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, legal, counseling,
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professional service, or any advice.
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You should seek the services.
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Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
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The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational
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purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional
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legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted
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sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard the
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elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to
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a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the must listen
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show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and their
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loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday at am Pacific time
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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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Hi, everyone, welcome back.
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I'm Joyce Petrowski, founder and board president of Rose Resources
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Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly. You can find more information
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on our website at Rosadvocacy dot org. You'll find our
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social media links and if you scroll down to the
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bottom of the homepage, you'll see where you can sign
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up for our emailed newsletter and or our mailed newsletter.
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Always good to get those reminders on a regular basis,
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so it helps enforce your healthy skepticism and you're more
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apt to make scam prevention a habit with those regular reminders.
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And don't forget to click subscribe. You don't ever miss
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an episode of this show. So today we are joined
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by Valerie excuse me, and she's going to talk to
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us about a tech support subscription scam that she encountered
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a few years back. So let's welcome Valerie. Hello, Hey, Valerie,
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how are you doing well? Thank you well, Thank you
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for joining us today and tell us a little bit
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about the scam that you encountered a few years ago.
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Okay, I was going through my email, clean it out,
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see what was there, and I came across one from
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Norton Anti Virus. I opened it and it was a
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short letter that said, thank you for renewing your subscription
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for Norton Plus. We have deducted four hundred and ninety
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nine dollars from the bank account you had on file
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with us. If you have any questions about your new subscription,
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please call this phone number. Well, I panicked. It was
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at a time when our budget was pretty tight. I
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did not remember having subscribed to Norton, and I knew
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we could not afford four hundred and ninety nine dollars
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at the moment, So I immediately called that phone number
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to tell them this is a mistake. If we signed up,
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please reverse it. We don't want this, and a very
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kind young man on the other end, oh, I totally understand.
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I'm sorry for the mistake. Let's see about canceling this
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subscription and refunding to you the money that we took
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out of your bank account. Now I should have realized
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at the time they never mentioned the bank account, nor
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do I remember ever giving that information in I was
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on the phone, of course, but I had the email
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open in front of me, and he said, we can
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do this all online, and just so that you know
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that this is legitimate, go ahead and open your checking
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account to see that the four hundred and ninety nine
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dollars charge is on there as having come out of
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your checking account. And I opened my bank account, went
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to checking. Sure enough, there was a thing from Norton
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for four hundred and ninety nine dollars. It showed right up,
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and so he said, okay, there is a way that
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we can do this. I'm going to send you to
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your computer a digital form that you're going to fill out,
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and he said, we'll just round it up to five
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hundred dollars and you're going to put back into your
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account from our business five hundred dollars. And he said,
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you're gonna do this, I don't have access to your
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bank account. I want you to know that I can't
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see it, okay, And which is of course, of course
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a lie, right, But anyway, he sent the form digitally
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and I started filling it out, and there was a
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place to enter the five hundred dollars to go back
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into my account. I typed in five zero zero, and
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a third zero immediately showed up five thousand dollars to
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go back into our account. And I said to the
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young man, I did this, but it won't let me
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go back and change it. It went to five thousand
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and get rid of the other's zero. And he said,
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oh no, well, this is a problem. Let me talk
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to my supervisor. And so he goes off the phone
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for a minute or so and comes back and says,
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I'm sorry, we've got a big problem. We're going to
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have to, you know, do something to make sure that
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you send us back the five thousand dollars.
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Okay.
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My husband was on the other side of the room
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and had been listening to this okay, And about that
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time he walks over and he says, I have our
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banker on the phone. She says, there is no activity
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in our account and you should hang up right now.
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Don't say a word to me. Hang up, And so
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I did, and he stayed on the phone with her,
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and she said, now open your checking account, and I
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did and there was absolutely nothing in it. How they
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made it look like money had been taken out of
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my checking account, I do not know. But she said,
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there has been no activity in your checking account in
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these amounts from Norton. It was a scam.
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Wow.
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Well, I was so upset that I had fallen for this.
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I immediately texted my kids and my siblings and told
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them what had happened. I said, be careful of this,
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and my daughter in law said to me, also, be
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careful on one of those phone calls that you never
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answer a question yes, because they will record that yes
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and use it to say that you gave them permission
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to do something. I said, okay. Two days later, we're
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in the car driving someplace. My phone rings and it's
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not a number I know, but I answered it. There
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was a young man on the other end whose voice
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I kind of recognized. To said Hi, this is SO
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and So. Do you remember me? And I said no
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and hung up. I was so glad, because otherwise I
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might have been tempted to say yes, I'm really upset
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with you, right right, But I said no and hung up.
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Two days later he called again, and I didn't even answer.
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I just immediately hung up.
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And was that the last that you ever heard from them?
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That was the last time I heard?
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Well, I'm surprised that they only tried twice because they
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had you so.
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Close to.
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Very very close, right right.
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Yeah, So you were at one of our presentations recently,
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and so you got to see our Anatomy of a
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Scam infographic that we did it was it's in the
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resource packet and we went over it. And so you know,
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we tell everybody we want you to know the red flags,
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and we want you to cut it off at the contact,
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which is the first step, right, it's they have to
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contact you somehow. And a perfect example here was the
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email and it doesn't sound like there was any bad
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grammar in the email, and they probably had Norton or
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they probably had Norton's logo in there, you know, maybe
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to make it look more legit, you know, and you know,
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that's a lot of artificial intelligence, right. You can plug
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it into chat, GPT, a bunch of prompts, and it's
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going to spit out an email to send to millions
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of people that has the grammar's accurate, right, So you
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can't look at the for bad grammar anymore.
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And so then the second.
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Part we talked about was that creating that compelling reason
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to get you to act, which was, oh my god,
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they took four hundred ninety nine dollars out of my account.
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You said, your budget was tight, we couldn't afford it.
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There's a phone number right there, you just immediately call it.
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But you know, you said, I panicked, right, And that's
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that emotion that they want to get you in, is
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the panic. And your husband was listening and he's sitting
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there in his rational state of mind. Yes, so he's
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thinking this doesn't make sense, so he immediately calls the
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bank to verify, which is exactly right. What we talk
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about doing is to verify before you trust. But once
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they get you into that emotional state, all you're doing,
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like in your instance, you were panicking and you just
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wanted to do follow the steps that he was giving
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you because you wanted to get that four hundred and
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ninety nine dollars out of your account. You wanted that
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money back, and he showed you how it was in
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your account. And I don't know technic how they're able
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to do it. I just know they're extremely smart and
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savvy and they have a lot of technology available to.
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Them to make it appear like he did to you, right, And.
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That was what amazed me. You know, of course he
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was saying, I want you to do this so that
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you know that I'm not getting into your checking account.
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And I realized later a big mistake I made at
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the beginning was it said on there we have deducted
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this amount from the account you have on file with US.
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I should have asked, first thing, which account is that,
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because I don't believe he would have known until I
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opened it?
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True, right, And see, these are all those things.
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Right after you get out of that emotional state and
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you think about it more, you're like, you see the
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red flags, right, But that's the difference between when you're
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in your rational state versus your emotional state. And so
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you know, like a lot of people would say, you know,
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they felt stupid, you know, and stuff like that, and
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it's like, it doesn't have anything to do with intelligence
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because you're not thinking clearly when you're thinking out of
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emotions and that scammers know that, and so they they
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do that.
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And I guarantee you you are not.
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The only one that called that phone number, right, And
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there are people that would have lost five thousand dollars
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because they would have went through with the whole thing.
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And you had your husband not been there and you
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followed through everything that he did, you know, then you'd
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be thinking, Okay, you know, I'm I've got that money back.
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But the next day or two you would have then realized,
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wait a minute, five thousand came out of my account,
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and there's never anything put in my account to begin
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with that. Because of that that, you know, you might
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not have checked your account until the next day.
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So it's it's really scary.
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Well it is. And I have always considered myself a
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level headed person, but I panicked pretty quickly.
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It's you know, there's they're so good they can get
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you emotional right off the bat, you know. And and
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and there's people that you know, I think when they
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hear somebody talk about scams in their mind, their mind
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immediately goes, well, that'll never happen to me. And with
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that thought process, you've become, in my opinion, more vulnerable
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to falling victim because you're already thinking you're not going
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to and so you've already let your guard down.
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Right, and.
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You know, uh, it happens to the best of us, right,
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Thank thank goodness, your husband was there and was able
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to overhear what was going on and and called the
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bank to verify and found out, you know, this was
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a scam and all of that. And so the you
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probably heard of the tech support scams, how they would
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originally come out where they would you'd get a pop
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up on your device saying you've got a virus, and yeah,
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sometimes there's a loud noise and all this stuff.
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And sometimes that happened.
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Yeah, you can't use your device and you've got to
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call this number and this and that. And we saw
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that for the longest time, and then all of a
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sudden and it got to the point where so many
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people were falling victim to it. A couple of years ago,
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the FBI put out a public service announcement on this
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specific refund scam where they changed their technique and it
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all still revolved around tech support or anti virus and
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stuff like that, but it was the refund subscription. And
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so that's how scammers evolve, right. They start out and
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then they and then they change their techniques, and it's
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just to keep everybody on their toes, right, because they
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know if they change their techniques that there's going to
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be some people that will fall victim until we start
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hearing about it and we can warn people about it.
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But that's why getting to understand scams in general, which
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I think we do a really good job of with that.
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Anatomy of a scam, right, is that step one is
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that contact and like you did the next two days later,
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I think you said he called, you got the phone