we’re actively handing out to potential scammers, we’re teased that the next episode will focus on avoiding investment scams and how FOMO can be our downfall.

As someone whose fear of missing out has led to many questionable decisions in the past, I’ll be there for it.

New episodes of You’ve Been Scammed by Nigel Latta debut on TVNZ 1 on Mondays at 8pm. They are also available to stream on TVNZ+.