HOAXERS AT WORK

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 236, 5 October 1936, Page 7

HOAXERS AT WORK

EPIDEMIC IN CITY. BOGUS MESSAGES RECEIVED. TAXIS, PLUMBERS AND COAL. Considerable inconvenience has been caused to coal merchants, plumbers and taxi companies in Auckland by bogus letter and telephone messages which were received over the week-end and this morning. Bogus calls on a large scale were made to one taxi company on Saturday evening, and were continued yesterday and to-day. The telephone messages seemed to be given by all types of voices, men, women and boys, and asked that cars be sent to addresses in Mount Roskill and Mount Eden and to hotels in the city. The company concerned said three or four bogus calls were often received daily, but with the present epidemic the number had increased to 15 or 10 a day. Plumbers in Remuera and in Ponsonby received letters this morning asking that workmen be sent to an address in Mount Roskill. Men were sent, but the address was found to be a vacant section. Similar attempts have been made to hoax coal merchants. An unstamped letter giving instructions for the delivery of coal at a certain address at 11 a.m. this morning was received by a Mount Albert dealer on Saturday. The dealer, however, was suspicious on account of the letter being unstamped and the order coming from outside his district, and inquiries confirmed his belief that the letter was a hoax. A -number of other coal dealers received letters of a similar nature, and in all cases it was found that the signatory did not live at the address stated. i