We all had the same rotary dial phone

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 host, 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 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.

1:19 Good morning, everybody. Happy September. My name is Brian Watson, Community Outreach Specialist for the nonprofit ROSE, which stands for Resources Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly. And today you have tuned into Let's Talk About Scams. This is our online radio show, which becomes a podcast because it's recorded and it can be shared and watched forever. So thank you for tuning in today. Today's topic on Let's Talk About Scams is rotary phones and telephones. The title of today's show is We All Had the Same Rotary Dial Phone. So let's get into it. So I've done almost 100 scam prevention presentations. So I have met so many people all over the state of Arizona. And I even did one in California, a presentation. But talking about scams is...

2:18 Kind of a dreary subject because inevitably we have to talk about scam victims and the criminals behind it and all the mischievous and devious ways that these criminals steal from people. And they're innocent people and it's heartbreaking. And I have met so many victims of scams that have lost all different amounts of money and it's affected them in a horrible way. And now as it's getting worse and worse, It used to be once a month I would meet someone who was a victim. Now it's becoming weekly. And someone's supposed to be calling me today. And I'm going to talk to this person. But it's just nonstop.

3:02 So that being said, dreary subject, I actually tried to inject some humor into my presentations. Because telling one story or another about someone having lost their life savings to a scammer It's a heavy subject. And I've learned a little bit of levity can lighten the mood in the room. People can relax a little bit. And they're more apt to pay attention and absorb what we're trying to talk about. Now, humor has to be done tastefully. And I'm always very tasteful about it. And I've been doing it for a while.

3:43 But a couple of years ago, I attended... a citizen Academy at my local police department. And the officer that night did a lesson or a section on active shooter training. So that's like the scariest subject you could cover in citizen Academy. And he made it very clear right off the bat. Like I'm going to tell some jokes tonight. Some of them might be a little, might be dad jokes and might be a little corny, but I'm doing this intentionally because, just to lighten the mood a little bit, because if not, I'm going to send everyone home depressed and scared. Um, so he made that statement that it's okay to laugh at certain things. Um, so I do the same thing now when I do presentations, I tell people, you know what, it's okay to laugh, not at people losing money. We certainly don't laugh at that, but we try to inject some humor because, um, you know, In life, we need to laugh. Laughter is the best medicine. So when I do presentations now, I always show a photo of a yellow rotary dial phone circa 1980. It was basically the phone that I grew up with in my house.

5:00 And I always ask the audience, raise your hand if you ever had a phone like this. It doesn't matter the color. And everyone raises their hands. Because most of the time when we do presentations, our age group is, you know, 40 plus, maybe 50 plus, sometimes even older. And everyone's hands go up. And then I noticed people started laughing. So I was like, wow, we're going to keep using this. Because it's, you know, originally it was not meant as a joke. It was just an observation. And what I found out is, seriously, there was like one model of phone that back in the 70s and 80s.

5:43 And it came in three colors. It was like yellow, white, and maybe blue or green or something like that. But people get that. There just weren't a whole lot of choices. So that's done very intentionally. It gets people's attention, piqued their interest. They've laughed. They've kind of relaxed a little bit. And then I always follow it up. I said, what did we do when this phone rang? And standard answer is, we answered it, which is absolutely true. So If we think about it, 40 or 50 years ago, we didn't have cell phones. We had these landlines. They rang. There was no caller ID. There was no call waiting. There was no voicemail until later. Those things eventually came around.

6:27 But that telephone was our lifeline to the world. That's how family reached out to us. Neighbors, the doctor's office, you know, everything revolved around that phone. The only other option was someone showing up at your door or receiving mail. So I contend that people that are my age and older, we are trained, conditioned to answer the phone. And we're also expected to be polite. Back in the day, hanging up on someone. And, you know, back then it was a little hanging up. it was unheard of, you know, our parents raised us well, like you answered the phone and had good manners. Um, and it was just the way. So, and then back in the seventies and eighties and even the early nineties, um, phone scams were extremely rare. So you did not have to be so cautious back then.

7:25 It was more common to get a crank callers, just someone messing around on the phone than a, than a scammer. Um, and then, Back in those days, we didn't have cryptocurrency. We didn't have prepaid debit cards. We didn't have Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, any of these peer-to-peer payments. So that is what gets a lot of people in my generation and older in trouble when it comes to phone scams. We are hardwired to answer the phone and to be nice because these phone scams, they're not high tech. These could have been executed years ago. They're actually very low tech, but the difference is they're executed very well. The scammers are reading from scripts off their computer screen that have been proven to work. So let's talk about how to avoid getting scammed when it comes to phone scams. The number one thing that we recommend here at Rose is you screen your phone calls. I know that's hard to do. The best advice when I say screening is only answer the phone if it's someone in your contacts. If it's a friend, family member, someone you know, doctor's office, things like that.

8:42 And then sometimes too, you got to remember the scammers can spoof what's on there. They can make it say internal revenue service, social security administration, your local police department, your local bank. So even then you got to be careful, but always screen your phone calls. If it's an unknown number, just let it go to voicemail. They'll leave a message. You call them back. It's, it's super easy. Um, just respond to your voicemails. So, um, and if you do answer the phone and let's say you realize, Oh no, this is not going well. This person is pushy. They're urgent. They're scaring me. You have the right to hang up. Um, Even though your parents told you as a kid, you cannot hang up the phone and be rude to someone.

9:30 I am giving you permission to hang up the phone. And the great thing about cell phones is you physically don't have to hang up. All you have to do is hit that little red button to end the call. It's so easy. If you feel like you have to say something, just say, sorry, I'm busy right now. Or you know what? I'm giving you permission to lie. The scammers are lying to you. You are allowed to lie to them. I don't consider that bad at all You're just protecting yourself if you have to say something just say, I have company. There's someone at the door. I got food in the oven. I got to take the dog out. Maybe even make a list of five or six things on a post-it note and put it on your counter.

10:14 So when you do answer the phone, you have a lie that you can share back to them. you have no obligation to be polite. They are trying to steal your money. You are allowed to lie. So what I've learned is, you know, in today's world, it doesn't matter how smart you are because, um, these scammers are absolute professionals. Um, they are way better at this than any of us are. Um, you know, they're trained. If, if you, um, they say your bank account's closed and you need to move your money and you come back with a question, they have an answer for it. If you get a call about the jury duty that you missed and you have questions, they have answers ready to go. Since I've been doing this for three years with Rose, everyone I've met that's a criminal has stolen their money, like you're dealing with professional criminals that just are way better at this than even the smartest people I meet. So I've done a lot of presentations, as I mentioned. I'm up to 99. Hopefully, I'm going to get my 100th soon. I've done a couple of presentations with a lady named Laura. She's a bank manager nearby where I live. And she told this story to a crowd. And one of her customers came in.

11:43 and had told her, you know, Jenna criminal stole a bunch of money from her. It started with the phone scam and Laura's listening to her story. And Laura realized right away, the lady knew that the whole thing was a scam and the phone call lasted a very long time. And Laura asked her, well, why didn't you just hang up? You knew it was a scam, but why didn't you just hang up on this this criminal that was calling you and lying to you and pressuring you. And the customer said, I didn't want to be rude. I'm like, wow. So when Laura tells this story in front of a group of people, everyone's jaws just drop and are like, oh my gosh. Well, this lady was raised well. Her parents told her, you know, don't hang up the phone, don't be rude.

12:33 But you know what? It cost her dearly. It cost her a lot of money. So I'm telling you all, it is time to put away the niceties. We have to refuse to be a victim of phone scams. Like I said, criminals are calling you and lying to you and trying to take your money. You have no obligation to be nice. You have to be a little bit mean. You have to put a chip on your shoulder and be rude to someone. I know it's tough for a lot of us. And you have to have a healthy amount of skepticism. I'm not saying be scared because there's no way any of us need to live scared. But anytime that phone rings, ask yourself, could this be a scam? And if there's any chance that it is a scam, like I said, just hang up.

13:25 You know what? And if you are rude, your parents will understand if they're not with us anymore because they didn't have to deal with this when they were your age. They will understand. So what scams... Use the phone. I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, the jury duty scam. You get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the sheriff's office saying you missed jury duty. That's a scam. Any sort of tech support scam where someone says you have a virus on your computer or we've upgraded service for your antivirus and you need to request a refund or whatever. It could be from the bank saying someone's trying to infiltrate your bank accounts. Those are phone scams. Hang up on them. Last week, I talked about the publisher's clearinghouse scam. They call you up and tell you you won this publisher's clearinghouse sweepstakes. That's a scam.

14:21 Just hang up on these people. And then the last one, I don't see this much anymore, but it still happens. And I predict it'll make a comeback is the grandparent scam. pick up the phone, you hear a young person saying, grandpa, grandpa, help me. I'm in jail. Help me. And you say, you know, John, is that you? Yes, it is. John. Oh, grandpa. Don't tell mom and dad. I got arrested. I got in a car accident. That's the grandparent scam. You got to hang up and call your family members. So scam prevention is something we need to do on a regular basis. It's, it's not usually on the top of people's lists to do when they get up in the morning, let's do scam prevention. But it's something we have to do. Like we have to exercise, we got to drink water and we got to eat healthy. We also have to do a little bit of scam prevention. It doesn't do any good to be on the phone with a scammer and figure out, oh, what should I do in this situation?

15:25 Like an athlete, you need to practice so that you can perform when you're in the game. So like right now, thank you for tuning in today. You are at scam prevention practice. And all these little things that we talk about get in our head, just mental repetitions. So when you get that scam phone call, what did that Brian guy tell me? He just said, hang up. What did that Brian guy tell me? Screen your phone call. And then the last thing is, yeah, he also said I could lie. Yes, you can lie to these scammers. That's how we do it. These phone scams are not the most sophisticated schemes in the world. They don't rely heavily on technology. They don't even use a computer. It just uses a telephone. But you have to recognize that take a break, slow down, hang up the phone, and then immediately call a friend and tell them what happened. So All right. We covered a lot of ground today, and I know I talk fast. Please, if you like what you heard today, share it with someone you know. You can find this show. It'll eventually get posted on letstalkaboutscams.com.

16:49 You can also find it on our Facebook page for Rose. It's also going to be on YouTube. Send them a link. Send it to a friend. Hey, check this out. I wanted to share it with you. Because here we are. It's less than 20 minutes. 20 minutes of your time. Share it with a friend. It'll prevent someone you love and care about from getting scammed. And then please, please, please sign up for our monthly email. At the bottom of the screen here, you see our website, roseadvocacy.org. Go to that page. At the very bottom, there's a blue link. Click on that link. All we ask for is your name and your email, and we'll send you an email at the beginning of the month. And then on Tuesday mornings, we send a little mini version just to sort of keep this stuff in our mind because even once a month is not enough sometimes when it comes to scam prevention.

17:41 All right. That's all I have today. I'm going to be back next week. I get to fill in for Joyce one more time. And I'm going to be doing a top 10, you know, something David Letterman made a career out of doing late night TV. But It's time for my top 10 advice when it comes to scam prevention. So I hope you all tune in next Tuesday morning. Once again, thank you all for listening. And thank you for all the people who support us financially in a variety of different ways. And thank you for looking out for your friends and neighbors. We'll see you all next week. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. 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.

18:36 And until then, feel free to reach out to Joyce and let's talk about scams.