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 confident professionals before applying or trying any
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suggested ideas. The information contained in this podcast is intended
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for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for
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individual professional legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled
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from vetted sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to
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safeguard the elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall
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victim to a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the
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must listen show for anyone who wants to protect themselves
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and their loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday am Pacific
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time 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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Good morning, everybody, Welcome to let's talk about scams. My
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name is Brian Watson, community outreach specialist for Rose Resources
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Outreach to safeguard the elderly, and I am filling in
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for Joyce for the next three weeks and it is
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a huge privilege because I love doing our radio show,
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so thank you for tuning in. The first thing I
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wanted to mention is we had our annual golf tournament
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on Friday and it was a huge success. We had
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almost ninety golfers and they were all out and had
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a great time. We had great weather in Phoenix, and
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I really appreciate all of our sponsors. It was a
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whole list of people businesses from the community really stepped
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up and helped out, helped us out. It provides a
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lot of our funding for what we do, including funding
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this radio show. So thank you for all of our sponsors,
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and thank you for all of our golfers and our volunteers.
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It was absolutely amazing. So today's topic is watch out
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for scammers using remote access. I have done almost one
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hundred presentations in the public warning people about scams, and
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I have really been focusing on remote access and I'll
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explain what it is. So I'm going to tell a
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story about a lady named Kathy, and I met her
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after a presentation. She came up and talked to me
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and shared her story and it's a heartbreaking story and
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it's affected her tremendously. And this is what happened. She
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was at home and she opened up her laptop and
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she received an email and purported to be from McAfee
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and she I think she actually had a McAfee service agreement,
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you know, she was using McAfee on her computer. And
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the email said, we have upgraded your service. It's going
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to be an extra twenty five dollars a month for
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some additional services that they provide. If you do not
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want this new level of access, please contact us within
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twenty four hours and we will take you back down
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to your original level of service. Well, Kathy is a
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very responsible human being handles her finances. She didn't want
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to pay that extra amount and she called the phone
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number and she didn't know she was talking to scammers,
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but they had targeted her and they're very good at
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what they do. And she said, I want to go
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back to my regular level service, you know, give me
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my twenty five dollars back, and the scammers the way
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they do it is they say, we don't issue refunds,
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no checks in the mail or things like that, and
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we don't give credits on your account. What they said
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is you, the customer, have to request the refund. So
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that is how the scam works. And she said okay,
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because she really didn't have a choice, and they said,
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we're going to send you a little message on your screen.
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Just agree to it, and a little thing popped up
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on her laptop screen and basically she gave them what
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is called remote access and then and we'll explain more
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about that in a second, and then they instructed her
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to type in the refund amount, so she typed in
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two five for twenty five dollars. Well, the scammers set
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this thing up. It's part of their scam that twenty
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five became twenty five thousand. And they instantly started yelling
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at her and accusing her of stealing twenty five thousand
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dollars from McAfee. You know, it's high pressure. They threatened
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her with all kinds of things, either calling the police
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or a lawsuit, and they said, you stole from us,
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you need to pay us back. So in the meantime,
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they actually behind the scenes on her computer were actually
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actually moved money around her accounts, because that's what they
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can do with remote access. Remote access is like giving
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a criminal unfettered access to your computer. So she could
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actually look on her screen and it actually looked like
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she received that twenty five thousand dollars. So they told her,
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you need to pay us back. They instructed her to
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withdraw money from her bank account, which she did. She
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drove down to the bank withdrew the twenty five thousand
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dollars and had cash in hand. They kept her on
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the phone. They directed her to a local convenience store
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and they gave her a QR code on her phone
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where she was skinned. She walked in there was a
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cryptocurrency ATM. There another story we're going to talk about.
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We've we've been talking about endlessly here at Rose and
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we'll be talking about again. Stay away from cryptocurrency ATMs.
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They're just fraud receptacles. But back to our story. They
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had her go to the cryptocurrency ATM scan her QR
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code and she fed in all that cash and she
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lost it, and it's just terrible. And then you know,
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at a certain point she realized she's been scammed. These
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Scammera's target her and it's actually frustrating, and it's a terrible,
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terrible story. Now, the key is, you know, the whole
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scenario is basically a scam. You know, it starts with
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that pop up. And if you give a criminal access
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to your computer through remote access, they can do all
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kinds of things. They can move stuff around, they can
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put malware or spire on your computer. They can do
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all kinds of different things. But here's the deal. The
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scammers will never call it remote access because if you
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hear the term remote access, you're like, wait, that's not right.
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You know, there's a legitimate reason to use remote access.
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I've had my son do it all the time. You know,
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he's a tech savvy guy. I was having issues with
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my printer. He is away at school. He said, let
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me let me tap into your computer. So he sent
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me a little message. I agreed. He did some work
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behind the scenes made my printer work. So there's a
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legitimate reason to use remote access, but only do it
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with someone you absolutely trust. This I knew I was
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talking to my son. There's a lot of scams out
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there where someone will call you up and say this
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is Microsoft or this is some other computer company and
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we've detected a virus on your computer. These are scammers.
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They want remote access. Just the other day, my dad
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received a scam email and he forwarded it to me,
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and I had some free time, so I just wanted
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to gain some learning, learn, learn how the scammers are
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doing these things. And it was one of those refund
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you know, a false charge and you asked for a refund.
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And I was talking to this scammer and he told
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me to open up a new tab on my screen
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and he was going to have me type in some website.
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He called it their internal server, but really they were
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taking me to a remote site where they can do
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remote access. I told him he was a scammer, and
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I hung up the phone. So, yeah, there's with the
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remote access. There's various various versions of it, and even
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versions we haven't even heard of yet. But anytime you
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hear about a hacked account or something wrong with your computer,
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it's a total scam, you know. And these scammers are
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really good. They can actually modify the HTML on your screen,
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meaning they can change the words. They can go in
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there and they're they'll look at your bank account and
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show the current balances. They can actually modify the dollar amounts,
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which is really really scary. So the key is you
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never believe anybody that calls you up about your computer.
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Just it's hard to do. It's Joyce and I talk
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a lot about having skepticism. It's okay to be skept
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goal it's it's a healthy skepticism. Anytime you receive an email,
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a text message, a voicemail, you have to ask yourself,
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could this be a scam? So here's some tips as
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it relates to this remote access. Legitimate companies will never
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call you out of the blue and ask for remote access.
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You know. The only time you should ever be doing
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remote access is with the company you work for, your employer.
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Maybe if it's a computer company where you know where
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you pay for a service and you know the people
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and you absolutely sure it's them, or you know or
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a trusted family member or friend. Never ever believe that
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that company is calling you. You know, just hang up
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the phone and you want to call from a verified number.
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Don't do a Google search and take the top search
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result at the top, because a lot of times scammers
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will pay to get top of the list. Do your research.
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Make sure it's the legitimate company. If you do receive
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an email about an unexpected call about a computer problem,
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just hang up. Remember time as our friend, we're never
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in a rush. I mean, what's the worst thing could happen.
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Your computer could crash, and that's why we always have
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a backup for our computers. However you do it, you
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need to have a backup for all your files. So
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worst case scenario, your computer completely breaks down, everything is lost,
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you can retrieve it later. We're never in a rush.
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Criminals are trying to always make us hurry and avoid
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clicking on any pop up ads or links and emails.
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Never click on emails, links and emails, or on text
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messages unless you're absolutely sure. The criminals are very devious.
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They make it appear like you need to click on
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that link. Don't do it. That's how you get in trouble.
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You know, whenever I mentioned my son earlier, but whenever
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I have technology issues, my son is my technology phone
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a friend, meaning he knows technology way better than me.
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I always recommend finding the youngest person in your family
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who's computer savvy, because that's always your best bet and
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I can always run stuff by him and he doesn't
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charge me anything. Not yet. Maybe someday he will. But
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the key is, never ever, ever let a stranger have
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control of your computer. They're going to do all kinds
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of awful things to your computer. You're going to steal
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your money, They're going to they'll they'll even set it
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up where they have continual access, where they can go
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back anytime and continue to steal, monitor your keystrokes, use
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your computer as a bot to go after their people.
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It's it's absolutely scary. You know. I've I've reached back
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and I've checked in with Kathy, the lady that I
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mentioned at the beginning of the story, and you know,
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this is still causing trauma to her. It was a
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traumatic experience. I mean, one, it's the money. All in all,
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it ended up being over thirty thousand dollars because they
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were actually able to pull money out of a home
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equity line that she had, so she's paying not only
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did she lose money, now she's paying interest on it.
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And you know, I reached out to her and I
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actually said, at one point, I teach a class at
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the University of Arizona in Tucson, and I asked if
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she would be willing to share her story with my
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students to put a face on financial scams, because it's
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one thing to talk about people you don't know, but
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when you can actually see the pain that it's caused somebody.
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I really wanted to do that, but she changed her mind,
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and that's her right, is a victim, because I would
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never force someone to share their story that they weren't
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comfortable doing. But it still affected her. You know, so
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so many people think that fraud, white collar crime, and
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these kind of things that you know, it's not the
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same as someone who's the victim of violent crime, but
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there's still a lot of the same effects. There's adverse
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health effects, their stress and when you anytime you lose money,
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that causes a huge burden. You know. I've talked to
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someone who was targeted in a scam and she contemplated
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suicide because she had lost so much money and there
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was that mental anguish and embarrassment and frustration. She thought
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about taking our life, but luckily that person didn't. So
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please sign up for our mailing list. Please go to
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Roseadvocacy dot org. It's time well spent. All we need
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is your first name, last name, and your email and
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we'll send you really good information about scam prevention. So
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go to Rosadvocacy dot org. It's right on our screen here,
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and right on the screen at the bottom of the page,
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you can sign up for free email list. If you
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like it, share it with your friends, and you know,
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we want to have a lot of people following this
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advice because the scammers are coming after us constantly. I mean,
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just last week I got an email, a random text
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message from somebody. I'm going to talk about that next week,
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but I was targeted in a pig butchering scheme. And
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I do this for a living. I spotted it right away,
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but these scammers send out thousands of emails, and you