July 15, 2025

Don't panic when your computer wails

Show Notes
Transcript

Recently, I was about to start a fraud prevention presentation when my mom called to tell me she was having some computer issues. I drove over to her place. Upon arrival, her computer had a pop-up on the screen that made her computer inoperable. The pop-up was making a siren noise with a voice telling her not to shut down the computer. My mom did everything right. She closed the door to her office and called her “phone a friend” which happens to be me.

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Disclaimer: 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, R.O.S.E. Resources / Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to a scam.

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This program is designed to provide general information with regards

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to the subject matters covered. This information is given with

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the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station

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are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling,

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professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services

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of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.

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Understand the information contained in this podcast is intended for

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informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individual

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professional legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from

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vetted sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard

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the elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim

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to a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the must

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listen show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and

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their loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday, eight am Pacific

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time on K four HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose,

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and her guests will provide valuable insights and practical tips

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on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams. And

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now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski.

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Good Morning, everybody. My name is Brian Watson. I am

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a community outreach specialist for Rose. I have the pleasure

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of filling in for Joyce Petrowski this morning. Welcome to

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Let's talk about scams. Today's topic. The title today is

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don't panic when your computer wails, And I'm going to

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tell a story about something scary that happened to my mom.

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But spoiler alert, there was a happy ending and it

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ends well. Too many times in the scam prevention world

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we hear all kinds of bad stories, and you know,

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they're learning lessons and we don't shame anybody. Today's lesson

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had a positive ending because it involved my mom and

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she did everything right. So let's focus on something positive today.

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So let me tell you the story. Last year, I

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was about to start a fraud prevention presentation and my

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phone rings. So I'm at a retirement community, I have

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my computer setup. I'm going to tell the residents about

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how to protect themselves from being scammed. In my phone rings,

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it's my mom and she says, you know, she's having

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computer issues. Someone's taken over her computer. It's not working.

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And I said, Mom, okay, thanks for calling, but I'm

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about five minutes from starting. Let me finish this presentation,

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and I promise I'll get right back to you. So

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the presentation ended, I get in my car, call my

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mom and she's telling me more. She said, someone's taken

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over her computer. She can't operate it. It's making these noises.

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And I'm like, wow, this is even worse than I thought.

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So I jetted over to her house. It was, you know,

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forty five minutes away, and I went directly to her house.

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I walked into her apartment and there is a noise

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coming from her office, a siren like. It was scary.

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And I sit in front of her laptop or her computer,

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and there was a pop up on the screen and

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it was scary. It made noises and said there was

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a voice, a male's voice, that said, do not shut

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down this computer. You will lose all your files. And

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I tried to use her mouse and the mouse was inoperable,

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and this whole thing was loud. I mean, it was

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absolutely scary. So one, I'm going to have you pull

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up the first slide. Here's the pop up that was

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on the screen. I took a picture of it, and

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it indicated that her computer was at risk from spyware

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and that there were infected files, and then there was

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a phone number on there for Apple support to fix

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the issue. So let me, I mean, I can attest

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this siren. And the male's voice was very ominous and scary.

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Even though I knew this was a scam, I still

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felt rushed. I felt like, you know, I needed to

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resolve this quickly. And this is what I do for

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a living. And you know, as I use Windows, that's

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the kind of I use Window space computers. I know

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that I can always on my keyboard do a control

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alt delete. That way you get to the task manager

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and you can close out unwanted program her applications. So

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that's the first thing that came to my mind, because

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when I tried to click the little X on the screen,

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it was not working. These pop ups are very devious. Okay, well,

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in this case, my mother owns a Mac. So what

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I did is I pulled out my cell phone, had

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my smartphone in my hand, and I just opened up

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a search engine and I said, how do you do

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a control delete? But do it for a Mac? And

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sure enough, the Google machine helped me out and I

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realized I could do something called an option command escape

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on her Mac and I did that, and it gave

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me the option of shutting down this pop up, and

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then the noise was gone and it was peaceful in

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her house or in her apartment. And so the pop

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up disappeared from the screen and the noise of that

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nasty siren stopped. It was a scam, but they wanted

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to trick her into thinking she had viruses on her

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computer and she had to resolve it immediately, and the

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only way to do it was to call that phone

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number on the screen. So let me just tell you this,

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My mom did everything right. She didn't panic when that

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nasty noise was coming from her office. She closed the

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door of the office, and she called her phone a

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friend and we all Joyce and I always talk about

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Phona friends, and in this case, her phone a friend

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was me, her son. And I was so proud of

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my mom for not falling for this scam. You know,

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if she called that number provided by the scammers, she

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could have been scammed in a whole variety of ways.

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You know. The most common way is they would have

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requested remote access to a computer to fix it. Because

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when you call these numbers, they're very nice. They sound professional.

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They sound like they're Apple, but they're not Apple, and

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they would have asked for remote access. Now they don't

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call it remote access. They just say this is how

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we fix these these issues. But when you get the

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remote access, it can result in malware, which is short

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for malicious software. They could do ransomware, they could commit

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identity theft where they steal your personal information, or in

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a lot of these cases, they'll ask for a fee

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to fix things, so they'll ask you to send funds

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via a prepaid card that you would buy at the store.

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They might ask for a wire transfer, or they may

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even ask for cryptocurrency. So always remember with something like this,

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whether it's a pop up on your screen or a

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phone call, or an email or a text message, never

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call the number provided by a scammer. I guarantee you

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this number you're seeing on the screen here was a

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scam number. And incidentally, I tried calling that number the

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next day it was already disconnected, so they've already moved

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on and changed that number. If you do call that number,

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you were falling for their trap and it's it could

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have had horrible consequences. So I was able to close

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out that pop up using the option command escape. But

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let's say you know it's kind of scary and you

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didn't think about doing that and you couldn't figure it out.

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What else could I have done? Well? I could have

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just turned the computer off. I mean, the scary voice

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on the computer said, don't turn the computer off. Well,

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I could just turn the computer off and that thing

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would have gone away. Or you could have I could

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have sought the assistance of a computer security expert. You know,

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that could be someone in your family. It could be

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a friend, it could be you know, a local store

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or contractor that you interact with. In my case, I

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have a college aged son who is really good at computers.

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And so the next slide I want to show you

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I'm going to move forward is this picture of a

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bee keeper. And the reason why I have the beekeeper

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is there was a movie in January of twenty twenty

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four called The Beekeeper with Jason Stathum, and it was

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pretty intense. If you're a Jason Stathm fan, and as

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a former law enforcement officer, I was a fan of

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the vigilante justice in the movie. But to be very honest,

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I was rooting for him because there were some bad guys,

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and what did the bad guys do well? In the movie,

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his friend who he was staying with and someone who

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he took care of, and she took care of him.

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She got scammed in a pop up scam and in

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the movie it looks something like this. On her laptop.

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She got this pop up that said warning your computer

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may be infected, and it talked about scary things like

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viruses and trojan horses and things like that, and it says,

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you know to remove viruses called tech Support hotline now.

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So in the movie The Beekeeper, Jason Statham's friend called

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that number and they had an answer for everything, every

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one of her concerns. They they had the right answer.

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And that's what these scammers do. This isn't their first

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time doing this. They honed their skills by victimizing people

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and using what works and get better and better at

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what they do. So in the movie The Beekeeper, she

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agreed to allow them to fix her computer. She got

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a little pop up on her screen which was part

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of the remote access and in the movie they ended

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up stealing two million dollars from a charity that she operated.

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It was absolutely tragic. So if you ever get a

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pop up like this. There's all kinds of variations. Do

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not react to it. You have time, As Joyce and

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I always say, time is your friend. Scammers want you

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to move quickly. You do not have to. In the

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summer of twenty twenty three, when when I first started

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being part of the Rose team, I asked Joyce Petrowski,

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our founder, you know, how do we measure success? You

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know it's it's hard to prove a negative. You know,

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how do we know that what we're doing even is

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resonating with people, Whether all this time and energy and

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money that we spend is actually working. And Joyce told

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me this. She said, Brian, we succeed when someone follows

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our advice and is not scammed. So in today's story,

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my mom followed our advice and she was prevented from

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being a victim. So that's a victory. I keep hearing

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one horror story after another. When I do presentations, people

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come up to me and tell me these stories all

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the time, and it breaks my heart. I can only

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say sorry so many times. There's not much else I

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can do. We can report it to law enforcement, but

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most of the time the money's gone. But in this

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case with my mom, and that pop up. She did

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the exact right thing. So it's a victory and we're

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going to celebrate it. Good job, Mom. So next week,

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on July twenty second, I'm gonna be talking about my

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mom again. Hopefully you don't think I'm picking on my mom,

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but she it was an Amazon scam. And the title

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of next week is win in Doubt. Call your friend

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and I'm going to tell another story that happened to

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my mom. And this one also I had some a

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good ending, but there's it could have gone bad. Please

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go to Rosadvocacy dot org for more information. We have videos,

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we have articles, we have links, we have it's just

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full of great information. But the most important thing please

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sign up for our free monthly email right on the

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front page. All we need is your name and your

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email address. Sign up your friends, families, neighbors. These are

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great conversation starters. We want to share this information with

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as many people that we can. And then also on

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Tuesday mornings, we have a little short tip that comes out,

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so we're getting constant information. Joyce and I and the

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rest of the Rose team are always looking for the

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latest information to share with our followers. So that's all

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I have today. If you enjoyed today's podcast, today's show,

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please share it, share the link. We want more and

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more people to watch this no matter where they live

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in the world, because scammers are everywhere. All Right, that's

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all I have today, Thanks for watching. See you all

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next week.

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Well that's all the knowledge for this episode. Tune in

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every Tuesday at eight am Pacific time on KFOURHD Radio

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at KFOURHD dot com as Joyce explores a variety of

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knowledge so you have the power to make scam protection

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your healthy habit. And until then, feel free to reach

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out to Joyce and let's talk about scams.

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