Anatomy of a Scam

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services. Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard the elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the must listen show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and their loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday am Pacific time on kfour HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose, and her guests.

1:07 We'll provide valuable insights and practical tips on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams. And now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski. Welcome back, everybody, for this episode of Let's Talk About Scams. I'm Joyce Petrowski, founder and president of Rose Resources Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly. You can find more information on our website and more resources at Rosadvocacy dot org. You can also sign up for our newsletters. We send one via email. We also do one that we send in the mail. You can find those links right on the homepage along with the links for our social media LinkedIn Facebook, Instagram, and the YouTube page. So today I want to talk to you about an anatomy of a scam. So when we do these presentations to the seniors, when we first started, you know, we would sit there and go through probably about I don't know, five to eight different scams that have a tendency to be the the top scams in the senior the older adult population, and it never failed. Right, we go through the presentation, We talk about these scams, talk about you know, some specifics about each one, like in a romance scam, an investment scam, you know, email compromise, pig butchering, tech support, a lot of different ones. Will we leave the presentation and then lo and behold, we

2:37 find out there's five. New scams out there. So about a year and a half ago, we created what's called an Anatomy of a scam. It's an infographic where we really said, we need to just explain scams in general. So if people can understand just the basics of a scam in general, then they're going to be better app to be able to recognize a scam, no matter what kind it is. So I want to pull that Anatomy of scam up on the screen so you guys can see it. So there's three different parts there. The first part is initiating contact and there's a variety of different ways. Goes over to the second part, which is creating a compelling reason to act. This is where the emotions come in. And then it gets into the third part, which is requesting payment. Now, sometimes, yes, you know, scammers are out there looking for personal identifiable information, but they're doing that because they want to be able to take your identity and get money. So the bottom line is is they're always out looking for money. And then in the middle there's an urgency and with the majority of the scams, it's urgent from the minute they initiate contact and you engage all the way till you get done sending them the money. But there are a few that it's the request for money doesn't come so quickly.

4:02 So we can take that. Down now and I'm going to go through the three different parts in it. So the first part we talked about was initiating. The scammers have to initiate contacts somehow, and this right here is the biggest reason, or not the reason, the biggest way that scammers are going to initiate contact. Just about everybody has a cell phone and the majority of them are connected to their online right. You get your emails on there, You can get on social media, you download apps, you know, whether you play games or you have movie apps that you watch movies or stream shows. Social media apps are on there. You know, messaging, you know where you can not just call somebody, but you can send them a text message, you can take pictures, all kinds of different things that you can do on these phones. Well, that phone provides a lot of ways that a scammer can contact you. They can email you, they can message you. And it's not just the text message that automatically comes, you know, with your phone. There's a lot of these other messaging apps. The one I think that's probably the most popular is WhatsApp. I don't really use any of them, so I don't know a lot of the other ones. But they're more of what they call a private chatting. But they can also you know,

5:32 send you a message if you're if you're posting things on social media, they'll start commenting on your post and then it never fails. They they always are. Having a problem friending you, so they want you to friend them, which is really just a ploy so they can actually look more legitimate to the social media platform that you're the one that's friending them. They're not out trying to friend all these other people, but they will though. I can't tell you how many times I get messages on posts that I make and I just look at them and I go, yep, that's a scammer, and I just hold my finger down on it as long as there's no links in there, but just hold your finger down on it and it comes up and you can delete it.

6:13 You can report it as well. I think it'll say report and then you can delete after that. But it's just good to always delete them. Same with text messages, right, you get an and this is contact unexpected contact that comes. You're not expecting a text message from your friend. You know, you're not expecting a text message to come through from Amazon, or from the post Office, or from Social Security or the one that's been going around lately is toll fees, saying that you were on a toll road and you owe some money for toll fees. You know, there's a lot of different ways they do it. And they can call you and they can make that, but you know, the caller ID they can They've been able to spoof that for a long time. They can make it look like the police department's calling you. They can make it look like Social Security is calling you some federal office. They can make it look like your friend is calling you when it's not actually your friend. They're just they've somehow been able to get into your contacts and see your friend's names, and they're able to use those as the caller ID.

7:28 And so, I mean, it's happened to me. You know, it's like, oh my gosh, I haven't talked to Stephanie in a long time, and so here lo and behold, she calls, So I answer the phone and it's not her, right, It's so it's very it's very hard these days to determine just when that contact comes in, if it's real or if it's fake. So we talked about email, we talked about text messages, phone calls. Social media is a big one. Lots of people are on socialcial media. There's all different kinds of social media platforms. Scammers are in those. You know, they're creating fake profiles and a lot of times, you know, at least the fake ones that I've come across, when they're preparing to be when they're pretending to be a man they have, they're impersonating someone that's been in the service that just seems to kind of be their mo you know. And if they're impersonating some woman, they're going to find, you know, a really beautiful woman that would just make somebody want to be friends with them and not think twice, you know, to click that friend request button or to accept a friend request. So social media, you know, they hide out there. They also if you play the online games. So like, for instance, I play an online game, it's not it's an app that I have and I play some games on it, but I'm not playing in real time against people where I can sit and have a conversation with people as I'm playing

9:01 against them. That's online, and scammers will hide out in there and they'll strike up relationships in there. If you're on a dating site, you know, they set up profiles on dating sites that they can find you online. Is really is apt to have a scammer involved in there someplace and they are still using the mail I received from one of our supporters yesterday, I received an email that says, hey, have you seen this scam? And I open it up and it's about it pretends to be coming from Walmart, and it was something that was sent in the mail to her and it had Walmart on there with the logo, and it was about being one of the mystery shoppers. And it actually had a check attached to it made out in her name and her address, and it was for over four thousand dollars. Well, basically what they were saying is they're in there is you know, you need to text these two numbers to activate everything, and then you get to keep seven hundred dollars as your commission for being a mystery shopper. And then if you do these things within I think it said twenty four hours or forty eight hours it was a really short timeframe that you get an extra fifty dollars and then the rest of it. They wanted you to go out and buy six different gift cards five hundred dollars each,

10:31 and then they wanted you to then they were going to send you this survey to answer these questions and you know, send the information, you know, with the gift cards over to them. And it's just a big scam. And so what I I mean, it looked like a scam. If you look down at the bottom of the letter, which will be on our social media today, so you'll see a copy of that letter if you want to look at it. You look at the email address that's down at the bottom of it. And I don't remember the what's to the left of the ad sign, but it was a Gmail account, you know. It was something like Walmart's Secret Mystery Shopper at gmail dot com. Now we all know Walmart doesn't use Gmail, right, so that's a big red flag there. Yes, there was some grammar stuff, you know, bad grammar going on in there, which I was really quite shocked because with artificial intelligence these days, the chat GBT, you can actually get that program to write a really nice letter for you and then use that the scammer could use that. So I was a little shocked that there was some bad grammar in there, but you know, it can still happen, so they are still using the mail, so you just got to be careful with that contact. And it's that unexpected contact, right, And that's the majority of the time. Now, there are also times when say, for instance, a scammer was able

12:01 to hack into your friend's email account and so now they're sending emails out as your friend, So it's coming from your friend or family member whatever their email address. So you look at that and you're like, no, that's their email address, that's them, but it's really the scammer because they've hacked into it and taken it over, and your friend or family member might not know quite yet that it's happen. So that's where you got to kind of look at the message, right, and you got to go, does this really make sense? Is this how they're usually conversing? They've never asked me for money before. What's going on?

12:42 You know, it's always good to call that friend or family member, you have their verified phone number and just check it out. Hey, were you emailing me about this. I had this happen with someone I needed to do a background check on yesterday who does some of our presentations, and the background check company sent her an email saying, you know, we need you to fill this information out and it was going to have personal sensitive information because it's running a background check, and she wasn't going to just do it. So she calls me and says, hey, was this you that sent this through the background check company? And I'm like, yep, absolutely, that was me. I just put it through. So she verified that that was a valid email that I did that, even though you know, earlier, earlier that morning, I had sent an email to her saying, hey, I'm going to be doing this right, she still called and verified. So that was her way to protect herself from not going in and giving all this personal information out until she knew for sure it was legitimate.

13:45 So in those instances, you know where. The scammer might you know, take over someone's email address or you know, take over the phone number. Somehow it could come across with that phone number. So you still need to be really careful in those instances and just always have not in a bad way to always but what we talk about is the healthy skepticism. Having that healthy skepticism because you don't want to be giving information out to scammers or obviously money, but you don't want to engage. You want to stop the scam at that first step, which is the contact, and if you can do that, you don't even have to worry about the second step, the third step. All of that you've stopped it at the contact. But let's on some of these scams that people have fallen victim to. You know, they've gotten the contact, they've engaged with the scammer, and very quickly the scammer then goes into the second part, which is creating a compelling reason to act. This is where emotions come into play. They are very very good at getting you into an emotional state, whether that's fear, anger, love, you know, greed and I don't really like the word greed, but it is an emotion and it's more of you know, say,

15:18 for instance, you get something that says you've won this car. You know, this this. Very high end expensive car, or you've won some lottery or you know, Publisher's clearinghouse it's been around for a long time and it's a legitimate company, but scammer's impersonate them, right, And so you've won this big, you know, pot of money, and you get excited and you're like, you know, who doesn't want a big pot of money? Who doesn't want that expensive you know car? A lot of people do, and so they they let that emotion take over them without stopping and thinking, you know, well, did I really enter this contest? Did I play this game?

15:58 You know? Is this this seems too good to be true? You know, things like that, And this is where you have to understand. I hear this so much from people, whether they're talking about a loved one that's fallen victim, or maybe they've fallen victim theirselves themselves. They'll say, you know, how could they be so stupid to fall for that? Or I can't believe I was that stupid to fall for that. And it's got scams have nothing to do with intelligence. The smartest, the people on the highest end of the IQ, and the lowest end of the IQ, and everybody in between is vulnerable to falling victim to a scam. And it's because of your emotions. If you are acting out of your emotions, you are going to make different decisions than if you are thinking and acting out of a rational state, which is like our first tip we always give, be aware of your emotions. And the next thing I say is I get it. When you're in that emotional state, it's a lot more difficult to be aware of those emotions, which is why you should always have a trusted person that you can talk to about everything that's the situation and what's going on, because sometimes when you just hear yourself say it, you then flip over into your rational state and you're like, yeah, that just doesn't make sense, or it takes your trusted person to talk you through the whole thing and then get you to think more rationally.

17:24 So just know that it's emotions. Scammers are very very very good at getting you into that emotional state, keeping you in that emotional state until they get what they want. And so if you can cut it off at the contact, then you don't have to worry about getting into that emotional state and then having to decipher what's really going on. But then we get into the third part. For people that have fallen victim, we're going to use those examples. They've engaged with the contact, the scammer's gotten them into that emotional state, and now the scammer needs needs money for a variety of different reasons, and scammers will a lot of times they want it over you know, gift cards.

18:12 Why gift cards, Well, they don't need you to send them the actual gift card. They just need the information on the back of the gift card and they have access to it. Or those peer to peer payment apps so venmo, Zell, PayPal, things like that. They're convenient and I totally get it right. I use PayPal on occasion, but I don't use venmo and Zel. I don't really have a need to use it. But I understand there's people out there that do have a need and they're willing to take the risk for that convenience. And again that's a lifestyle choice, and that's one you have to make for yourself, depending on your situation. But if you are going to use those peer to peer payment apps like Venmozel, PayPal, please make sure you have all the security measures in place that they offer. I believe they all offer multifactor or two factor authentication. When your logged, you can go directly to the settings and it should be in privacy or security and then it should be listed as an option, you need to turn it on and then that's where you get the code sent to you.

19:20 So if a scammer was able to get your log in for one of those accounts, they still can't get into it unless they have that code. But you need to understand that that code is confidential information. You don't give it out to anybody. What some other people have told me that they've done they need to use Zell or Venmo is that they have set up a totally separate bank account that they have attached to one of the to the Venmo or the Zel and they only keep a little bit of money in it and then they just they'll put money in that account whenever they need to replenish it. But that way, if a scammer was to access Venmo or Zel and get into their bank account, they only have access.

20:00 To a small amount. So that might be another way too, if you're using Venmo or Zell to help mitigate you know, any damages. Another way that they like is, you know, wire transfers. A lot of. People do their do online banking, and so they're just gonna and this comes into play a lot with the tech support scam where they're pretending to be for Microsoft, McAfee, you know, all these big tech support companies, and there's issues, you know, scaring you issues with your computer, and we need to remote in and we can get this all fixed, you know, and then you'll be good to go. And well, once they're in your computer, they're going to have access and they can see everything that you're doing. And if you're transferring money out of your account to them, well then they know. They've then been able to log your keystrokes, so they know what your login is, and then they're going to have access to that bank account. So and you know, wire transfers, they're going to get it. You know, they're to get it instantly. So another way that they like is, well with the wire transfers, let me step back.

21:06 They also will have people just go to the bank and take money out and sometimes they have a like wrap it in paper or put it in a book or something and then send it off to some address. But another thing that they like to do is they there's these cryptocurrency atm machines. I personally have not used one. I'm not invested in cryptocurrency, but a lot of people are. And you actually don't have to be invested in it in order to use those ATMs. They know where they're at. They're at gas stations, they're at shopping malls, and they will stay on the phone while you're at the bank getting the money because they anticipate that that bank teller is going to start asking you questions and they already have the answers that they're telling you to give them.

21:53 And I've talked to people that have said, looking back, I lied. I lied to the bank teller. They asked me, they thought it was a scam, but I just lied to them. So that's how good these scammers are. And then they stay on the phone and they direct you right to that cryptocurrency ATM. You get in there, they have you put an account number in, you put the money in, and boom, that money's gone. You know. I've talked to people that said, yeah, I did it, And as soon as I put the money in, it was like I realized that it was a scam and I was trying to grab at the machine to get my money out. Once the money's in there, there, it's gone. So and Crypto when it first came out was like totally anonymous, and like I said, I'm not by any means a crypto expert, but my understanding is when it first came out, it was anonymous. But I'm also hearing and reading things where law enforcement and prosecutors are now able to and through new technology, through different investigative measures, that they are actually able to start getting more information about these crypto accounts and where they actually lead to.

23:01 So it's not quite as anonymous as it once was, is my understanding. But like I said, those are the three parts, and then the urgency is when they get you to engage with the contact, to go all the way through all three steps. It's urgent. Everything is urgent. But then, if you remember at the beginning, I said for most scams, there are some that, like the romance scam. Now they make that contact and you engage with them, they're not necessarily going to start asking for money right away. They're getting you into the emotional state because in a lot of times it's exploiting someone's grief that they're going through because they've lost a loved one and they're playing on that grief, and they're taking their time, however long.

23:54 It takes maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe a couple months, however long it take to get you into this absolute trust, because that absolute trust is your relationship with them. You believe everything they say. You're trusting them, you don't trust anybody else, and they know. Then once you're in that absolute trust, then it's urgent. They need money for all different kinds of reasons. Same thing with like pig butchering scams. A little bit about romance, a little bit about investments, but sometimes they're not necessarily establishing a love relationship. It's more of a friendship relationship to get you to invest. So they're taking a little bit of time to build that friendship and then to get you to invest with them. So it's not as urgent as you know a lot of the other scams from start to finish. So there are a few of them out there. Like I said that going from contact all the way through to getting the money could take some time, but once they're on the money part, it's urgent.

25:02 They always need it. They need it for a variety of different reasons. So if you could really keep those three parts of a scam and when and just think about it, right, just just think about, Okay, well, how does a romance scam work? Well, they had to have contacted you. How does the tech support scam work? They had to have contacted you. Right with any scam, they've got to contact you. And what they don't have to actually be talking to you. They could send stuff in the mail, right they you know, they can message you. They a lot of different things. So keep those three in mind and you'll be better apped to understand scams in general. And just know that once you engage in that contact stage, even if you realize that after you've engaged that it's a scam and you cut off contact, be prepared because they're going to continue to try to get you to engage because in their mind, you've engaged once and so they've got a better chance of getting you to engage again, and then they can they're really good at getting you into that emotional state. So just know that more contact could be coming and you're just gonna need to be extra diligent about knowing that. And if it's your phone and they keep they keep calling you and it's getting really I get it. It gets really frustrating. The phone rings off the hook, turn on silence unknown callers. It's your in your phone settings, it's

26:34 called silence unknown callers. If you have an Apple, it's called block Unknown Callers. If you have an Android, you just go to your settings and your phone settings and then scroll down. You can toggle it on and off as much as you want. The only downside i've heard to it is some older adults have told me that they missed the phone calls to their doctor's offices because when you have that turned on, when a call comes in, if that phone number is not in your contacts, it will not ring through. It goes directly to voicemail and the person on the other end can leave a voicemail. So the doctor's offices will leave a voicemail and then you can call them back. But what some people do is they ask the doctor's office for all those back office numbers, because normally when they call out from the office, they're calling from one of those back office numbers. They put all those in their contacts, so then when the doctor's office calls, it will ring through to them. But it really they've told me that they really like it.

27:34 That cuts down on the frustration of the phone just ringing off the hook, and especially like before the election last November, I think everybody's phone was ringing off the hooks, texting off the hook because of all these you were getting all these calls about the election and all these text messages and things like that. So that's one way that you can help cut that down. So again to reiterate, we've got those three parts of a scam. You've got that contact, you've got that creating, that compelling reason to act, and then the requests for money. Understanding those three parts is really going to help you with scams. And we're going to talk more in a couple of weeks. I'm going to have a guest on a psychologist that is very well versed in senior scams and has written a book on it, actually wrote her thesis on it, and she's gonna we're going to get into some more with some details on these different emotions and why people can be more vulnerable than others. And so you'll want to you'll want to listen back in in a couple of weeks.

28:51 But in the meantime, you can get on our website at Rose Advocacy you can find more resources. Shoot us an email or give us a call if you want. If there's a specific topic you'd like us to discuss related to scams. You can follow us on our social media channels Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. The links are on the homepage, and you can sign up for our monthly newsletters. The sign ups are on the homepage as well. We do one via. Email and we do another one in the mail. So until next week, thank you very much for joining in, and I will put a I will have that infograph infographic.

29:37 Link in the show notes. See you next week. Well that's all the knowledge for this episode. June in every Tuesday at eight am Pacific time on KFOURHD Radio at KFOURHD dot com as Joyce explores a variety of knowledge. So you have the power to make scam protection, you're healthy, have it and until and then, feel free to reach out to Joyce and let's talk about scams.