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Welcome back everyone to Let's Talk about Scams. I'm your host,
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Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose Resources Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly.
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You can find more information on our website at Roseadvocacy
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dot org. You can sign up for our newsletter, find
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our social media links, and don't forget you're going to
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want to click subscribe so you don't miss an episode
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of Let's Talk about Scams. So today I've got a
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variety of things I want to talk to you guys
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about and share some information. So the first thing is,
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are you or have you been a customer of Ticketmaster.
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I'm sure most of you have already heard by now
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Ticketmaster had a data breach and five hundred and sixty
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million customers records were compromised. That includes names, addresses, phone numbers,
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and payment information which is probably mostly credit cards, but
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there might be some debit cards in there as well.
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So what can you do to protect yourself with this? Well,
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you're going to want to monitor your credit reports. You
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can go on to the three different credit reporting agencies Experience, Equifax,
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and TransUnion and you can request a credit report. It's
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free to request it and you can just go down
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and review it for accuracy to make sure no one
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has opened up any credit in your name. You can
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also monitor your credit card activity. You can call the
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credit card company. I would suggest you look on your
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statement for the phone number, because the phone number on
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the back of your credit card is so darn small
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it's hard to read without a magnifying glass. But anyways,
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I would call the credit card company and I would
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ask them to put an alert on your account that
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you want to be notified of any transaction that happens
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on your account. I know personally, I do that, and
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I get an email every time there's a transaction, and
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then I can see if it's a valid transaction or
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if it's a fraudulent one, and if it's a fraudulent one,
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I can call the credit card company and I can
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stop the credit card right away. And this really helps
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prevent a lot of fraudulent charges from happening on your
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credit card. When you get those alerts and you can
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get notified right away, you'll know if someone's got your
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account number. Any accounts that you have, especially your financial accounts,
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your credit card accounts use multi factor or two factor authentication.
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You just go log into your account the way you
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normally would and go into your settings and just scroll
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down and see if they have it. They're available. Most
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accounts do have it now, but you have to turn
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it on and then you can tell if you want
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to get notified via text, message or email. Some of
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them will use just messages, some will use just emails,
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some will use a combination, but they also might use
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an authenticator app. So Google and Microsoft both have authenticator
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apps that you can download onto your phone and use
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those for these multifactor or two factor codes. It's an
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added layer of security and it's a great thing to
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have in place. If someone happens to get your log
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in information, they still can't get in unless they have
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that code. But you need to remember that that code
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is personal identifiable information and you are not to give
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it to anyone unless you know for sure that you
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are talking to someone at that account, whether it's a bank,
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whether it's a retailer's account, you know, another financial account,
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a credit card account, whatever it is. Unless you know
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for sure that you are talking to somebody from that business,
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you don't give that code to anyone, and then if
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you have done so, freezing your credit is a great
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prevention tool, I should say it's more of a protection tool.
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So you would have to do it at all three
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credit reporting agencies that's Equifax, Experience, and TransUnion. You are
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going to have to provide your social Security number, so
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you're going to want to make sure you are on
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the verified website for each one of those, or if
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you're calling to do it, make sure you are calling
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the verified phone number to all three of those. You
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have to do it at all three. They don't share information.
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And what that does is it freezes your credit from
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that day going forward. You can still use your existing credit,
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your credit cards, your debit card, all that stuff. You
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can still use your existing credit. It just is a
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great protection tool to have credit opened in your name
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that you didn't do, that was fraudulently opened. Now there
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is a way that that's not going to protect you.
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So if there's a creditor out there that is not
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going to run a credit check, they're just going to
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give the loan or whatever it is to somebody, then
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there isn't any way that that creditor is going to
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know your credit is frozen, and so they could go
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ahead and issue that credit to someone else in your name.
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But that's very few and far between. The majority of
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the creditors out there will do a credit check because
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they want to make sure that you are a good
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risk to pay back that loan or to pay the
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credit card payments, you know, whatever the debt is. And
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if your credit's frozen, the credit agencies are going to say, nope,
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you can't see their credit report. The credit is frozen,
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and so they're not going to have access to it
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unless you unfreeze your credit, which you can unfreeze it
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as well. You do it the same way you did
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to freeze it. So again you're going to want to
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make sure you're on the verified site, calling or calling
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the verified phone number, and you have to do it
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at all three of them. Once you do whatever it
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is you need to do with your credit, then refreeze
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it as an added protection tool. So now we are
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going to move on to cell phones. So the NSA
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came out with the Best Practices Guide for Mobile Phones
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a few years ago, but one of the things they
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talked about in there is still really good today because
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hackers are getting so much more creative at getting into
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your cell phone. So one way that they do this
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is they use zero click exploits, so the hacker does
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not need you to interact by clicking on something to
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take over your phone. They can use that to get
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into your phone, take over your phone. You might not
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even know they're in there. They can see through key logging,
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they can see all of your keystrokes, and they can
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get your login informations, you know, whatever you do on
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the phone. So whenever you get notified that there's an
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update with your phone, you need to make sure you
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do it right away because a lot of the times
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the Apple or Google, they're going to fix different bugs
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in the system. They're going to put patches in there.
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If they get notified that there's a bigger issue, you know,
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they're going to have patches in for those other bigger
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issues as well. They're also going to have new and
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improved items that are going to be available on your
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phone that will help you use your phone better. The
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other thing that you can do is regularly power down
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your phone. Just power it down, let it sit for
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five or ten minutes, or however long you want to
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let it sit. You want to let it sit overnight,
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let it sit overnight, but power it down, and then
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when you want, when you're ready, you can turn it
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back on. You can set a reminder on your calendar
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to do this, probably good to do it about once
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a week. The other thing is if you have an
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Android phone, so the Google Play, they have what's called
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a Google Play Protect, you should have that enabled because
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what that will do is it will be running and
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scanning on your phone with all of the apps that
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you've downloaded, searching for malware. And I believe it's free.
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So if you have an Android phone, you're definitely going
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to want to check into that and get that enabled
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on your phone. So if you have an Apple phone, there,
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Apple prevents iOS from scanning from malware, so you're going
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to want to make sure you have a good antivirus
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software on your phone. You might have it on all
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your other devices, but you want to make sure you
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have it on your phone as well. And make sure
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that whatever antivirus software that you get, once it's loaded
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onto your device your phone, that it is running all
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the time. You don't want it to just sit there
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and you have to manually go in and tell it
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to run, because then it's not scanning and always on
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the lookout for viruses and malware. So you want it
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running all of the time, so if you accidentally click
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on something, however, these viruses in malware are going to
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get on your phone. Your antivirus software automatically running, and
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it's going to notify you whoa wait a minute, are
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you sure you want to go to that site? Or
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are you sure you want to download this? You know,
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we think this has got malware on it or we've
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detected a virus on it, so it's going to warn you.
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So make sure your antivirus software is running all of
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the time. Last week, I received a call from Roger
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in Minnesota. He found us on the Internet and he
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wanted to let me know about a scam he had
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just encountered. So he receives a phone call and the
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gentleman says he's from the Federal Reserve and starts asking
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for information, and then he starts asking for a more
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personal information, and so Roger got very suspicious and asked
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him for his supervisor's name and phone number. So the
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gentleman gave it to him, and so Roger hung up,
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and he called this other gentleman on this other phone
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number at this other phone number, and he started talking
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to him, but he got really suspicious again and so
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he just hung up. Now that's a great thing because
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he is looking for red flags and he didn't, you know,
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he didn't believe everything the person was saying. What they
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were trying to do is say they were from the
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Federal Reserve and that he had some unclaimed lottery or
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sweepstakes winnings. So they were trying to entice him, trying
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to get him all excited that he's going to get
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this money. And you know, that's what scammers do. They
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play on your emotions. But luckily he didn't get too
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far into that emotion and he was able to still
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think rationally and tried to verify things. Number one suggestion
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for this is somebody you answer the phone and they
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say from that they're from the Federal Reserve. Just say no,
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you know, just hang up. The Federal Reserve is not
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going to call you. It's just not going to happen.
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So just hang up. If you have unclaimed you know,
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winnings or unclaimed funds someplace, research it on the internet
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and find out every state has their own procedures and
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protocols for what they do with unclaimed funds. So work
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through with your state to figure out how they post
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this where they post it, how they notify people to
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then determine and verify that you actually have unclaimed funds
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out there. But if you are thinking about calling the
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person back on the phone, or if they give you
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another phone number to call, please don't do that. Don't
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call the person back, don't don't call a phone number
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that they've given you, because the scammers are very good
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at what they do, and they could very easily get
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you into that emotional state and before you know it,
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you've given them, you know, your credit card information, your
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debit card information, you know you've you've zeld money to
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them or used Venmo or whatever. So just don't engage,
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and don't you know, use any of those phone numbers
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they give you or the number that they called from.
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You need to do your own verifying before you can
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trust what's going on. So the last thing I want
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to talk about is is I want to go back
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to the Android phones. I forgot to mention that hackers
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are still impersonating the Google Play Store and they're using
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it for Google Play updates and trying to get you
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to click on the link to update your Google Play
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and if you do this, they can take control of
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your phone, so they might email you, text message you
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with this update and want you to click on it
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to update. If you do that, then the hackers trick
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you into giving them access to your accessibility settings and
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that allows them to take control of your phone. And
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if you do your banking on your phone, the hacker
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can now get into your bank account. They can see
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all your other apps, your contacts, your text messages, they
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can see everything in there, so be careful with that.
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Only update and download apps from a trusted source. That
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would be like Google Play Store, Amazon App Store, Samsung
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Galaxy Store. Make sure it is a trusted, verified app
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store that you are downloading apps from. And please do
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not do side loading apps. It is risky and you
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need to avoid that. There's been a lot of fraud
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with sideloading apps, so at all, if at all possible,
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try to avoid those the old tips, avoid clicking on
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links and attachments and emails that are unexpected that you
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don't know who it is and all that. And have
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a good antivirus software on your phone which is going
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to help protect you as well, and remember to have
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it running all the time. One more quick thing about
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PayPal again, scammers love to impersonate these big reputable companies,
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and they impersonate PayPal, so they're going to send you
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phishing text in emails trying to steal your information. So
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there's some common PayPal scams to look out for the
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phishing emails or messages we talked about that. They have