WEBVTT
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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,
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legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek
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the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any
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suggested ideas. The information contained in this podcast is intended
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for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for
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individual professional legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled
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from vetted sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to
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safeguard the elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall
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victim to a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the
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must listen show for anyone who wants to protect themselves
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and their loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday 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, Welcome, to let's talk about scams. I'm
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Brian Watson, community outreach specialist for Rose. We're an Arizona
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nonprofit and it's an acronym resources outreach to safeguard the elderly.
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We are in the fraud prevention business. We want to
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prevent people from getting scammed and our focus is older adults.
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The older we get, the more we lose. The numbers
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don't lie. So I'm filling in for Joyce. I had
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the pleasure of filling in for Joyce last week, filling
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in today and then filling in for two more weeks.
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But don't worry, Joyce, We'll be back and you will
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see her soon. You're stuck with me for a few
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more weeks. But I have some great information today and
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in the next two weeks, we have guests coming in
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and so they're going to share some some some great
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advice and some great knowledge. So Today's Today's title of
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today's show is scammers continue to devise unbelievable schemes. These
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scammers out there are just really unbelievable how creative they
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can be. And and that's not a compliment, I mean
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really more like how dastardly they can be. They're always
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trying new schemes. So our goal is to identify the schemes.
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And so today I'm going to talk about four four
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schemes that jumped out of me that are kind of
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hard to believe, but they worked. And why do they work?
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Because scammers are professionals at what they do. They are
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like act they're reading scripts and if something works, they
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will keep using it and they'll tweak it and then
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make it better, and they'll tailor it toever who are
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they're targeting. And that's the key. Scammers target good people
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and what happens is, you know, we end up believing
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it because they're so good at what they do. So
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I want to start out with the story. This was
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like ten plus years ago. If you know a little
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bit about my background, I spent twenty eight years in
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federal law enforcement. And I remember very vividly my coworker
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was sitting next to me, and we had cubicles, so
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you kind of could hear everything that's going on in
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phone calls and lets you put your noise canceling headphones on.
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And my coworker, she was an IRIS special agent. She
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was pleading with a woman and I remember it was
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in Ohio and she kept telling her, ma'am, you need
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to stop sending money to this bank account in Nigeria,
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and the lady was pushing back, saying, no, no, no,
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this is my money. I'm gonna do what I want
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with it, you know, like that's my boyfriend I'm sending
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the money to. And my colleague said, ma'am, there's like
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four other women sending money to this same bank account.
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And by the way, the bank account was in Nigeria.
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And you know, I don't know the backstory on this,
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but you know this was a romance scam basically where
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someone was calling from a foreign country, had targeted a woman,
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seduced her online with lots of attention and beautiful words
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and maybe a poem and maybe just you know, a
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lot of compliments, and this lady believed it. And my
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colleagues said, ma'am, you are getting scammed. You have to stop.
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And the lady said, nope, this is my money, this
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is my boyfriend. We're gonna get married someday. You cannot
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tell me what to do. And my colleague was so
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frustrated when the when the call ended, she basically just
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had to storm away from her desk and go out
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in the hallway because she knew this lady was going
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to lose all this money and she, my friend, did
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everything she could and she was just frustrated. So that's
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you know, that's the classic romance scam where someone's targeted
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online and it's a long play scam and they eventually
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take a lot of money. And in this case, you know,
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there are four or five women that were getting scammed.
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So I saw that many years ago. So once I
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saw that, it made me believe these scammers can do anything.
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But today I do want to share some of these stories,
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you know, because I unfortunately I have met victims who
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fallen from a romance scam, like I just mentioned. Sometimes
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it goes into the world of pig butchering, which we've
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talked about before that involves investigating cryptocurrency sweep steak scams,
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tech support scams. And when I started working part time
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for ROWS about two and a half years ago, you know,
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I thought the people that I would meet that fell
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victim to scams were you know, had some sort of
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mental decline, some sort of dementia, But that's not been
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the case. Everyone I've met that's been scammed is highly intelligent,
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they handle their own finances, they work, they travel, it's
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just they're like a normal person. But the scammers are
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that good, you know. And the key is they are professionals.
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They will want you to make an emotional and a
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hurried decision. So we have to practice ahead of time.
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We have to be mentally prepared. What are you going
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to do when this phone call comes, when this text comes,
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when this email, when you're contacted online, when you're playing
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an online game and someone uses the chat feature to
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interact with you. So this month, I'm going to share
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four outlandish scams, unbelievable scams that are hard to believe. Now,
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the purpose of this is not to judge anyone. These
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are really sad stories, but to show how devious these
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criminals are and just to be mentally prepared. So last
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summer summer of twenty twenty five, a woman in Japan
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fell victim to a romance scam. She met this scammer
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on social media. She was swindled out of thousands of dollars.
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And here's the crazy thing. The scammer claimed to be
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an astronaut in space running out of oxygen. And I
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was like, when I read this I'm like, no way, like,
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come on, come on. But you know they're good. And
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what I've learned with these online scammers is they have
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an answer for everything, and they have just enough truth
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and just enough information to look legit. And you know,
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one day that scammer said he was in the spaceship
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they were under attack, need of oxygen, and this lady
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sent money. Now I was just like, wow, that is
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absolutely unbelievable. You know, why would a scammer even think
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of that, Why would they even think that it would work?
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But it did. Okay, so that was the first one
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astronaut in space, you know, because they probably used found
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a little bit of information online. So if this lady
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wanted to verify, she could. And they people can steal
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pictures and steal information and kind of have a backup
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to their story. All right. Second one I want to
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talk about. There's something now called the gold Bar scam.
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It's very sophisticated. People are contacted and they're lied to,
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They're targeted, and they're lied to, and the person on
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the other end of the line either phone, but it
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could be email, it could be text. They will pose
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as government agents FBI, Federal Trade Commission, it could be
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IRS Secret Service, it doesn't matter, local police, sheriff. And
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what they'll tell their targeted victims is that their social
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Security number is linked to criminal activity. And they convince
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their victims to convert a lot of money, oftentimes life
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savings into gold bars. Okay, And it's sort of like
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they'll say to you, we know you're not involved in this,
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but in a good faith, we need you to do this,
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to put money in escrow until everything's figured out. And
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if you're a trusting person and you grew up believing
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law enforcement, trusting law enforcement the way you're raised, I
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could see how people could fall for this. And then
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the scammers send a courier. They'll send an actual person
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to your house in a car and pick up these
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gold bars. They'll even give you a little like code
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like a password for safe key, you know, that way
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you can claim it later. That gives it the legitimacy.
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So here's the scary thing out there, folks. The reported
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losses on this scheme are an excess of two hundred
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million dollars, and if you heard me talk before on
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other podcasts, other radio shows, or in articles, it could
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be ten times that number. So it's it's absolutely amazing. Now,
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you know the met Like I said, the message could
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be a voicemail, it could be a live phone call email,
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and they can say your bank account or computer is hacked,
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you know they And then the key is, you know,
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they'll say they're from a government agency, but they put
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a lot of pressure on you to act right away,
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and that that's the key. And they'll say things like
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do this to protect your money, or do this in
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good faith, and then they'll even have you send this,
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you know, the gold bars or the money to a
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secure government account to keep it safe while all this
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is figured out, and they sound very convincing. Okay, so
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again that's the gold bar scam. So just remember, no
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one from the government will ever tell you to buy
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and deliver gold bars. That is a huge red flag.
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If someone does, it's a scammer. Call your local police
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department right away, call the FBI. Okay. So that was
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number two, the gold bar scam. Next one, this one
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is this one's all over the place. A lot of
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you are familiar with the actor Keanu Reeves. He was
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in the Matrix, he was in a lot of other movies.
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He's very well known he's very well liked in would
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So there is a new scam and it's a version
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of the romance scam where fraudsters create fake online profiles
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and they'll use Keano's picture because you can get it anywhere,
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and they will befriend them. They will act like it's
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Keanu Reeves and that they're interested in the person, and
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it's like a friendship thing, and then sometimes it morphs
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into a romantic thing. And you know, Keanu has a
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very kind public image, and he's very devoted to his fans,
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and he's a very popular guy. This scam is so prevalent.
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There's actually a book. You can go online and search
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for the name of this book. It's called Keanu Reeves
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Is Not in Love with You. There's been so many
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scams involving this Keanu Reeves scam for some reason. Well,
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the reason is it works. And then it became a
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reality to me when a friend of mine, she lives
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in Arizona, she called me up and she said, my
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sister is falling for this scam. She thinks she's been
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in contact with Keanu Reeves. They email each other, they
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text each other, and she even said Keanu Reeves was
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flying into town to meet her, and this was in
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a smaller town in Arizona, and so she asked for
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my help. And the first thing I did is I
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went online and I found all these news articles where
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people had fallen victim to this Keanu Reeves scam, and
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I sent her the articles and I said, please share
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these with your sister. We need to stop this scam
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right now. We need to show her it's a scam.
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And we were able to extricate her from the scam
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by sharing news articles because people are, you know, falling
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victim to the scheme. And it's not just one scammer
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using this. I guarantee you there scammers are copycats. If
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they see that this particular scam works, they will use it.
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And it's not just limited to Keanu Reeves. I heard
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of one involving Michael Strahan, the retired NFL alignment who
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held the sack record at one point. And you know,
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he's he's on TV all the time, and he's a
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very affable guy and very popular, and there's people out
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there claiming to be him and getting people to send
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money for his fan club and this and that. So
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any actor can be used, any famous person can be
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used like that. So anything related to Keanu Reeves or
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a Hollywood actor or someone on TV that's contacting you
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and messaging you, I guarantee you it's a scam, okay.
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And then the fourth one I want to talk about
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today is an email I received, Like, I received this
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email in like end of just and it said it
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was from the Treasury Department, and in the email said
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my name was listed among the people who were victimized
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by scammers. And I was told I was going to
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receive nine point five million dollars And I was like, wow,
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that got my attention, and then I looked to see
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who it was from. Well, the email claimed to be
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from Treasury Secretary Scott Pissent, a real person, and in
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there I was told if I wanted to be part
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of this this settlement or you know, victims fund, that
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I was told to email Jerome Powell, who's the chair
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of the Federal Reserve. Now, which the crazy thing is
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this is this is a classic Nigerian email scam. It's