Time to reflect on some positive experiences

0:00 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 at eight 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, my name is Brian Watson, community outreach specialist with Rose Resources Outreach to safeguard the elderly, and I have the pleasure of filling in for Joyce this morning. I'm actually filling in for Joyce for four weeks in a row, just her schedule does not allow her to do the live radio show, so I'm filling in. I'm very excited and today we're going to talk some We're going to have a positive, super positive show. Not that our shows aren't positive normally, but today's focus is on time to reflect on some positive experiences. So thank you for tuning in to Let's talk about scams and let's get into it. So we're in the fraud prevention business.

2:07 We don't want anyone to be scammed and it's a tough task because these scammers are targeting us on a daily basis. And what I've noticed when I do fraud prevention, you know, it can be a very dreary topic. You know, there's like doom and gloom. We're telling stories of people getting defrauded out of their life savings. You know, I've seen people that have lost two hundred dollars and it's affected them. I've seen people that have lost an excess of a million dollars and it's really affected them. And you know, at times it seems like an uphill battle. We're out there just trying to warn people about these scams, and the scammers are just relentless, and it's tough, and you know, no matter how hard we try, we think we're making a difference, but the reported losses keep going up every single year. We like to refer to the FBI's Elder Fraud Report, so it looks at fraud against older adults sixty plus. In twenty twenty three, the number was three point four billion billion with a B in reported losses. Then we looked at twenty twenty four, it's up to four point eight billion in losses. Now it'll be a while before the twenty twenty five numbers are out, but just looking at the trend, I can only expect it to go up. And then this is the scariest part.

3:38 I've been asking around to other people in what we call the fraud prevention world, and it's estimated that only six to ten percent of these scams are actually reported, you know, for a variety of reasons that we've covered on other episodes, so the numbers are way way higher. So, like I said at the beginning today's show, I want to talk about some of the pot positive stuff that we experience at Rose. And when I say we, me and Joyce and Page and Bill, and there's another Brian, and there's a whole bunch of other people that do that are part of our committee, our advisory committee, on our board. So I've been with Rose for two and a half years and I've traveled all over Arizona, and if you add up all the audiences that I've had the pleasure of speaking to, it's well in excess of two thousand people. I've met some interesting characters, some really funny people, I mean did not expect it. People that make me laugh, people to make me smile, people that tell funny stories. And then I've had some very very brave people come up to me and share their stories, sometimes afterwards, sometimes during our presentation. You know, we make it a shame free environ when we talk about these scams, because we emphasize these scammers are really good at what they do. They're professionals, they're reading from scripts, they're organized,

5:10 they're targeting people, they have an answer for everything. But I have a lot of people that come up to me and share their experience. I mean sometimes they're in tears. Sometimes they have their head down because you know, they're still experiencing that shame. But here's the good news. When we do these presentations, we get to send people home like better prepared to protect themselves. Sometimes it's information, but a lot of times it's just a mindset. We're we want to let them know that they're in control and they have tools that they can put into place, things like hanging up the phone, screening your phone call, deleting emails, not responding right away, taking a break, you know, phoning a friend. There's all these like common sense things. Moving really slow. I like to say, move like a sloth.

6:04 We're going to move slow. The criminals what you move fast. So all these two thousand plus attendees over the last two and a half years, they get to they express their appreciation. You know, after every presentation, people come up to me and say, good job, I really appreciate you coming out here. I learned a few things today and this was awesome, you know, and they can see that we're passionate about what we do. You know, you don't go into the nonprofit world to make money. You go into the nonprofit world to help people to solve a problem. We and we partner with a lot of companies, so one of them in particular is a super dealership in Tucson, Arizona.

6:52 They sponsored several of our presentations. Some were held at the dealership for their customers, but they funded some extra one so we could go out in the public and do more. And one of them included doing a presentation at a local community what around here we call a homeowners association. After the event, this was the cool part, both the dealership and myself. We received the nicest handwritten letters signed by a bunch of people from the neighborhood thanking us for this presentation. Like I love that, you know people still write thank you cards. I'll tell you my mom would be very proud, and my grandma as well.

7:36 My Grandma's not with us anymore, but I come from a family where thank you cards were a high priority. So that just made my day, and it made the dealership's day. You know that they sponsored an event. I did the presentation, and the people loved it enough that they spent the time to write us at thank you card I've received a lot of interesting gifts over the year, just thoughtful gifts. The one I have is this little pen here of this guy with a little uh like fuzzy hair. I did a presentation in northern Arizona and one of the people there gave this to me is a thank you. This is awesome I've received. I received a house plant with this beautiful clay pot and it's blue and it's totally awesome. I had a lady at a presentation afterwards screwed up to me and her walker and she was probably over eighty years old, and she handed me a five dollar bill and she said, here's here's for your gas money. And I'm just like, wow, what It's so nice. And you know, in best of all, on a lot of these presentations, it involves like a meeting and a meal, and I like to eat, and I like to sit around and talk to people while we eat. So I've broken bread with a lot of cool people and had in depth conversations and really get to know people. So that's what's awesome. So, like I

9:09 said at the beginning, it's not all been doom of gloom. You know, We've had our fair share of laughs. As well. At the beginning of every one of my presentations, I warn people that I'm going to tell some scary stories and just so they're prepared, and then I also tell them it's okay to laugh. Now, we're not laughing at anybody's misfortunes. But there's times where I intentionally insert some humor. You know. It's when you have a heavy topic, you sometimes have to lighten the mood a little bit with some appropriate humor. And we've done that, and I found that inserting that humor allows people to put their guard down a little bit, and it's part of that shame free experience where people are more open to sharing their stories. I recall one event in twenty twenty four in the town where I live, and I had three people walk up to me, one right after another after the event and share their stories of losing money, and I was just kind of blown away.

10:21 You know, obviously we did something right where we made people feel comfortable enough where they could share their stories. Speaking of the humor, I love doing presentations for older adults because they actually find my jokes funny. I can't say the same for the students that I teach in my college class. They're all around twenty years old, and it's like pulling teeth to get a laugh. Obviously, I think it's just a generational thing. They don't find my humor is funny. So I love I love doing these fraud preventions presentations because because I can get a laugh out of people. And another good news, I've personally been able to partner with eight different law enforcement agencies around the state of Arizona. I reach out to them because one I'm former law enforcement. I have a lot of contacts, and I know if we partner with them, meaning they host the event, they publicize it with their social media, we can get a good crowd and people that want to be there. And what I know is these law enforcement agencies care deeply about their citizens, so they see a value in partnering, partnering with Rose leveraging our scam prevention experience, because that's all we do is scam prevention.

11:46 These law enforcement agencies have a huge task to protect their community from a wide variety of crimes. One of them obviously is financial scam. So by partnering with us, you know, we can put together even a better presentation. Let's talk more good news while we're on a roll. I was up in northern Arizona doing a presentation in a county called Yavapai County, and I was at their local mall and my presentation happened to be at the mall at one of the businesses there. They sponsored our event and we While I walked into the mall, I noticed a cryptocurrency ATM, something Joyce and I have been talking about on this program and we're going to keep talking about it because crypto currency ATMs are really, really nasty.

12:38 I walked up to the crypto ATM and I started looking at it, and a man came up to me and he said, you're not falling. You're not falling for a scam, are you. I said, no, no, no, I do this for a living. I would never fall for that scam using one of these ATMs. And he told me that he works at the mall nearby and when he sees someone walking up up to the machine, he will take it upon himself to see if they look scared or stressed, and he will intervene. You know what, that is so awesome that that guy would do that. You know, he didn't have to because that could backfire. People could get mad at him for not minding his own business, but he said he stopped a lot of people coming in with a whole bunch of cash that thought they were going to pay off a fee or a fine to some government agency. So that's really cool.

13:28 And then just last week, I was at a senior expo in Tucson and a lady came up to me. Let's just call her Lily. That's not her real name, but she had a walker, really soft voice, and she wanted to tell her story. It was hard to hear her because the the room at this at this hotel was was kind of loud, and I had to kind of lean in and listen, and she was starting to tear up. Tell me how she's fallen for scams. And the most recent one she a scammer convinced her to go to a local convenience store and she was putting cash about to put about to put cash into this cryptocurrency ATM and a man intervened. He knew something was wrong, he could read her face and he stopped her and she was so thankful. So again a positive outcome where people intervened and stopped a crime in progress. We all can do that as well, you know, look around. If you see someone that looks like they're under stress, ask how they're doing, Ask if you can help them. And if it's at a convenience store with one of these cryptocurrency ATMs, ninety nine percent of the time, I bet you it's a scam, So please intervene. And you know, I've met so many people. That's what I did not really expect to some amazing people personalities. Like I said

15:04 at the beginning, people are very thankful. But there was a there's a lady in Tucson that I've met. Her name's Mary, She's she just turned ninety. You would never know it. She's super sharp, super active, like when I'm ninety. I want to be like her. And she's arranged multiple presentations for groups that she's involved in and because she cares about the people in her group. So we've done the fraud prevention presentations and she's even reached out to me when she's not sure about something, and that's I love that. I want to help people. If I could be someone's phono friend, that's awesome. Last year, this is the cool part. She reached out and said, I want to make a donation to Rose because she values what we do and knows that it goes to a good cause.

15:55 So she asked for our address so she could write a check and Joyce can firm that we receive that money. And I love it because donating to scam prevention is not the sexy thing to do. It's usually not the top of people's donation list. But you know how important it is when when when we have money in we can do more things. We could do more presentations, we could put out more materials, we can we can do this. This radio show is because people donate. So if you feel that our service is valuable to our society, I would love you to donate to Rose. Just go to our website Roseadvocacy dot org. I'm a monthly giver just because I value I see the value in what we do.

16:42 But we love one time gifts as well. And if you want to sponsor our presentation, we'd love to do that as well. So these are all the positive experiences that keep me motivated, that keep everyone on our board motivated, and everyone on our advice committee. I've learned most of the people that are on the Rose team have some sort of connection. They've had a friend, a loved one or neighbor. Someone gets scammed and they don't want to just sit back and do nothing. They want to get in the game, they want to get in the arena. They want to protect people, and that's what we're doing.

17:27 We love you to go to Roseadvocacy dot org. You can see our it's flashing right across the screen there Roseadvocacy dot org. We have a great website, share it with others. But the biggest thing is we love people to sign out for our monthly email. It comes out at the beginning of the month and it's a whole bunch of just broad prevention techniques, things to do for your computer, for your phone, all kinds of good information. And it's important that we work on this every single month. Scam prevention we have to be working on it constantly.

18:09 So if you like this email, share it with your friends, just forward it to them, tell them to sign up as well. Sign up your loved ones. And then Joyce also puts out on Tuesday mornings a little version of it. It's just one little topic and so we have something that also goes out on Tuesday morning, So please please please sign up. These are great tips, so that's all I have for today. We're going to have guests the next three weeks. My guest next week is going to be a lady named Helen, and she is going to tell her story about recently dealing with the scammer and the techniques that she used to get out of the situation.

18:55 And she was very smart and she was actually, of see, very impressed, not in a good way, but impressed by the scammer's ability to have an answer for everything. And Helen's going to share her story. So I applaud Helen in advance and I look forward to chatting with her next week. So please join us next Tuesday when we chat with Helen about her experience with a real life scammer, and we'll learn and then we can, you know, share her story so others don't others don't fall for a scam in the future as well. So thank you very much, see you all next Tuesday.

19:35 Well that's all the knowledge for this episode. June in every Tuesday at eight am Pacific time on kfour HD Radio at KFOURHD dot com, as Joyce explores a variety of knowledge, so you have the power to make scam protection your healthy habit. And until then feel free to reach out to Joyce and let's talk about scams.