Top 10 scam prevention tips

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0:48 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 8 a.m. Pacific Time on K4HD 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. Good morning, everybody. My name is Brian Watson, Community Outreach Specialist for the nonprofit Rose Resources Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly.

1:28 We are an Arizona nonprofit and we've been around for five years. So we're very happy about that. Ready for another five more. Today, Joyce is not here, obviously, and I'm filling in for her again. Joyce will be back next week. That's the plan. And I'll be back in in two weeks. I appreciate everyone tuning in today. Today is a review day. We're going to just have a little fun. Nothing new today. No new scam topics, no new information, but a review of things that Joyce and I have been covering on this show. So I call today top 10 scam prevention tips in honor of David Letterman.

2:14 When David Letterman did his a show. Um, he always did a top 10 every night and his was meant to be funny. Ours is going to be a little more serious because obviously we're talking about scams, but we might have a little fun too. Um, so I'm going to do the top 10 and this is a perfect episode to share with someone who's never watched our show. So after, after we were airing live right now on Tuesday mornings, but the show's recorded and it becomes a podcast. And it can be easily shared. One way to, you can find it on YouTube or Facebook. We also have a website, letstalkaboutscams.com. And you can send someone there. So if you know someone who hasn't done any scam prevention in their life, send them today's show because it's a top 10 review, kind of covers a lot of different topics.

3:11 I'm going to move fast like I always do. And share a lot of information, but this would be a good one to share. So let's start it out. Number one, and I think David Letterman would go in reverse, 10 to 1. We're going to go 1 to 10. Number one, screen your phone calls. We do not have to answer the phone. When my cell phone rings, I have caller ID. If the number calling is someone who's in my contact list, I know it's safe. I can pick it up. if it's an unknown number, if it says possible scam or a weird area code, we are allowed to screen our phone calls. Last week, I joked about the rotary telephone, how my generation and older, we are hardwired and trained to answer the phone and be nice. Well, you know what?

4:03 I am giving you permission. You do not have to answer the phone. And let's say you do answer the phone, like you were expecting a call from a company or a doctor's office, dentist's office, something like that. And you realize you don't like where it's going. You get some weird feeling there, high pressure. There's a sense of urgency. You can lie to the caller. I'm giving you permission. I once said that at a church during a presentation and everyone got a laugh out of it because I said, even though I'm in a house of God, I am telling you to lie because you know why the scammers are lying to you and they want to take your money.

4:45 So what kind of lie can you tell? I'm expecting someone. I'm expecting another call. I got food on the stove. I'm grilling some steaks. The dog has to be let out. We could come up with a hundred different lies and I'm telling you it's okay to lie. So please, please, please. Number one, screen your phone calls. All right. Number two, Don't respond to random text messages. The scammers are doing this right now. They will send you a text message. And of course, it's from an unknown number. And they'll send things like, hey, are we still meeting for coffee tomorrow? Hey, do you want to golf? Hey, did you get that bottle of wine I sent you? Or hey, how was your vacation to Hawaii? and they do this on purpose because they want you to do is respond back and say, Oh, I think you have the wrong number. Then the scammer will come back and say, Oh, I am so sorry.

5:45 I checked my dirt. I checked my contact list and I thought I had your number correctly. My apologies. You know, where do you live? I'll buy you a cup of coffee. And then you're, you say back, well, you know, I live in Phoenix, Arizona. So how can we get coffee? And then It just goes back and forth. And you're nice. You're friendly. They're an engaging person. And they are just trying to drag you into a little online fun conversation. And they're very apologetic and very nice. And this is almost always a pretext for them to get you into a scam. The most common one is cryptocurrency investment fraud.

6:30 They'll eventually say, hey, you and I become friends. I really trust you. I like you. My uncle's a whiz. It's buying and selling cryptocurrency. If you'd like, I'll let you in on a little purchase that he's doing. It's guaranteed to get like a 20% rate of return. And you do it. So that's what we call pig butchering, cryptocurrency investment fraud. So if you get a random text message, just ignore it. You have no obligation to tell them it's a wrong number. Just swipe it and delete that text message. Number three, please don't respond to emails on your smartphone when you're at work, at church, running errands, you're at the beach. The problem with this is the screen is far too small and you'll miss the clues that it's a phishing email. Unless it's a real simple email from a friend that you know and you can respond back. But if it's from an unknown email, something urgent, something claiming to be from your bank or from a company or the utility company or the government or anything like that, I plead and ask you, wait till you get home, check your email on your laptop or phone, on your desktop with a nice big screen take your time look and see where the email came from look

8:02 for spelling errors see if there's a hyperlink don't click on that hyperlink but see where it takes you and then be ready just to delete that email i am not a fan of using this little screen because you're going to miss some clues that it was that it was a phishing email and then The other important thing, too, is we just don't click on unknown links in emails unless you're absolutely sure it's a legitimate email. If in doubt, you just delete it and you can go to the company directly or log into your portal for, let's say, your bank. Number four, never allow remote access. Remote access is basically a way where a criminal can tap into your your computer directly and it's very scary because once they get into your computer they have access to everything they can find your passwords they can log into your accounts they can put a virus on your computer they can put keystroke logging device they can do all kinds of things and they can even set it up where they can go back later and access your computer so scammers will never call this remote access they might say something like in order to get that refund our Our company policy is you have to request the refund on your computer screen, and they'll send you a little pop-up, and you click yes. You just gave them remote access.

9:29 Or they'll say the only way to resolve this issue is if you acknowledge this little pop-up and agree to our terms. Remote access is horrible. It's often utilized by scammers in what we call tech support scams. or times when they say there's a virus on your computer. If someone calls you up and says there's a virus on your computer, hang up. They are trying to get remote access and steal your information. So remember, they don't call it remote access because that would be a dead giveaway. But anyone who wants control over your computer or sends you something on your screen, you absolutely have to hang up.

10:13 Best thing to do, Joyce always talks about having a technology expert available all the time so like in my case my son is a computer whiz so find the youngest family member you have who's computer literate and if if someone claims you have a virus or something hang up the phone and talk to that family member okay number five take a break time is our friend Scammers like urgency because when we are panicked or flustered or pressured, we tend to make very bad decisions. The scammers want to, um, affect your emotions and make you do something panicked. So slow down, get a second opinion. When I talk about taking a break, that means turning your computer off. It means going to bed. It means going for a walk. Um, You want to act like a sloth. Sloths do everything really slow. We do never, unless the house is on fire, we don't have to ever be in a rush. And then you ask yourself after taking a break, could this email be a scam? You could actually copy the email, run it through artificial intelligence and ask AI, is this email possibly a scam? Control your emotions. And then verify, verify, verify.

11:44 The one thing I love to say is if you get a call from the bank and they say there's some suspicious activity on your account, we need to verify some things, you hang up the phone. Don't let them call bank security and say, I'm hanging up. You get your wallet out. You pull out your ATM or your debit card or your credit card, whatever it is, flip it over. Call the 800 number on the back. Ask to talk to the security department. That's how we verify. All right, halfway done. Hope you're all having fun. Here's number six. Anything with a cryptocurrency ATM is a scam.

12:24 If you've been watching this show or reading my articles that I write, I am not a fan of cryptocurrency ATMs. I absolutely hate these things. The machines themselves are not bad at all. It's the scammers utilize them and they send you to a cryptocurrency ATM. So if you ever find yourself standing in front of this strange machine at a local store, like a convenience store, smoke shop, grocery store, and you got a handful of cash in your hand and you're putting cash into a machine because someone's telling you it's a scam, whether it's the jury duty scam or, you know, you've failed to pay a fine or someone's convinced you to invest in cryptocurrency, crypto ATMs are an absolute scam. And scammers like to use these machines because we're not familiar with these machines. That's why they like us to use prepaid debit cards, wire transfers, or peer-to-peer money transfer apps. Number seven, use direct deposit and auto pays when it comes to paying your bills. The days of checks are going away the dodo. We still can write checks. I write probably one check a month, maybe two a month. Here's the problem with checks. They have your name, your address, your phone number, also has your bank routing number and your bank account. If a criminal gets a hold of your check, they have everything they

13:55 need to start writing checks on your account. So that's why If you're getting money sent to you, have it in the form of direct deposit, like your paycheck or social security, things like that. And then do auto pays for your water bill, electric bill, or anything like that. Almost every company will let you do auto pays. And if you do need to write a check at Rose, we encourage you to use a gel pen. Gel ink is special. When you write a check using a gel ink pen, it actually penetrates the fibers of the check. And if for some reason a scammer were able to steal a check that you dropped in a mailbox, they could open it up, put it in some acetone, and normal ink will just evaporate into the acetone. If you use a gel ink pen, they cannot do that. And then also with checks, if you do have to write a check, use a gel pen, but take your mail directly inside the mail post office. You can use your neighborhood security box if it's one of the really good solid ones. I don't like the blue boxes at the post office because scammers will actually drop a piece of string in there with something sticky at the end and retrieve checks out of the retrieved mail out of that blue box. I like to go inside the mailboxes at the post office, go inside and drop them in myself.

15:27 And let's say you're someone who's not real nimble on their feet. You know what? Your neighbor would gladly take your mail to the post office. Or if you pulled out front, just stand in front of your car and say, could you drop this inside the mailbox? Look, most people love to help others. And it's just one way to protect yourself. Number eight, guard your financial information. We have to hold on to this information and not share it with anybody. Don't give out your social security number or your date of birth. When you go to the doctor's office, you know, so many times when you're a new patient, they ask you to fill out your biographical information. They always ask for your social security number. You don't have to provide it. Just leave it blank. I do it all the time. Monitor your bank accounts and your credit card.

16:17 So I typically go on my bank account website every day. Some people do that with their credit cards. I kind of don't necessarily do that. The beautiful thing about credit cards is it's good to check periodically, but you can challenge a charge with a credit card. That's why we like credit cards more than debit cards. And when it comes to guarding your financial information, if you get a phone call, someone's calling you and they ask for information, do not give it away. It could be a scam. But let's say you contacted Medicare. or your bank, they have to verify that you're not a criminal. So they're going to ask for your information. So in that case, when you call the company or you call the government agency, that's when you're allowed to give out your personal information.

17:10 Number nine, hope we're having fun today. Everyone needs to have a phone, a friend available 24 seven. So if you used to watch the show, who wants to be a millionaire, Regis Philbin, everyone loved that show. if you didn't know the answer, you had three choices. You could pull the audience, you know, and they would vote for the best answer. You could do the 50-50 where they got rid of two of the bad answers. So it helped your chances. But in my opinion, it was always the best. The best ones were always when you could have your smartest friend on the line and they could answer the question for you. So everyone needs a friend, a phone or friend that they can call 24 seven.

17:59 And then number 10, have a healthy amount of skepticism. We don't want anyone to live in fear. When we talk about scam prevention, we talk about just common sense, prudent things to do where we protect ourselves. We aren't scared. We don't fret, but healthy skepticism. When the phone rings, you ask, could this be a scam? Or is this legit? Or maybe I get a second opinion. And then just always remember, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You didn't win that publisher's clearinghouse sweepstakes that we talk about all the time on this show.

18:43 So that's the top 10. But I'm going to give you a bonus one, number 11. I mean, I could have done 20 or 30 of these things, but wanted to keep it at top 10. Here's number 11. Please, the best advice, sign up for our monthly email. It's free. It's easy. Encourage others to sign up. You know, reach out to anyone who you know that could use this information, especially someone that lives on their own, who's very trusting, who might be prone to scams. All you do, you see on our screen there, Right after my name is our website, roseadvocacy.org. Please go to our website, and on the front page at the bottom, there's a blue box. You click the blue box. All we're going to ask for is your name and your email. No other personal information.

19:29 You'll sign up for our email list. It comes out at the beginning of the month. It's a quick read. You get through it in five or ten minutes. And then we also send a smaller version of it, more bite-sized information, on Tuesday mornings. So we just get scam prevention on our mind. Sign up your family members, your friends, your neighbors. And then, like you said, let's talk about scams. We're doing it on Tuesday mornings. We're also doing it by email. It's worth the time. It's the best investment of your time is just to do a little bit of scam prevention every week, even every day if you can. but at least once a month. So that's all I have today. Thank you for tuning in. Joyce will be back next week. Thank you, Joyce, for letting me fill in.

20:19 I absolutely love doing this show. I love sharing information with people, especially when people take this information and use it successfully to protect themselves. Thank you for tuning in to Let's Talk About Scams. We'll see you all next week. Well, that's all the knowledge for this episode. Tune in every Tuesday at 8 a.m. Pacific time on K4HD Radio at K4HD. 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.