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. 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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Good Morning, everybody, welcome to Let's talk about scams. My
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name is Brian Watson, filling in for Joyce Petrowski for
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the next two weeks. I am a community outreach specialist
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for ROSE. We are an Arizona nonprofit. ROSE is an
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acronym resources outreach to safeguard the elderly and we are
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passionate about people not falling for scams. We want to
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prevent people from falling into scams in the first place.
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So today's title is a little different. Hopefully it'll catch
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your attention. It is what in the world is pig butchering?
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And you're probably thinking, what is this guy talking about? Well,
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I will explain and by the time we finish today,
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you everyone listening and watching today will be a little
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bit of an expert at pig butchering. And then we
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want you to share this information with people that you
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love and care about. So first of all, we need
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to start and start with romance scams. It's a very
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common scam that we see here at ROSE. You know,
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we do a lot of presentations out in the community
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and we hear these horror stories. So what is a
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romance scam? Well, first of all, it has nothing to
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do with romance. It's all about fooling people and praying
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on their desire to feel loved and wanted by someone else.
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So how do romance scams first? First start, usually they're
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online and you know someone, and a lot of times
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the scammers will target someone who's a widow or a widower,
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or someone who you know recently got out of a
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long term relationship, and their friends will say, hey, you know,
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why don't you go online and make some friends on
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Facebook or another social media site, or maybe even go
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to a Christian dating site or or you know, play
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words with friends. Well, let me tell you, the scammers
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are out there like sharks, just patrolling these sites, and
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they will start a conversation very innocuously. They'll message you
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and say, hey, how are you doing, good morning? Where
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are you and they'll say or they'll say, hey, you're
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really handsome or you're really pretty, do you have grandkids?
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You know what? What are your hobbies? And then it
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just starts this little innocent conversation online like on Facebook Messenger,
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and then soon it becomes a daily thing, and then
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soon people will the scammers will will move away from
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the social media site and go to something like What's
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app or telegram, and then you never get to meet
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them because this scammer is overseas. That's how these romance
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scams work. And you know, maybe they're in the military,
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or they're a missionary, or they're visiting family and friends overseas,
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or they volunteer, and you know, because of where they
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are is so remote, they can't make phone calls. Everything
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is just like texting or online messaging. And let me
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tell you, these people are the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend
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because that's where they want to go. They eventually this
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online quote relationship starts getting moves really fast, and before
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you know it, people are online saying, Oh, I'm gonna
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check in with my boyfriend right now, or I'm gonna
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check in with my girlfriend, and they say the nicest
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things and they'll shower you with affection. They may even
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send you flowers or write a poem for you, and
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this escalates really quick, and then eventually they want money
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because that's what scammers do. And they will say, I
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want to come visit you since we're gonna get married someday,
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and then they'll ask for money and they'll say, you
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know what, my credit card has been stolen or the
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government here locked up my funds. Can you send me
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some money so I can come visit you. So you
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send them money for a plane ticket, and then when
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they're on the way to the airport, they get in
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a car accident and they're in the hospital and they
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need more money. And you can see where this is going.
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So that's a romance scam. And I've met people that
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have lost money in romance scams. But there's only so
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much money you could send someone for a plane ticket
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or a hospital bill. The scammers are taken it to
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the next level. And that's why today we're talking about
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pig butchering. Yes, that is a crazy term, and I'll
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explain what it is. Basically, pig butchering think of it
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is a variation of the romance scam. So this variation
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that we're going to talk about today, pig butchering, actually
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started in China, and the scammers there would refer to
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their victims as pigs and use a Chinese word shazu pan,
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which means killing pigs plate. So in the same way
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that a farmer would fatten up a pig for slaughter,
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the scammers think of it the same way. They're not
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going to kill you physically, but they want to kill
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you financially, so they'll fatten you up by having you
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invest money in cryptocurrency. So you're ever asked by anyone
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you don't know to invest in cryptocurrency, you are the
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target of a pig butchering scheme. So the same way
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they would contact you in a romance scam social media
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words with friends dating side, they do the same thing.
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They build that online relationship, and you know, they prey
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on people of all ages and all levels of financial sophistication,
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but they often target people who've gone through a divorce
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or a death of a loved one. So what they
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do is established trust, and that's the key. They start
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real slow. It's a long play scam, meaning they're not
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going to ask you to invest in cryptocurrency in the
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first week. They may wait a month or two. And
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what they do is they'll just innocuously introduce it when
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you ask hey, you know, like maybe maybe the scammer
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will show pictures of them traveling on the weekends or
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you know, going to Paris or going to London or
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going something like that, and then the victim will say,
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how can you afford to do all this? And the
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scammer will say, well, I've done a little bit of
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cryptocurrency investing. And when I say crypto, a lot of
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people think bitcoin because bitcoin is sixty percent market share,
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but there's thousands of cryptocurrencies. And then they'll say, well,
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if you want to invest a little bit, you know,
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let's start small and see if it works for you.
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It's done very well for me. So the scammer will
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ask their victim invite them, after they've gained this trust,
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to invest a little bit of money in one of
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the cryptocurrencies. And then they'll actually set up a little
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platform on your screen that you can log into and
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it actually will show that you're making money, but it's fake.
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It's all part of the scheme. And then, you know,
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we all want to make money when it comes to
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stocks and things like that or investments. The victim gets
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excited because they look on their portal and they see
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that they're making money. And then here's one of the
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keys that the scammers will do with pig butchering schemes.
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They will refund all your money just to show that
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it's liquid, and once again, it's part of the big scheme.
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They want everything. So then you see that it's liquid.
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You see that you're making money, and then they say,
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all right, you ready to try it again? And then
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they go for it. All okay. So pig butchering is
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so different from the other romance scams because they're looking
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to take every penny you have. And I have some
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stories to tell. And the last time I was on
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this show, I talked about our Anatomy of a scam
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that we talk about at ROWS three parts. Contact out
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of the blue, whatever way, social media, texting, email, a
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compelling reason to act. Your money's frozen, your child, your
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grandchild's in jail, or you've won a prize, something like that.
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And then they always ask for money one way or another.
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And then in the middle of our Anatomy of a
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Scam infographic, we have urgency. This particular scam does not
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fit the pattern of our Anatomy of a scam. There
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is no urgency. It's a long play scam because they're
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going in for the big take that they want to
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get all the money. So it's a lot of time
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and effort, but the payoff is worth it for the scammers.
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About three or four years ago, when I was still
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with the federal government, I was asked to talk to
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a lady who had lost a bunch of money in
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an investment scheme, and I didn't know all the background.
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I did a radio show in northern Arizona and someone
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heard me and said reached out to the radio station
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and said, would you talk to my friend? She just
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lost a bunch of money. So I called this lady up.
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Super sweet lady found out she had lost seven hundred
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thousand dollars. She had lost her husband, he died. She
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ended up going online and a friend's she met this
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guy who said all the right things. He sounded like
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the perfect guy. He introduced the idea of investing in
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cryptocurrency so that her grandchildren would be taken care of,
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and she believed it, and she actually sold her house
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to invest more. The scammer had convinced her to drive
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down to a local store and she was feeding cash
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into a bitcoin ATM using a QR code that the
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scammer her boyfriend, fake boyfriend, had provided her. And when
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he finally realized she had invested about seven hundred thousand
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all of her money, he ghosted her, meaning he just
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left her. And let me tell you, this lady is
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super smart. That's not what I expected. And basically this
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was a pig butchering scheme before I had even heard
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the term. You know, I did a presentation last year
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in southern Arizona and a lady came up to me
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in tears and she said, you know, I fell in
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love with a guy named Peter online and I thought
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we were going to get married. And he was living
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in Europe, or and he was the sweetest guy, and
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he said all the right things, and I really trusted him,
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and you know, she had sending money to him. Luckily,
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she did not send crypto, you know, did not buy
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cryptocurrency at at his direction. But this stuff's happening all
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the time. It's it's terrible. If you if you enter
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the term pig butchering in a search engine, you will
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see all kinds of results. I found one on a lady,
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an article on a lady in the Chicago suburbs. She
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lost a million dollars in a pig butchering scheme. The
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TV reporter interviewed her at her house, a house that
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she was going to have to sell, and you know,
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she was so embarrassed, there was so much shame. You know,
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she was a widow and then she lost all this
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money to this fake online boyfriend, and then she had
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to tell her kids that she lost the money, and
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then that she would have to sell the house. You
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know what, these scammers are really really good. They're professionals.
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They're working in compounds, scam centers, they're reading from scripts.
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They're almost like actors, and they are highly motivated, and
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they will contact you every single day, multiple times a day,
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say all these nice things. You'll fall in love with them,
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but please please don't. It's absolutely horrible. So then the
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one variation I do want to share is, you know,
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not everyone has seven hundred thousand or a million dollars
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to invest. When the scammers figure that out, they will
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use you as what's called a money mule. So they
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will use you to handle their financial transactions. Or they'll
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have you by phone and mail them to them, or
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they'll have you receive items in the mail and forward
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them to someone else as part of another scam. Or
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they'll have you buy make deposits or withdrawals, or basically
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be their their their hands and feet somewhere in another
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country to do bad things. And I've met money mules,
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you know, And once again, those people are usually found
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online through the romance scams. So the scammers will get
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you one way or another. They'll either take money from
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you just to buy a plane, tickets and visit and
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things like that that never happens. They'll get you to
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invest in cryptocurrency and take all the money, or they'll
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use you as a money mule. It's it's absolutely horrible.
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And then one other thing I want to share today
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before we wrap up is not all pig butchering schemes
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start as romance scams. A lot of times they'll the
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scammers will just send random text messages and something as
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simple as Hi, you're in my address book, but I
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don't know who you are. How do we know each other?
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And it'll just start an online back and forth texting
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and you're saying, well, I don't know you. You know
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I live in Arizona, I live in Texas. And then
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they go back and forth, and a lot of times
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they'll send a picture and you know, they're always good looking,
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trust me, and you know, then eventually they get to
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the point where they'll introduce the cryptocurrency investing. I've seen