Pig Butchering Scam & Persuasive Psychological Techniques

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 substie 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.

0:58 Every Tuesday am Pacific time on kfour HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose, and her guests will provide valuable insights and practical tips on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams. And now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski. All Right, welcome back, everybody to let's talk about scams. I'm your host, Joyce Petrowski, President of Rose Resources Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly. You can go to our website Roseadvocacy dot org and find more information more resources. You can sign up for our email and or mailed newsletter.

1:41 You can also find our social media links. And you're going to want to click on the events tab. We have an awesome third annual Golfers for Senior Protection Tournament coming up in Phoenix at Arizona Grand on Friday, April eleventh. We are still looking for golfers, sponsors, donation items, and volunteers, so reach out if you need any more information on that. And now I want to get into our topic today. We're going to talk about pig butchering scams and psychological techniques that scammers use. And I'd like to introduce our guest, doctor Martina Dove.

2:23 Hi. Hi everyone, good, how are you Martina? I'm good, I'm good. Nice to see you again and nice to be here. Thank you, Thank you. I appreciate you being here. So you. Wrote a case study, a white paper on scam techniques in pig butchering scams and so That's what I wanted to talk about today. So I guess let's start with what is a pig butchering scam? I'm finding a lot of people have not heard of that term. Yeah, so a pig butchering scam is a very clever spin off romance scams. It actually combines what used to be a financial type of scam, how how victims would typically be scammed in a financial you know, kind of like scams and frauds, and then it incorporated a Roman scam element. And what I mean by that there is, you know, in a typical romance cams a grooming component would last for many months, and this you know, serves to groom the victim to comply at some later stage.

3:34 So it enhances trust, It enhances the emotional component, you build friendship, you know, even when there's no specific romantic element to it, there's a friendship building up and that obviously will lead to greater compliance. And so like these financial scams that used to be much quicker that would persuade people to invest, you know, like have now become a little bit more weaponized in terms of just building the trust upfront, which then pays off a late stay. Got it okay, and I just realized I forgot to ask you if you could introduce yourself and tell us how you became such an expert on these scams and senior scams in particular.

4:21 Yeah, Like, I'm really a psychologist, you know, kind of by education, I studied psychology and then for my pH d, I really wanted to do something around how people, uh you know kind of you know, how people make decisions and what are influenced by And I was specifically interested in the Barnum effect, which is a cognitive bias. And a Barnum effect is something that happens to us where let's say there's a fake clairvoyant telling you your fortune. You know how you process that information that you get and typically you will get information that is very vague that can apply to anyone, but you're going to think that this is really true of you. So so I was really interested in Abantum effect, and I didn't quite know how to apply it to, you know, a problem in a society until I read the paper that talked about the psychological influences in phishing emails. And this is where I got really interested in fraud and I ended up doing a pH d around scams and house scams persuade, and also what makes people vulnerable to scams? So what are are factors and personality you know, points or you know, what kind of things about us make us vulnerable to You got it?

5:38 And you actually wrote a book on it. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the book. Yeah, Like, when I finished my pH d, because it was a quite you know, like it was still a really novel arena and a kind of novel topic, and there was some literature on it, but it wasn't easily found that I had to piece together from other psychological literature. You know. What I wanted to do. I wanted to create a book so that it's really easy for people to read and find out everything that could make us vulnerable to fraud and also has commers persuade. So I kind of pulled all of my studies into the book and I've added to it some research on deception and how you know, like if a s commer is communicating something to us, what are some of the things that persuade in that communication? You know as well? And how to really think about, you know, things around fraud because people think that you know, this would happen to other people who are not smart, but I think it can happen to everyone, and really scammers, very some are very sophisticated, using very sophisticated techniques.

6:52 Yeah. Absolutely. And the name of your book is The Psychology of Fraud, Scam and Persuasion Techniques. That's right. It's an awesome book. I have it. I've read it, I've gone back to it and looked at things at various different times. It's available on Amazon if anybody's interested in getting it. And I think a lot of people immediately go to the financial aspect when you're talking about scams, and we need to draw more attention to the psychological and emotional effects because if you can understand that, I think that's going to help you, in addition to a lot of the different protection tools right to be able to have less risk of falling victims.

7:38 So let's get back to the pig butchering. So we know that that you said, that's a they've sort of weaponized the romance scam, and they're not in essence, you know, from start to finish in two to four hours on the phone with you, they're taking their time to go through a grooming process so they're still targeting the same as they would for any type of scam. Is that accurate? Because I've always said everybody's a target, right, scams don't. There's no intelligence component to it, no fund you know, if you have a lot of financial assets or don't. It's everybody's a target. So are scammers in essence looking for specific characteristics when they're trying to do this pig butchering scam?

8:29 I don't think there are. I think, like whereas romance scams used to be very targeted to people maybe on dating sites or maybe people you know, there was a russianale behind. It's very difficult to study cameras as well, because I want to talk to you. Russianale behind the romance fraud was typically they would target let's say women or men at the certain age where they're likely to be divorced or where they're likely to be single. They would target dating sites where they know are looking for partners. So there was some kind of targeting, you know, like phishing emails less so they would be a cast white cast net. Some fishing emails are more targeted than others.

9:12 You know, if the targeted the CEO of a company or somebody in a company to fish the company. But I think with the pig butchering scams, what's happening it's kind of you know, they're trying to cast the wider net and see what they catch. And you know, I say that because I've looked at several of these communications, and you know what's smart about them is that they adapt to the victim. So, for example, if a victim is receptive towards the more romantic aspect, the skop is going to play on that. If the victim isn't open to that, but it's open to let's say, receiving a financial advice, they will be playing up to that. So it's very adaptable scam that that, you know, I think starts with like a fake you know, a fake text but tending to be a wrong number and engaging you in conversation. It starts very friendly and then picks up the cues from the victim as to what they may need out of this conversation.

10:13 Yeah, I can't you mentioned. You know A possible way it starts is the fake text right a wrong number. I can't tell you how many of those I've gotten where the text message comes through and it's like I'm looking forward to getting together tonight, and it's like, okay, I have no clue who this person is or you know, just I've been trying to call you and you know, can you whatever right? Or they even put a different they'll just put a name in there, right, Hey, Julie, how's it going, right? And it's like, okay, that's not me. It's a wrong number. And a lot of times you want to be nice and you want to respond back and go, I think you have the wrong number, but you can't do that because one that lets them know that that number is active, right, and there's somebody behind it. But then they're going to start with their techniques, start like the conversation right to drum up a conversation.

11:04 Yeah, no, definitely. You know one thing that I would say, I think so much of our information has been hacked from legitimate sites, you know, and I think like when they're targeting you, they almost always know it is a live number of some sort. Okay, I think, like what this fake? You know, like I'm calling it to take it's a real text that arrives, but it's prettend it's a wrong number. You know, when you receive these texts. What I want to do is they want to engage you in a conversation, and they're playing on a very known persuasion technique, you know, like firing social norms, like what you've said. You want to be polite. You don't want somebody to be waiting somewhere thinking they contacted their friends.

11:48 So you're going to respond. And then the key is to actually engage you in a conversation. So this camera may say, I'm really sorry, please forgive me. You know, I thought it was my friend. You're going to say, oh, don't worry about it. Then they're gonna say, so you know where you based you? You know, they engage you in this like really benign conversation. And that's another persuasion technique, because the more you engage in any kind of conversation, the harder is to stop replying. So you know, it's it's a non persuasion technique called you know, commitment and consistency. We want to be you know, really consistent. We are a nice person, so we don't want to not reply, and then we keep replying and then you know, like maybe they'll ask you a question, you'll reply politely, you'll wanna you know, kind of like cut the conversation, but they'll try and try and try, so it's it's it's a really clever way. It's a like originally it's a cast, you know, to cast a really wide net see what they catch. And then it starts from like small kind of conversation. Maybe that day you're going to exchange a few texts. The next day they're gonna text you again, and so on and so.

13:00 Forth, right, because the more you engage in the conversation, the more comfortable sort of and committed right you are. And they're going to say thank you for letting me know, and you're going to be like, oh, you're welcome, not a problem, right. It just kind of going back and forth, and then before you know it, you're finding personal information out about this person and they're asking you questions and right, just to kind of get you in deeper and deeper. True, And you know, like how these conversations start that they start usually they're about you, so you want to, like you tell them about you. You know, you feel like this person is just like interested in me, and that kind of builds a bit of a bond. And then they'll typically start to mimic what you're telling them.

13:50 So if you're telling them, you know, let's say I'm divorced, I have, you know, one child, it's really difficult to raise the you know children, they'll say, oh, yeah, me too, like I'm finding it hard, you know. So a lot of the time they will mimic who you are. And that's another persuasion technique called similarity. You praying okay, something that like you're finding something in common, right, and we like people that have something in common with us. We bond quicker with people that we find we have something that is this, you know, similar finding staff levels, or we have things in common we can talk about. So, you know, like sometimes when when people see these conversations, and especially these things are happening to the friends and family, and they can't understand why somebody would engage in that.

14:42 There are a lot of persuasion techniques that are layered one upon another, you know, even when it's just this is a random conversation. Right, right, One of the things you mentioned in the case study is controlling the conversation. So is explain that a little bit more. I kind of look at that as and I probably am just on the surface of this is that if you fail to reply or you know, it's been a day or something like that, that they're going to keep texting you to keep you in that conversation. I mean, yes or no. That's one component of it. But one of the things that I've noticed when I read like a year's worth of you know, WhatsApp messages back and forth, if you don't even look at what's being said, you're just looking at how the conversation flows between two people. In the beginning, this camera is the one that's initiating very frequent conversations. Several times a day.

15:43 They will switch you to what's up where you know, maybe they'll change your phone numbers so that if they're abroad it's cheaper for them to do that, or more people can actually use that. You know, like I'm pretty sure in these organized crimes, you know, you need you're not just talking to one person. You're talking you know, somebody is managing your profile right about you, and they're very smart. They keep a profile on you today. They know exactly what you told them. And I know that because I engage in a conversation just to see and I tested them. You know, in the nation, I gave them. So basically in the beginning, the the you know, they initiate a lot of this conversation and it's really mundane.

16:24 It's about how's your day going, what do you have for lunch? Where did you you know? What did you do today? It's very pleasant, it's very easy going, it's very lighthearted, and it's very frequent. And there's another, you know, persuasion technique because over the electronic communication we open up way too quickly, like we wouldn't you know, first of all, the comma has access to you several times a day. This wouldn't happen in real life. You just would be going out with somebody five, six, seven, ten twenty times a day, right, Like you wouldn't be following them twenty times a day within something is wrong, but the text right serves as that it reinforces the you know, the feeling as if you've known this person for longer. Right, So that makes sense, Yes, it makes sense. So like these conversations are very frequent, they initiated by this comer and then as they go along, you know, maybe a month has gone by, they now starting to introduce the idea of investment. Maybe you don't want to be investing and you don't know why somebody is talking to you about investing in crypto because you've never done anything like it.

17:33 This is where this comer kind of like it's still priming you. They're just talking about maybe they wins and how much they want on, you know, investing in crypto or investing in some of the stuff. And the more you don't engage in that conversation, the more likely it is that this com is going to now start to withdraw their attention, like their attention on you, right that you you know this time, you you've gotten used to having this contact for months, right, and this is your friend, the contact through the day, and you're going to miss it if it's gone exactly. You're looking forward to it exactly. And scummer suddenly starts taking that away from you. Right.

18:15 So when they do get in contact, it's very quick, very quickly they'll talk about investment. If you don't start talking about investment, the scummer will say, hey, I need to go, you know, I'm gonna have lunch and go to work, and they'll withdraw and pretty quickly the conversation that goes on starts to only be about investments. Otherwise withdraw themselves. So if you think about, like, you know, I kind of always like to say to people, remember when you're you know, like, maybe you start going out with somebody and they're very attentive to you, and you get used to that, and suddenly they're not as attentive, they don't call you anymore. You start being anxious.

18:56 Right, and exactly, yes, that's the goal. That's the goal. It's the goal is to make you anxious so that then you're persuaded to talk about investment, to keep that conversation going. Got it. Once you start talking about investment, it becomes more normal to you to start thinking about investment, to start like thinking you could maybe invest, because now you're afraid that if you don't invest, you will lose this friendship or this relationship you build it you're built with this person you're building. And then pretty soon if you're still not going with investment, sometimes the scummer then turns nasty. Sometimes they'll just drop if they see that you're not going to be a victim. You know, my scamma dropped me because I just didn't have the time to communicate several times a day. Sometimes the scammer will turn you know, quite negative. They'll start crating you that you another person of your word or you know, case study, the victim you know, had to defend them selves right like, you know, saying like I do, but I just want to be cautious.

20:04 I don't want to invest five hundred thousands straight away, right, It's not that I'm not proactive or you know. So then the situation turns more negative and that will cause more anxiety, and then the victim may just think, oh, look, I'm just going to invest because I want to stop this negativity now. Right, Not only are they not communicating like they used to, now it's really negative and the relationship has turned bad and they just want to go to that good place you know. They are. That's very sophisticated, very sophistic right. They're getting you to go in through a lot of different ups and downs and a lot of different emotions. Yes, right, because right when someone starts turning things negative, and it is an inference on us, right, your first tendency is to defend yourself, right you can, if you stopped and thought about it, you might think, well, who is this person really and what does it matter to me? If they think that I'm not a person of my word, I don't even know them, right, You're just automatically go to what I have to defend myself.

21:14 Yes, right, you go to that. And one thing I would also say, which is really important, you go to that defense thing. But also you don't want to disappoint them, right, But maybe in the beginning they got you to tell, you know, tell them what kind of person you are, so they're gonna then throw that back in your face that they'll say, well, you told me or this kind of a person, and now you're showing me this. And then again that's commitment and consistency. We want to be consistent with what we say. People who are saying one thing but behaving in a different way are seen as inconsistent and unstable. You know, we don't like people to be inconsistent. Right. And another thing that I've also noticed, you know happens a lot too, is you know, like at some point and the victim will be worn down.

22:02 And you know, if you think about how, let's say somebody, you know, a police is interrogating a suspect. All right, yes, I've seen that on TV exactly done over time, they'll ask repeated questions over and over. They'll maybe put a little bit of blame. Well, you told me this, now you're telling me this. And you know, the whole point of like just gas lighting and going around in circles and kind of like repeating these things is to wear the victim out. And in psychology that's kind of called ego depletion. Right after hours and hours of this, you are going to be depleted, and you'll you're more likely to just comply, right, It's more likely to just do what they want because you just want to get this over with.

22:48 You know that I talked to a victim and it wasn't of a pig butchering scam. It was of one of a tech support where they were putting money into her account, the whole refund thing, and then it was you know, they put too many zeros and all that stuff. And she made a comment she said, it was as if they took over my brain. Is that kind of the same things they're trying to control how you think and act? Yeah, Like, I think he really depends on a scam, and it depends on what they are doing. But yeah, definitely, I think you know, there there are tons of difference scamps playing upon different things. You know, so like I think another thing that people need to understand. Just because you wouldn't fall for this scamp, you may fall for another scam that's true, more closer to who you are and what you're doing in life right now, so you know, situational exactly. Definitely, they you know, I think in a lot of these frauds, and especially with this like like support the fhear, right, like when they evoke these strong emotions such as fear, such as like sexual you know, attraction, or strong emotions of love. You know, any kind of strong emotion. Fear is very potent. One fear is a primal thing. That is, you go into fight or.

24:12 Flight mode exactly, fight or flying. Exactly, and you don't think clearly. And what's important to realize that under such strong visceral influence, that strong kind of emotion, whether it be panic, fear, greed or whatever, we don't recall advice that we are conscious of. We cannot recall a lot of these rational things that we know, so we don't make decisions that we would make in a cold light of the day, right And this is why, you know, like the in insight is twenty twenty. Right. You know, it's easy to give advice when you're in a rational state, but not so easy to actually follow that same advice when you're in this like what some called hot state. Right, Like you're you know, you're kind of you don't know what you're doing, you're making quick decisions.

25:03 You just want to get out of these uncomfortable situation, right. And that's the same in the pig butchering. Right. They're getting you anxious. They're going on your anxiety and your need to want to defend yourself, and and that's all emotion too, right, because you're not as well, you know, thinking rationally, you might think, well, I don't really even know this person, and what do I care what they think of me? Right? You just yeah, So that that's interesting. And you know a lot of a lot of the scams, like we talked about in the beginning, are urgent, right from the time you engage to when you give the money. It's a matter of hours. But like with the romance scam and then this pig butchering one, there's no like set time frame. It's kind of all based on the conversation until they feel they've got you in basically under their control.

26:00 And then they start bringing all of this out. And I think you mentioned h you mentioned before about they have a profile on you, but you probably not even talking to the same person all of the time. That's I think that's also a misconception. I think a lot of people think, you know, that the scams are just one individual sitting there, you know, trying to scam them and them only, but they probably have ten or twenty other people they're engaging with and trying to get them to do this investment as well. And it's a big. Like call center type thing, right with multiple people and and so. And I'm sure that they use whatever you call it where you change your voice, so no matter who's talking to you, it's always the same voice.

26:52 WoT wouldn't that wouldn't that Do you think. Somebody would realize that if all of a sudden it was a different voice they were talking to. So, like, it depends what you mean by voice, like if you mean by like a way of speaking through text, because a lot of these coms are just through text. So scam that's true. Yeah, so SMA, that's true. Yeah, we were result done through text, right, but now with AI, they can easily fake all of that. Sometimes they record voice messages, so they'll record voice message and send you a voice message and say, hey, I can't talk now, but he's a voice message, you know, so you almost like talking on the phone. But I'm like, I have caught, you know, when I try to communicate with the CAMMA, just to see how it evolves. One of the things that I've noticed is that, and I was testing.

27:45 Them, you know, I would get angry if a SCAMA would like start talking about investment. I would say, look, I don't know why you're talking about that now, because like I have my own drama at home, and like I don't want to talk about it. I would get angry. And then suddenly somebody else would come and text much kind of things and much more sophisticated, and the English was better. So I do think that there are handlers, right, And this is typical you know, in a you know, in the like old fashioned financials calms, usually you would have a person who would contact you over the phone and handle you right like this would be the seller as somebody to invest in this kind of share, this kind of business, whatever it was, and then you get passed to somebody else, and then when you start asking questions and you are suspicious, they don't want to be detected.

28:36 So now you get put in touch with somebody who's smarter, who will appease you, who becomes your friend, becomes how difficult to report because now you're friends with this person. That person is just there to manage you, right, And so I think like there are there is like I don't know, this is kind of what I've noticed and what I think happens, but I think there is some degree of that when they think they're going to lose a victim, Uh, maybe it gets escalated to somebody who is better at handling, you know, because because you need to think about it this way, right, for like months and months and months, you're just carrying on really frequent, mundane conversations. Right, Like if I'm let's say, a CEO of scamming operations, my time is limited. I'm super good, but like my time is limited, right, I think like there's a lot that they outsourced to people who are just carrying on several conversations. And these people, like one thing that I want to also highlight, these people are also scammed a lot of the times. These people are you know, human trafficking victims that have applied to work in it and you know, get the passports taken away.

29:44 And there's a great article by Pro PUBLICA. They did a really good investigative journalist piece on you know the scam you know, you know really kind of organized crime gangs that actually, you know, the people who are texting you are also victims in some. Way, right, right, Yeah, I've I've heard about that. I'm going to have to find that Pro public article and read through that because it is interesting. Right, A lot of times I think we think people are choosing to do this and and uh, they're not. They're being it's forced labor. And actually, I don't know if I was reading an article or or something or listening to maybe watching a video where it, uh, the scammer just broke down and said, you know, yeah, you know, I'm I don't want to do this, I'm being forced to do this, right and and and was apologetic and stuff like that.

30:45 So No, definitely, that's you know, that's a big problem because there's a lot of money. Right, Like when you think about any scams that you know, like you mentioned something earlier that was really interesting that you know this urgency, but there's no urgency here. Well, there are two different scams, right. Urgency typically happens with like fishing scams or like quick scams, where you're asking a victim to make a decision in a moment. And there's a reason for that because when you evoke a visceral influence such as fear, such as strong emotion or excitement let's say free price, lottery wains or whatever, these feelings are fleeting, your rationality will return.

31:26 Very quickly, very quickly. So they have to use urgency too, so that you make a decision while you're still under this visceral influence, whereas like big butchering scams or long term romance camps, they are actually using a different technique. It's not about evoking these quick things. It's about you gaining trust of the victim so that the victim thinks you have the best interest at heart, and they trust you and they want to listen to you, and then you're manipulating them. If they don't want to come apply on their own, there's threats or there's like you know, like what I said, they withdraw from the conversation. So even though they didn't tell you, well, if you don't invest, I'm gonna stop talking to you. They are telling you this in a less obvious way right by going there.

32:17 So that's the I think the process is called grooming. That they're in essence grooming you your brain to feel and to act in a certain way. And like you said, it's that trust, that absolute trust. You're not talking to anybody else about this. You only believe what they're telling you. And you know, I've talked to quite a few family members of people that were actively involved in a romance scam, you know, whether it went into the pig butchering or not, but they had just presented it as a romance scam, and they're just at their wits end.

32:57 You know. They've tried talking to them about it, explaining it. They've had the police over to talk to them, and they're just they don't believe it. This person is who they are, they have this relationship, they trust them wholeheartedly, and you know, it's sad that it ends up ruining family relationships. And they've said, you know, what can I do? Is there anything else I can do to help to break through that trust? Do you have any suggestions with that? Yeah, I think, you know, one thing that we do as humans and everybody's guilty of that. We like to be preachy and give advice. Whether whether it's asked for or not.

33:40 And I think a lot of the times, you know, like I said, when you're in this rational state, you can see all of the warning signs, you can see all of the problems, right. And you know, I often say to people, remember the time when you know, you were giving your friend advice when they were seeing a person that wasn't good for them and they weren't listening. And then there were times when that same friend was giving you the same advice when you were saying, you know. So I think it's it's like it's human for us to, you know, kind of like be rational sometimes, but we forget that, you know, what was difficult for us in that irrational state, it's also difficult for somebody else, right, And like you mentioned, you know, the comer kind of like tells them, you know, and they believe everything the scummer is saying. Again, you have to understand, Scummer didn't just tell them don't trust your family. In one text, this was subliminally given to you by the scummer over a course of months. Right at first, it will be something like, well, you know, you know, I know I love you, but you know, like most people wouldn't understand why we can fall in love this quickly. You know, I know I was talking to my family, and my family didn't understand. You're probably you know, your family probably wouldn't understand either, But I know that I want to spend my life with you. You know. So by the time the family is intervened, this comer has already prepared the victim that this is coming.

35:12 Yeah, that that's true, right. Your family's not going to understand exactly right, They're going to have all these questions, and they very well are going to be able to anticipate the questions, and they're already going to have given answers yes, right. And I think one of the things that people make really uh, you know, one miss you know, one mistake that people make, and I see a lot of fraud prevention specialists do that. They come across very authoritarian, so they're like, don't panic, why would you do this, don't click this, stop sending money, you know, like those are all things like that are very simplistic. Just because you tell somebody not to do something you know it's not going to make. It doesn't mean they're going to do it exactly right.

35:53 So I think like there needs to be more empathy, you know, coming from the place of empathy, rather than you know, giving advice. So asking questions like what's great about this relationship, Like tell me, what do you see in this person? What are they giving you? You know, Like I think sometimes you know, you need to think about it as well in terms of like almost like psychotherapy. Right when you go to a psychotherapist, they don't talk. They may ask a question and you will talk and they listen and they listen. But through that from asking a question and you telling them, you are also listening to yourself and that is the quickest way to realize something it's not. You know, there's a stubbornness in us.

36:40 We don't like to listen to advice, right, like, and so it's it's kind of really difficult. I would say, it's very difficult. But I think more empathy is needed when you when you're handling your family members. And I would also say this too. A lot of the times when this is happening to elderly people, there may be other issues at place such as you know, early onset of dementia or some kind of cognitive problems that make them difficult to reason, or make them more vulnerable to threats, or make them more vulnerable to manipulation that I think perhaps needs like medical interventional some. Sort to have some sort of testing run and stuff like that.

37:23 Right, Yeah, Like, you know, I'm not saying that everybody, because like they are perfectly fine, fully functioning adults. Engaging in scams over and over sometimes is a choice, you know, and sometimes you're not going to be able to persuade them, you know. Yeah, yeah, I've you know, in my personal experience, right, you know, with the romance scam with a loved one. You know, I immediately got upset and angry, and it wasn't geared towards my loved one. It was geared towards the scammer, right, It was how could you do this? You know, how could you manipul late you know, someone like this that was grieving the loss of their spouse and all of this, But that comes across to your loved one, Yes, I think is that while you're saying you're not angry at them, you're angry at the situation.

38:16 But they are involved in the situation, so it all comes back of as then they're angry with me, and they're going to be less apt to want to talk about it, to want to give you information about it. But yeah, you mentioned asking questions, right, that's a great way to get them to think in that phrase you were given one mouth and two ears, right, makes sense is ask the question and then just sit back and listen. Because one of the things you know, we tell people, like in our three top tips we give them for scams, is to make sure you have a trusted person that you can talk to before you act on anything, because sometimes when you hear yourself say it out loud, your brain switches and all of a sudden, you're going that doesn't make sense, and you kind of figure it out, right, I think your brain goes into that rational thinking. But other times you're just really in that emotional state and it takes your trusted person to start asking questions and to kind of help you navigate through it.

39:25 No, definitely, And one thing you said, you know, like when you know you had anchor towards this camera, and that comes across then as if you're angry towards to family, member. You also need to think about, like this person has built trust and love in, you know, in your family member. So now you're criticizing the loved one to you this this is a nobody, right, This is somebody that was the Atlantic or whatever. They telling the person they are currently residing and they can't meet. But like to your loved one, this is a person that you know, the plant future with and they picture the few you're in. So you're criticizing somebody. They love, right, So sure the same thing, the same.

40:06 Love you have for your family member that person has for this comma in that moment, right, it makes sense. This is howscomers really weaponize, like what we hold dear against us, right, It's like it's really sinister. So I think, like, you know, this is where I think, you know, coming with that authoritarian uh you know, kind of like a demeanor actually makes it worse, you know, and reinforces what a coma was telling them that you're not going to understand. Right, you know, right, yeah, you know I I And that's one of the things I try to talk to people about is you know, don't go about it in a negative way, like you know, don't transfer money don't put money into a crypto machine, don't click on that link, don't do this, I said at some point, And I think it's going to happen pretty quickly. You're life and their mind is going to go. I feel like I'm in kindergarten again. I've been there, done that. I'm an adult.

41:07 I can make my own They're gonna get very defensive. I can make my own decisions, right, And when when you come back at it, when you come back you're not meaning to be negative, but just the words that you're using, that don't and the don't and the don't and the don't kind of sounds like being in kindergarten right when you're trying to learn or preschool all of those social norms and and things like that. And even then, you know, as a child, you didn't listen exactly, you know, like like people will want to do the thing you tell them not to do, right, Like they'll be like why why can't they do it? You know? And so a lot of these advice as well happens, you know, like I think people are unable to explain why or unable to reason it, and they just know it's wrong, right, you know, And and so i'd say, you know, this is why I say any prevention is better than intervention, you know, because it's really difficult to intervene, especially in these comps that are very long lasting. You're not even going to know by the time you will intervene because you noticed something, this comma has already replaced the belief system and has accounted for anything you're going to try and do. You know, yeah, but the trusted person, I think this is a preventative measure, right, Like you're printing that person as your guardian before something.

42:34 Happens, exactly right, And that's the whole thing, is right, is having a plan, yes, and and and part of the way you know, you can plan for you know a lot of different things, to get notified of things somebody takes over your identity and right, so then you have a plan in place as to how you're going to navigate it. You know, if your credit card gets compromised, what you're going to do there. But just with some of the scams and the romance and the pig butchering and stuff like that are scams. You know that it's like what I think, what you can do to protect yourself and your loved. Ones, is.

43:14 You put scam discussions in regular conversation, right, because you're as the loved one, You're going to be in contact with with your older loved one more and more frequently, whether it's on FaceTime, on the phone, in person, whatever. And you know, just google romance scam, you know, sign up for our newsletters and you can get information on different scams or follow us on social media, and and just for five minutes, ten minutes, you know, start the conversation and say, wow, you know, did you see this article This lady lost five hundred thousand dollars she was in a romance scam and she had to sell her house, and you know, just start talking about it absolutely, right, because it I think what that does is the reoccurring conversations and non defensive, non threatening, you know, helps keep scam prevention top of mind. So when that older loved one does get contacted, I think they would be more apt to then think scam if they if they've had continual conversations you know about.

44:26 It absolutely and you know, as humans we learn through stories, right. So this is why I say to people, you know, constantly share even if the police didn't do anything, Share your story. First of all, with stigmatizing being a victim of fraud, because I think, like you know, in this day and age, everybody has been defrauded. Probably maybe you're not aware of it. Maybe you're going to go fund me campaign that it was fraudulent and you don't even know it right exactly. So you know, I think like the more we talk about it, the more we normalize talking about it, the less likely it is that people are going to fall for it because they recognize some elements of it. So I think that's a really important aspect.

45:10 And I think definitely people think it wouldn't happen to them until it does, right, And so you know, like we the way we rationalize things. It's like, well, my parents are like perfectly functional human beings. It wouldn't happen to them. My friends, you know, it doesn't matter, right, like everybody you know there. I know people with PhDs who fell scams. I know people who are CEOs who fell for scams. You know, I don't think there's a parallel between intelligence or but people think. People make these you know, parallels, and it gives them this like almost full sense of security that it would speak to them and I think we first thing we need to understand.

45:53 It's like scams are like advertisements, right, Like some advertisements don't appeal to us. We we are you know, blind to them. But then there will be that one pair of genes that looks really good and you'll click on. Right, it's like just to see what it's about and what you know. And the same miscams, right, Like it's just because you didn't you know, didn't do anything about these like hundred scams you got in your inbox because they weren't very convincing. Doesn't matter, Like, it doesn't mean you're not going to fall for something one. And one yes into your inbox. You might engage with that one, right, just. Knowing what's happening, knowing how they persuade, understanding that it can happen to anyone. So like you more on your guard.

46:42 Oh yeah, I've talked to somebody who does the you know, the Google my business for other companies and so it's on Google all the time. And he fell for a scam. Right, somebody else that is one of the top level people in cybersecurity fell for something, right, it happens. Yeah, you know, we're not always at the top of our game. You know, we're not always sitting there just waiting to be scammed, so we can see it and not not fall for it. Right, scammers have an innate ability to catch us at the wrong time. I mean is that? And also some scams are so convincing there's not telling them from genuine stuff. Yeah, so you know, just accept that too. So you know, like if you if you look at the legitimate emails that your bank sense very similar to what's commerce is now saying, you know, and with the generative AI, they're just getting better and better in terms of spelling. They're no longer exactly grammar exactly. So it's going to be really difficult to tell. Emails can be spoofed. You know, we're told to hover all the things sure that will save you in let's say ninety five percent. In the five percent, whereas comer's very good, the email will be spoofed. He'll look exactly the email.

48:03 Don't look exactly right. Yeah, and same thing with phone numbers now, right, I had somebody on my advisory board has this app, and she has it because she need wants to know she's in cybersecurity, how it works and all that stuff. But you can plug in the phone number that you're calling from and it doesn't have to be yours, and plug the phone number that you're calling too, and that's not right it Yeah, you know, she she did it with me, she called plugged my number in a call, but she plugged someone else's number in is who was coming from, and sure enough it came through with that person's name and phone number, right, So phone numbers can be spoofed now.

48:44 Right, And so yeah, yeah, so I think like this is why it's important to also just warned people house comes are going to make them feel anything that's that's making you panic, anything that's making you excite, anything that doesn't feel good, you know. I think just talk to somebody about it, you know, because I think like once you talk to somebody about it, like you can start rationalizing it, you know too, because I think a lot of the times in this long term comes, you get into that that movie, you know, and all you know is this, you know, And I think I think that's you know, that's kind of howscomer can actually get in and become the most important thing in your life. Right.

49:33 So I think it's really important to share things with friends and family. Absolutely at early stages. Yeah, absolutely, that's that's an awesome point. Wow, we've already gone through fifteen minutes. That went quick, but lots of great information and we're gonna I'll put the link to the case study that you did and the name of your book and everything in the in the oats when it comes out for that. But thank you so much Martina for taking the time sharing all of your information. I definitely want to have you back in the next couple months we can talk about another subject. You're just a wealth of information.

50:15 Sounds good. Thank you bying me? All right, thanks, bye bye. All right, guys, So that's a lot of information about pig butchering scams and different psychological techniques involved in it, commitment, consistency, just different vulnerability, persuasion techniques. Just remember the most important thing is to be that trusted person in your loved one's life that they can come and talk to you about any situation and have regular conversations about different scams and different techniques and things like that in a non defensive, non threatening way. Just weave it into conversations just to keep scams top of mind. And don't get you're gonna want to get onto our website, Roseadvocacy dot org. You can find more resources there. You can at the bottom use the contact us button if you want to give us an idea of something you want us to talk about. We can see if we can get it in on a future episode.

51:17 You'll find our social media links and you can also sign up for our emailed and or mailed newsletter. And don't forget the events tab. We have our third annual golf tournament coming up on Friday, April eleventh at Arizona Grand Resort and Spa. It's a Friday morning. We're looking still looking for sponsors, golfers, volunteers, and auction items. So all the information's there. The link to the website is there. Hit us up if you've got any any of these. We've loved to have you out for golf for sponsor and join us next week and let's talk about scams.

51:58 Thank you. Well, that's all the knowledge for this episode. Tune 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 your healthy habit. And until then, feel free to reach out to Joyce and let's talk about scams.