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 in The information contained in this podcast is
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intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute
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for individual professional legal advice. The podcast information was carefully
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compiled from vetted sources and references. However, Rose resources outreach
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to safeguard the elderly cannot guarantee that you will not
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fall victim to a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's
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the must listen show for anyone who wants to protect
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themselves and their loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday am
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Pacific time on K four HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder
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of Rose, and her guests will provide valuable insights and
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practical tips on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams.
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And now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski.
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Good morning, everybody, My name is Brian Watson, community outreach
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specialist with Rose Resources Outreach to safeguard the elderly, and
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I have the privilege of sitting in Today in Joyce's
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chair next week as well. I appreciate the opportunity and
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thank you for tuning in. We are passionate about preventing
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people from getting scammed, and I tell everyone when I
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do my presentations, you need to have a scam prevention
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plan and it can entail a lot of different things,
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but the biggest thing is you have to just do something.
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And tuning into let's talk about scams, you're doing scam prevention,
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and then you can help others by telling them to
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watch our to listen and view our show. We want
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people to be protected. And for me, I get angry
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and frustrated when I hear about someone getting scammed. I'm
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not angry and frustrated at the victim. I feel a
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lot of empathy for them and understanding because I've met
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a lot of really, really smart people. But I get
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angry they're scammers trying to hurt us. So thank you
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for being part of the scam prevention process by watching today,
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and you know, please share with others. So today's topic
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is sometimes it's good to act like a sloth, and
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I'll explain where that came from. But I'm going to
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talk about a scary phone call that I received in
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September at about twelve forty five. It was on a
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Saturday night slash Sunday morning. Kept my cell phone right
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by my bedside and it rang and the caller ida
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on the phone said Wells Fargo Bank. And I knew
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it was a scam, but I picked it up because
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this is what I do for a part time job.
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And I answered the phone and it was a recorded
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message from Wells Fargo Fraud Prevention. I was able to
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save it and saved the file and I sent it
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in to our sound engineer here, our producer, and we
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are going to play it right now.
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Hello, this is Wells Fargo Fraud Prevention. We're calling to
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verify a recent transaction on your account. Did you authorize
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a purchase of two hundred and twenty seven dollars and
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forty nine cents at Best Buy on September seventh, twenty
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twenty five. If you recognize this charge, press one. If
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you do not recognize this charge, call us directly at
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one eight three three three two five one zero two three.
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That is one eight three three three two five one
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zero two three. Thank you for being a valued Wells
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Fargo customer.
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Wow, thank you one that that was great. We're able
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to do that. So let's talk about that recording. It
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was a female voice saying they were calling to verify
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a two hundred and twenty seven dollars charge at a
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well known big box store. If I recognized the charge,
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I was told to press one on my phone, and
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if I didn't make the purchase, I was instructed to
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call a number that they provided, and then did you
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notice at the very end the lady thanked me for
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being a valued customer. I thought it sounded really professional.
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I mean, this was a very executed, very well executed
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scam call, and I could see a lot of people
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falling for it. Now I knew it was a scam
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from the start, but I feel that I fear that
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many people that would have received that same call would
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have been fooled because when the scammers do this, they
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didn't just call me. They made the recording, and they're
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sending out thousands, if not millions, of these recordings to people,
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and they only have to be lucky every once in
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a while. Same thing with phishing emails, smishing texts. They
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sent them out by the thousands, and they just hope
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a few people fall for it. And you know, like
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I said, it sounded very professional, and the caller ID said,
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Wells Fargo Bank, that's called spoofing. The criminals can do
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that and it gives it more credibility. So at twelve
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forty five am, when I picked up my phone and
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it said Wells Fargo you instant. It gives it credibility
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and it get your mind thinking that it is actually legitimate.
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So I didn't call the number of the middle of night,
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I was tired. I went back to sleep. These scammers
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interrupted my night of sleep. Thank you scammers. But in
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the morning, I got a search engine on my computer
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and I typed in the phone number these scammers provided
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and I was able to confirm it was not Wells
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Fargo Bank. Other people had pointed out that it was
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a scam number, so out of curiosity, I tried calling
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the number that they provided and I got a busy signal.
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So I thought, well, I'll try again in twenty minutes
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or an hour later or later in the day, and
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I kept getting a busy signal, so either the phone
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line was tied up by potential victims calling the scammers back,
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or what a lot of scammers do is they'll only
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keep a phone number active for a short amount of
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time and then they'll close it, change it, forward it,
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doing whatever they do, because the biggest thing is they
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don't want to get caught and they don't want to
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get tracked down by law enforcement. But it's very easy
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for them to port numbers and move them around and
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just create all this obstacles for anyone trying to track
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them down. But what I thought was interesting about this
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case is most scammers actually call during the day, normal
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business hours, because that's when a bank security department would
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be opened. I don't know why these scammers tried this
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particular scheme in the middle of the night. I'm guessing
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maybe they're just calling from a foreign country and they
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got their time zones all messed up, or maybe it
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was part of their scheme to get people to panic.
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Because whenever our phone rings in the middle of the night,
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you know, the first thing we think of is, oh,
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I have a family member that needs me, someone sick,
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someone got in an accident, something bad happened. So instead
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of ignoring the phone call, we're probably more likely to
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answer a phone call in the middle of the night.
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So you know, that's part of the thing. They want
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people to panic and make a bad decision fall. This
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follows our anatomy of a scam that we like to
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show here at Rose contact out of the blue, in
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this case, a phone call the compelling reason to act
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potential fraudulent charge at your bank. And then if I had,
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if I had answered right away and called that number back,
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they would have done something. They would have either asked
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for my personal information, my passwords. They would have tried
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to refund my money. They may have asked for remote access.
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If they did remote access, they would probably try to
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overpay me or pretend they overpay me and then get
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me to pay them back via cryptocurrency. Again another show,
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another topic. But there's a myriad of ways that these
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scammers can get you. So the title of today's show
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was sometimes it's good to act like a sloth. So
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some of the best advice I've heard when it comes
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to acting deliberately is to act like a sloth. So
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I stole this from my friend Amy, who works at
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aarp in Arizona, and I end up doing a presentation
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and she joined me and she talked for a little
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bit as well and shared somewhat her advice, and I
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thought that was great advice. If you're not familiar with
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the sloth, the sloths live in the jungle of like
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Central and South America, and they live in trees, and
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they're very slow moving. They don't do anything in a hurry.
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In fact, there were some TV commercials a few years
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ago where there was a sloth working at the Department
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of Motor Vehicles and they're moving really slow and driving
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people crazy. But if we can act like sloths, we
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can prevent most scams. That scammers want us to rush
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and make a bad decision. But if we act deliberately,
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we can prevent most of these scams. We have to
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control our fear. We can't panic. Remember time is our friend.
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Criminals always want us to act urgent, urgently, rushed, make
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a bad decision, get that tunnel vision, and just do
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whatever they tell us. But we want, we want to have.
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Time is our friend. So always start with the assumption
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that all calls, emails, text messages, or anything on social
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media from someone you don't know is a scam. I
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don't like living that way, but that's just the reality
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we live in right now. Don't trust the caller ID
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on your phone because scammers, like we saw in this case,
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can make it say anything. The scammers in this particular
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instance made it say Wells Fargo Bank when it was
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not Wells Fargo Bank. We all need to have a
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healthy amount of skepticism. I'm not telling people to live
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in fear, but you have to be vigilant. It's not
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a matter of being scared, but it's just a matter
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of could this Ask yourself, could this be a scam?
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And if it is, I'm going to hang up the phone,
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or I'm not going to read that. I'm going to
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delete that email, or I'm going to delete that text,
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and I'm not going to respond right away. So let's say,
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in this case, you received this call and we'll basically
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call this a bank impersonation scam, hang up the phone,
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and if it happens to be your financial institution, Let's
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say you were a customer at Wells Fargo in this case,
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you can call the bank, but you need to call
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from a verified number. So what does that mean? Never
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use the number provided by the scammers, because you're gonna
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end up calling one of their call centers a verified number.
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The best thing to do pull out your wallet, pull
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out your ATM card, flip it over and on the
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back is the number for customer service, and you basically
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call them up, ask for the security department and say
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you got this call. And if someone had done this
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in this particular scheme, they would have said, no, everything
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looks legit. You can also go online and look and
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see if there's any charges to your bank account or
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to your credit card, but again log in through the
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link that you have saved on your computer. You can
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also contact your bank through bank statements, copy of the
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bank statements, that's a legitimate number, and you can also
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do it from the bank's website, but just make sure
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you have the official website of the bank. So this
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bone scam, the reason why it works is because responsible
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adults pay their bills on time, and responsible adults respond
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when they see a charge that's not accurate. And that's
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when I found out it's like law abiding citizens who
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are financially responsible are the ones that fall for these
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types of scams. So you need to resist the urge
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to act in a hurry. You just take your time
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and if you control your emotions, you will not be
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a victim. And the last two pieces of advice I
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want to share is take a break. Anytime you feel
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like you're being rushed or you're being scared, or someone's
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telling you some bad news, like you the money at
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your bank is in trouble. Take a break. So that
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hanging up the phone, turning off your computer, going for
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a walk, go out to dinner, sleep on it, go
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to bed can always it's just a little bit of money,
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like two hundred and twenty seven dollars, We're not going
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to panic over to twenty seven. And then phone a friend.
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Everyone here everyone needs a phone a friend. And in
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my case, like my parents know they can call me
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anytime if they have a question about their money, email, texting.
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It's just good to have a second opinion. And that's
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part about taking a break. You're getting away from the situation.
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My phone a friend when it comes to technology stuff
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is my son. He's a computer whiz and he could
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walk me through anything and get me straightened out. And
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then let's say you don't have a phone a friend
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for some reason, you can call your local police department.
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I've talked to enough of detectives that'll have told me
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they'd rather spend ten minutes on the front end of
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a scheme stopping it, then trying to track down the
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money and writing reports and interviewing people on the back
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end and seeing the carnage of someone losing lots of money.
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So take a break, phone a friend. It's the advice
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that Joyce and I give all the time when we're
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out interacting with the public. All right, last thing we
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asked for for scam prevention, Please please please sign up
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for our monthly email at Rose. You go to Rosadvocacy