Scammers Continue to Devise Unbelievable Schemes

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

1:19 Good Morning, everybody, Welcome, to let's talk about scams. I'm Brian Watson, community outreach specialist for Rose. We're an Arizona nonprofit and it's an acronym resources outreach to safeguard the elderly. We are in the fraud prevention business. We want to prevent people from getting scammed and our focus is older adults. The older we get, the more we lose. The numbers don't lie. So I'm filling in for Joyce. I had the pleasure of filling in for Joyce last week, filling in today and then filling in for two more weeks. But don't worry, Joyce, We'll be back and you will see her soon. You're stuck with me for a few more weeks. But I have some great information today and in the next two weeks, we have guests coming in and so they're going to share some some some great advice and some great knowledge. So Today's Today's title of today's show is scammers continue to devise unbelievable schemes. These scammers out there are just really unbelievable how creative they can be. And and that's not a compliment, I mean really more like how dastardly they can be. They're always trying new schemes. So our goal is to identify the schemes.

2:43 And so today I'm going to talk about four four schemes that jumped out of me that are kind of hard to believe, but they worked. And why do they work? Because scammers are professionals at what they do. They are like act they're reading scripts and if something works, they will keep using it and they'll tweak it and then make it better, and they'll tailor it toever who are they're targeting. And that's the key. Scammers target good people and what happens is, you know, we end up believing it because they're so good at what they do. So I want to start out with the story. This was like ten plus years ago. If you know a little bit about my background, I spent twenty eight years in federal law enforcement. And I remember very vividly my coworker was sitting next to me, and we had cubicles, so you kind of could hear everything that's going on in phone calls and lets you put your noise canceling headphones on.

3:48 And my coworker, she was an IRIS special agent. She was pleading with a woman and I remember it was in Ohio and she kept telling her, ma'am, you need to stop sending money to this bank account in Nigeria, and the lady was pushing back, saying, no, no, no, this is my money. I'm gonna do what I want with it, you know, like that's my boyfriend I'm sending the money to. And my colleague said, ma'am, there's like four other women sending money to this same bank account. And by the way, the bank account was in Nigeria. And you know, I don't know the backstory on this, but you know this was a romance scam basically where someone was calling from a foreign country, had targeted a woman, seduced her online with lots of attention and beautiful words and maybe a poem and maybe just you know, a lot of compliments, and this lady believed it. And my colleagues said, ma'am, you are getting scammed. You have to stop.

4:58 And the lady said, nope, this is my money, this is my boyfriend. We're gonna get married someday. You cannot tell me what to do. And my colleague was so frustrated when the when the call ended, she basically just had to storm away from her desk and go out in the hallway because she knew this lady was going to lose all this money and she, my friend, did everything she could and she was just frustrated. So that's you know, that's the classic romance scam where someone's targeted online and it's a long play scam and they eventually take a lot of money. And in this case, you know, there are four or five women that were getting scammed.

5:43 So I saw that many years ago. So once I saw that, it made me believe these scammers can do anything. But today I do want to share some of these stories, you know, because I unfortunately I have met victims who fallen from a romance scam, like I just mentioned. Sometimes it goes into the world of pig butchering, which we've talked about before that involves investigating cryptocurrency sweep steak scams, tech support scams. And when I started working part time for ROWS about two and a half years ago, you know, I thought the people that I would meet that fell victim to scams were you know, had some sort of mental decline, some sort of dementia, But that's not been the case. Everyone I've met that's been scammed is highly intelligent, they handle their own finances, they work, they travel, it's just they're like a normal person. But the scammers are that good, you know. And the key is they are professionals.

6:49 They will want you to make an emotional and a hurried decision. So we have to practice ahead of time. We have to be mentally prepared. What are you going to do when this phone call comes, when this text comes, when this email, when you're contacted online, when you're playing an online game and someone uses the chat feature to interact with you. So this month, I'm going to share four outlandish scams, unbelievable scams that are hard to believe. Now, the purpose of this is not to judge anyone. These are really sad stories, but to show how devious these criminals are and just to be mentally prepared. So last summer summer of twenty twenty five, a woman in Japan fell victim to a romance scam. She met this scammer on social media. She was swindled out of thousands of dollars.

7:46 And here's the crazy thing. The scammer claimed to be an astronaut in space running out of oxygen. And I was like, when I read this I'm like, no way, like, come on, come on. But you know they're good. And what I've learned with these online scammers is they have an answer for everything, and they have just enough truth and just enough information to look legit. And you know, one day that scammer said he was in the spaceship they were under attack, need of oxygen, and this lady sent money. Now I was just like, wow, that is absolutely unbelievable. You know, why would a scammer even think of that, Why would they even think that it would work?

8:32 But it did. Okay, so that was the first one astronaut in space, you know, because they probably used found a little bit of information online. So if this lady wanted to verify, she could. And they people can steal pictures and steal information and kind of have a backup to their story. All right. Second one I want to talk about. There's something now called the gold Bar scam. It's very sophisticated. People are contacted and they're lied to, They're targeted, and they're lied to, and the person on the other end of the line either phone, but it could be email, it could be text. They will pose as government agents FBI, Federal Trade Commission, it could be IRS Secret Service, it doesn't matter, local police, sheriff. And what they'll tell their targeted victims is that their social Security number is linked to criminal activity. And they convince their victims to convert a lot of money, oftentimes life savings into gold bars. Okay, And it's sort of like they'll say to you, we know you're not involved in this, but in a good faith, we need you to do this, to put money in escrow until everything's figured out. And if you're a trusting person and you grew up believing law enforcement, trusting law enforcement the way you're raised, I could see how people could fall for this. And then the scammers send a courier. They'll send an actual person

10:03 to your house in a car and pick up these gold bars. They'll even give you a little like code like a password for safe key, you know, that way you can claim it later. That gives it the legitimacy. So here's the scary thing out there, folks. The reported losses on this scheme are an excess of two hundred million dollars, and if you heard me talk before on other podcasts, other radio shows, or in articles, it could be ten times that number. So it's it's absolutely amazing. Now, you know the met Like I said, the message could be a voicemail, it could be a live phone call email, and they can say your bank account or computer is hacked, you know they And then the key is, you know, they'll say they're from a government agency, but they put a lot of pressure on you to act right away, and that that's the key. And they'll say things like do this to protect your money, or do this in good faith, and then they'll even have you send this, you know, the gold bars or the money to a secure government account to keep it safe while all this is figured out, and they sound very convincing. Okay, so again that's the gold bar scam. So just remember, no one from the government will ever tell you to buy and deliver gold bars. That is a huge red flag.

11:33 If someone does, it's a scammer. Call your local police department right away, call the FBI. Okay. So that was number two, the gold bar scam. Next one, this one is this one's all over the place. A lot of you are familiar with the actor Keanu Reeves. He was in the Matrix, he was in a lot of other movies. He's very well known he's very well liked in would So there is a new scam and it's a version of the romance scam where fraudsters create fake online profiles and they'll use Keano's picture because you can get it anywhere, and they will befriend them. They will act like it's Keanu Reeves and that they're interested in the person, and it's like a friendship thing, and then sometimes it morphs into a romantic thing. And you know, Keanu has a very kind public image, and he's very devoted to his fans, and he's a very popular guy. This scam is so prevalent.

12:40 There's actually a book. You can go online and search for the name of this book. It's called Keanu Reeves Is Not in Love with You. There's been so many scams involving this Keanu Reeves scam for some reason. Well, the reason is it works. And then it became a reality to me when a friend of mine, she lives in Arizona, she called me up and she said, my sister is falling for this scam. She thinks she's been in contact with Keanu Reeves. They email each other, they text each other, and she even said Keanu Reeves was flying into town to meet her, and this was in a smaller town in Arizona, and so she asked for my help. And the first thing I did is I went online and I found all these news articles where people had fallen victim to this Keanu Reeves scam, and I sent her the articles and I said, please share these with your sister. We need to stop this scam right now. We need to show her it's a scam.

13:46 And we were able to extricate her from the scam by sharing news articles because people are, you know, falling victim to the scheme. And it's not just one scammer using this. I guarantee you there scammers are copycats. If they see that this particular scam works, they will use it. And it's not just limited to Keanu Reeves. I heard of one involving Michael Strahan, the retired NFL alignment who held the sack record at one point. And you know, he's he's on TV all the time, and he's a very affable guy and very popular, and there's people out there claiming to be him and getting people to send money for his fan club and this and that. So any actor can be used, any famous person can be used like that. So anything related to Keanu Reeves or a Hollywood actor or someone on TV that's contacting you and messaging you, I guarantee you it's a scam, okay.

14:50 And then the fourth one I want to talk about today is an email I received, Like, I received this email in like end of just and it said it was from the Treasury Department, and in the email said my name was listed among the people who were victimized by scammers. And I was told I was going to receive nine point five million dollars And I was like, wow, that got my attention, and then I looked to see who it was from. Well, the email claimed to be from Treasury Secretary Scott Pissent, a real person, and in there I was told if I wanted to be part of this this settlement or you know, victims fund, that I was told to email Jerome Powell, who's the chair of the Federal Reserve. Now, which the crazy thing is this is this is a classic Nigerian email scam. It's called a Nigerian email scam because these scams first started in Nigeria like twenty five years ago, maybe longer. But they can be sent from anywhere. They could be sent from down the street, across the country, anywhere in the world.

16:10 So how do I know it was a scam? Well, I think it's highly unlikely that mister Pissent and mister Powell use Gmail accounts, Okay, and then also if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I'm not getting nine point five million dollars. So, like you know, so these stories today, they're not a reflection of anyone's intelligence. You know, the woman I mentioned at the very very beginning of the show today was a highly educated professor. She was the lady that was sending money to the bank account in Nigeria. The success of these schemes is more of a testament to the criminal's ability and the emotional control that they exert on the victims. I've talked to psychologists and one of them told me these romance scams are basically considered domestic violence, and I was kind of taken aback by it. What do you mean they don't there's no physical violence, but it's a mental control, a control violence, a domineering telling people, you know, not to listen to anyone else and to isolate and it's you know, these scammers. We also sit there when I tell people these stories at presentations, they say, ah, they look back and they had a hard time believing it, And sometimes they chuckle a little bit because it's just that natural reaction, like no, I can't believe that. But

17:45 these scammers only have to be lucky once in a while, you know. You know, for instance that nine point five million dollars. You know, they're just hoping someone will be well, maybe this is legit nine point five and I'll respond to the email. And then they have a whole little system and a whole different ways that they can get you. Sometimes they'll ask for a prepayment or a processing fee or help cover the taxes, and then they promise they'll reimburse you. Or they'll say well I need to use your bank account, and then they'll steal from your bank account or your credit card or ask you to buy a prepaid card. So we all have that human desire to make money. It's greed, you know. And if someone's offering you money and you're like, well, I'll just take it.

18:37 So I see how these scams work. And remember we've been harping on this a lot lately. Anything with cryptocurrency is a complete scam. So any of these, any scam where someone's sending you to a cryptocurrency ATM, it's a scam. So these are four scams that I just wanted to share today. They are going to be new scams out there a year from now. I'm going to be talking about some things I never ever even envisioned. But the criminals out there are thinking of these scams right now. But the key is don't live in fear, but just be mentally prepared, have your radar on but at a low level, and just always asking yourself could this be a scam? Now, that's a healthy level of skepticism. We don't want to be paranoid wherever you think every phone call is a scam or every email is a scam.

19:31 But you have to just ask yourself could this be a scam? And unless and if you have any doubts, talk to a friend, take your time, sleep on it, you know, ask around, don't react quickly because we've always joyce and I always say time is our friend. Criminals utilize urgency to get us. And remember please go to Rosadvocacy dot org. You can see my email or I'm sorry our website right at the bottom of the screen. If you go to Rosadvocacy dot org. Right at the bottom of our website is a blue button. You can click on that blue button and sign up for our email.

20:12 All we ask for is your name and your email. If y'all like it, share it with your family and friends, tell them to sign up as well. If you don't like it, you can unsubscribe. But I guarantee you this is valuable information and we have to be practicing scam prevention on a weekly and monthly basis. Just hoping it doesn't happen to us is not enough. The fact that you're watching today, thank you. You are doing scam prevention today, and please tell others about this radio show. It's free, it's easy to watch. You can watch it live like if you're watching it live right now, or you can watch it later at your convenience. It's good stuff. So next week I will be back with a guest named Ken Westbrook. He is also in the scam prevention business, and he's going to talk more specifically about tech support scams and in some statistics and just some good common sense tips on what to do to avoid scams, but also what's going on legislatively in terms of with our government to try to stop these scams. So thank you very very much for watching today and we will see you next week.

21:32 Well that's all the knowledge for this episode. June in every Tuesday at eight am Pacific time on KFOURHD Radio at KFORHD 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.