August 20, 2025 • 45 mins
Fraud and scams are on the increase resulting in a loss of more than $5.8 billion impacting more than 2.8 million consumers according to the Federal Trade Commission. Older adults are among the biggest victims. Learn how to identify and protect yourself starting with keeping your private information secure and not sharing so much information online. Fearless Fabulous You's Melanie Young provides examples of common scams, phishing, pharming and fraud, a few of which have tried to target her.
Fearless Fabulous You is broadcast live Wednesdays at 12 Noon ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
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Fearless Fabulous You is broadcast live Wednesdays at 12 Noon ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Fearless Fabulous You Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thank you for choosing W four WN Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young. Today is August twentieth. It would have been
my late mother's ninety first birthday, so in her honor.
She was the Purple Lady of chat Nooka. I'm wearing
one of her purple silk tops, and I'm sitting in
front of my fabulous cousin Hunt Sloane's painting called Andandrobia,
(01:05):
which she gave to my mother when she was honored
for one of her many lifetime achievement awards. I have
dedicated this show to her and also to all the
wonderful people out there who are older and more vulnerable
and also to people that I want to protect. I
originally called this show when is too Much Information? TMI
(01:29):
not okay? Because a friend of mine went on a
massive rant on Facebook about how much she hated her
sister and how she, you know, basically wished her sister
was not alive. And I wrote her, I said, you know,
one day, you're going to regret that you can't take
back things you say on social media and you're saying
hurtful things that your family are reading. I think we
(01:50):
all need to pull it back and not be as virulent,
because you may go viral on social media and pull
it back. If you're feeling emotional, maybe that's not the
time to be on social media. Maybe that's the time
to pull back, take a walk and reflect. But I've
decided because of that, I want to talk about how
(02:12):
being so open on social media can make you very
vulnerable to scams. At the end of the day, I'm
going to call this show say scram to scams? And
why is that? Because I recently have practically almost been
victim of a scam, as have some other people I know,
including the amazing businesswoman here in New Orleans named Lauren
(02:33):
Haitel that she went public with because she was potentially
a victim of scram a scram scam. I say scram
because I want them to scram, but it's getting worse.
And I think that the more we open ourselves up
on social media, the more we open ourselves up to
scams and fraud. And I know I sell a lot
(02:57):
on Facebook, Marketplace, and recently I have had some scammy
things happened to me that Fortunately I had my scam
dar up to make sure that I wasn't fully scam.
But unfortunately, other people aren't so lucky. Because they're trusting, open,
they're sharing a lot, they think they're doing it all
(03:18):
for good reasons, but not. I'm going to tell you
why this is important. The Federal Trade Commission reported that
more than five point eight billion dollars in losses to
two point eight million consumers were due to fraud in
the last reporting year, an increase of over seventy percent.
And we're in twenty twenty five. Elder fraud complaints increased
(03:42):
by fourteen percent twenty twenty three, and over eighty eight
thousand people over sixty, which includes me, we're victims of
financial fraud. Schemes. The top categories of fraud are imposter scams,
followed by all online shopping scams, oh, Facebook, Marketplace, then prizes, sweepstakes, lotteries,
(04:05):
internet services, and fake job opportunities. And I'm going to
run to that because I have also been believe it
or not, at my age of sixty six, I am
looking for work because writing doesn't pay, and I'm looking
and it's hard because of agism. But I think half
the job postings on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn's a great source,
but half the job postings are not real. They're not
(04:27):
the real deal. Another big area is medical scams. They
have become the largest category of scams during COVID, I'm
going to actually what I'm going to do is take
you through scams and fraud and then explaining the difference
so you understand the first. As I said at the
beginning of the show, maybe it's time to not open
(04:48):
your life up so broadly on social media. Pull it back.
Don't let people know when you're taking a vacation, when
you're going to be out of the office, when you're
going to to be out of your house, because then
that opens up people to look up your address and
say hey, let's go rob them. Don't put your phone
number or anything personal on social media. Don't put your
(05:10):
children or grandchildren or underage kids photos on social media.
They could be tracked down. Don't tell them where their
school is. Don't You don't need to be that open
on social media. What's the point. What's it doing for you.
It's opening you up to potentially becoming a victim of
(05:31):
something that could hurt you or your family. And like
I said, if you're going to have a rant, do
it in person, get a journal, Go take a walk,
go rant in your mirror, go rant somewhere else, but
don't rant on social media about anybody and anything. I
tell my husband to pull it back on politics all
the time. I never do. I keep it positive and upbeat,
(05:54):
because you don't know whether a scammer, a fraudster, a
potential job a perpetual employee is looking you up right
now and saying I don't know about that person, I
don't like what they're posting. I don't know, or hey,
I got some information and intel on that person. Maybe
I can take advantage of them, so hear me out.
(06:15):
We all are sharing too much and that can get
you into trouble my late mother. She was a victim
of scams. I was, oh, my god, when I want
to take care of her. In the final two years
of her life, I had to go through credit card
bills where she was still paying for aol okay aos free.
(06:36):
She was paying for automatic subscriptions that she innocently signed
up for and kept renewing. That happened to me recently.
I'm going to go through what are some of the
top scams and frauds from the Consumer Fraud Reporting Dot
Org Oka, wwwww, Dot's Consumer Fraud Reporting dot or. We're
(07:00):
going to talk about them so you can be aware
of them, and I'm gonna also tell you what you
can do to protect yourself. Actually, I'm gonna do that first. Well, now,
first I would explain the difference between scam and fraud
because I looked it up. Because what is the difference?
Kind of interesting fraud. Fraud refers to any intentional deception
(07:21):
made for personal gain, often involving misrepresentation or deceit in
a financial or legal contract. Okay, this could be identity theft,
so you know, don't give away your Social Security number
or deceit in a financial or legal context. It could
be unauthorized access to personal information without the victim's knowledge
(07:42):
or consent. It could be credit card fraud, making fraudulent
charges using stolen credit cards, or insurance fraud submitting false
claims to receive payouts. I have been a victim of
credit card fraud. I had a stolen credit card a
Sears Roebuck years ago, and thankfully my could help me
get out of it, because it was hundreds and hundreds
(08:04):
of dollars of fraudular charges that I would have been
responsible for if we had not diligently looked at our
statements and reported it immediately, which a lot of people
don't do. They just put their statements away and say
I'll look at them later. Well, later doesn't help when
you've been a victim of fraud. Scam. Okay, we talked
about fraud, So what is a scam? Scam? Call this
(08:27):
say scram to scam. A scam is a specific type
of fraud that usually tricks individuals into voluntarily providing money
or sensitive information. Scams often rely on psychological manipulation, exploiting
emotions such as trust, fear, or urgency. Common examples are
(08:52):
lottery scams, phishing, emails. Not go phishing like a little fish,
but pishi, in which I'll explain emails and Ponzi schemes. Okay, phishing.
Fishing is a big term. Do you know what it means?
I had to look it up to make sure I knew.
(09:12):
Phishing is a cybercrime in which a target or targets
are contacted by email, telephone, or texts. And this has
happened to me a lot by someone posing as a
legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive data such
as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details and passwords.
(09:38):
This has happened to me, and I'm going to go
through these and explain what I did. Lottery scales convincing
victims they have won a lottery and need to pay
fees to claim their prize is a form of phishing, Phisi,
ng romance schemes. Oh boy, building a fake relationship online
(09:58):
to solicit money from the victim. That actually happened to
an elderly relative of mine. She had an online boyfriend,
suddenly he wanted money, and more recently, in my case,
Facebook Marketplace. Now I use Facebook Marketplace and there's some
wonderful people on it. However, I've had some not great
(10:20):
diabolical dealings also Facebook, Marketplace asking for personal information, sending
a check for overpayment Zelle. I have been forewarned providing
your Zell which links to your bank account could be dicey. Okay,
I'm going to go through some more examples. But again,
(10:41):
what prompted me to do the show was Lauren Hadel
Lauren mc blake Hatel, who owns Flirty Girl, a series
of wonderful New Orleans focused stores. Great business woman. She
was invited to be on a producer for Katie Kirk
Media asked her to be a guest on the show. Well,
everybody wants to be a guest on the show. When
I've actually asked her to be a guest on this show,
(11:02):
and now I'm sure she's probably wondering if I'm legit.
So I had to write her and say I'm legit
because this is what happened to her. She the producer
asked if they could get access to her computer to
get everything set up. Now I'm on a computer. Now,
I have a wonderful engineer named one who I trust.
He has set me up. I know who I'm dealing with,
(11:23):
but wisely, Lauren got a little suspicious, like who does
she want having access to her computer and show enough
that was a scam and it ended up she reported
it and it became a news story. And that's actually
one of the reasons I decided to address this because
it really angers me that there are unsavory people out
there trying to take advantage of other people, particularly older people,
(11:44):
and I tend to be in that audience. I had
an incident a couple, and I'm going to share them.
I'm selling a lot of stuff on Facebook marketplace because
I still have a lot of stuff to sell. It's
actually a form of income for me, small but helpful.
And a woman said, I'm going to buy a painting.
The painting was advertised for one thousand dollars. It was
(12:06):
a beautiful oil painting. She said, can I pay by
check now? I offer Venmo and PayPal in cash. But
she lived in I think the Midwest, Ohio or something.
And if the check is sent to me as a
money order or to me and it clears the bank,
I will execute the sale. I've done that successfully when
(12:27):
I was running my estate seals in Tennessee. I've done
it with people that are older and they don't have
they're not teching happens a lot with my Civil War
books that I'm selling from my dad. My dad's a library. Anyway,
I come home and there's a fat X on my doorstep. Okay,
this is my home, so this personally has my home.
(12:49):
I open it up and the check for the thousand
dollars painting is for seven thousand, five hundred dollars from
a corporation in Massachusetts. I said, my husband, what's this check?
It's made out to me. I don't know what it's for,
so I sat on it. The woman on Facebook marketplace
said did you get my check? And I said, I
(13:11):
got a check. I don't think it's from you. She
sent me a photo of the FedEx on my doorstep
and said, you got a check. I said, it's not
the right amount. The painting is a thousand. The check
is for seventy five hundred dollars. She said, oh, I
thought it was seven thousand and five hundred for shipping.
(13:32):
Just go ahead and take it to the bank. Well,
immediately my scam door went up. I did take it
to my bank. I showed it to my banker. I said,
what is this It was a scam. It's a common
scam where someone will send you a payment to you
a check and a larger sum than the item they're purchasing.
They expect you to deposit the check, show them a
(13:55):
copy of the deposit slip, which has your bank routing
number on it, send a check back for the send
a check back for the balance of overpayment. Thus they
have your routing number and bank account and then they
scam you and the check is fraudulent and bounces. So
I immediately reported her because I report anything that is
not cool, because I don't want other people to come victim.
(14:17):
I told her she was being reported. She of course
disappeared and I tore up the check. But that's one example,
and that's actually happened to me twice. Now. Another is
people say, oh, I'm getting paid next week, can I
what's your Zell? And then they'll you'll give them Azelle.
I don't. I don't even use zel anymore, guys, I do, ladies.
I don't use Zel. I use Venmo, PayPal, that's it.
(14:41):
Can't get the cell. Send me a copy of the
photo of your oven on your bank They want to
get your bank account number. Never never give your bank number,
a routing number to anyone unless you are doing an
authorized payment to a vendor that you must do it to.
I actually never do that either. I really don't. I
(15:02):
have everything on either auto pay or I pay myself,
but nobody has access to my routing number or ben
a number unless I'm asking money to give, unless they're
paying me. I don't give my social security number. Do
not give your social security number. Do not give your passwords,
pen codes, address phone passwords, anything that is personal you
(15:30):
should not be giving to anyone unless you have a
two thousand trust exchange and you know what you're doing
it for. Another example of how I've been potentially fraud
is I'm trying to learn about investing. I'm trying to
learn about investing, and I thought I would join Investors Club,
And suddenly I started getting invitations to join Investors Club.
I signed up for some and then all of a sudden,
(15:51):
I started getting bombarded with texts from a cute little girl.
I'm convinced she was a bot, not real. She was
trying to befriend me. She said, I see you like wine.
What kind of line would you recommend with spaghetti? You know?
She started asking me tips about me to become my friend.
She said, here's a tip on a stock. Tell me
(16:13):
when you buy it, show me where it is on
your account, and show me the codes. And that's when
I said, Nah, not going there. That's fraudulent. There are
a lot of online investment clubs. They're trying to get
access to your account. Do not give anyone any of
your account numbers. Okay, no passwords, no account numbers, no names,
none of their business. They want you, They want access
(16:36):
to you. That happened to me a few times. It
happened with some cryptocurrency people. It happens a lot because
I researched my shows and articles thoroughly, and suddenly I
get bombarded online with ads and solicitations because I've researched something.
So I've started doing dark searches, like I use duck
(16:58):
dot Go or I'll go on the dark web to
do my searches because I don't want people knowing what
I'm looking for. I don't want them to start tracking
me down and then soliciting me finding my phone number
or address, which may be online. It's easy to find
a phone number address. I get a zillion solicitations on
text and ladies. I never answer any phone call or
(17:19):
text or invitation to connect on Facebook unless I know
who it is, because a few times I have, you know,
because I do marketplace. I'll answer a messaging to connect
with someone on Facebook and I will get you have
been attacked by a virus. And I've had enough attacks
by a computer virus that I'm in the process of
(17:40):
buying a new computer. It gets expensive. So if you
don't know who's contacting you, you don't have to respond.
You don't need to be everybody's friend. You should look
up anyone who wants to friend you, whether it's on
LinkedIn or Facebook, to see if they're real. Recently on
LinkedIn becaus I am looking for some work, I answered
an ad to be a podcast host. I'm like, wait,
(18:00):
I host the podcast. I'm qualified. I can host the
hospitality pod guests. The guy reached out to me directly
said here are all my links to my information it shows.
I looked up two of them and they were like empty,
there was nothing there, so I just said I'm done.
I wrote it back and said, listen, you have no
information on your site. How can I possibly affiliate with you? You
have no information? I stopped all communication with him because
(18:24):
I'm convinced that they're phonies. That's happened to me a
couple of times with people I won't say who. One was,
somebody from Saudi Arabia, and they tried to start conversations
with you and get your trust, and the next thing
you know, they want something from you. Don't go there.
As I said in the beginning of the show, pull
(18:45):
it back, you don't need to be everybody's friend. You
do need to be connected with everybody. You need to
pull it back because you're putting too much out there,
and I one of those people. I've done it, so
I don't. I'm careful with Facebook Marketplace now. I have
set my rules on what I will and will accept
in terms of payment. I don't answer phone calls or
(19:05):
texts from anyone I don't know. Let it go to voicemail.
If they really want to reach you, they'll leave you
a voicemail. If they don't, forget about it and erase it.
Anything suspicious I block, I report, I make sure I
report it, and I let people know if you do
this again, you will be reported, because the only way
to stop this crap is to report it and it's
(19:28):
getting worse. And with artificial intelligence and bots where you're
talking to people who are not even human anymore, it's
getting worse. Okay, I said, never give your social Security number,
your bank account and routing number, your stock investor, portfolio information,
anything that is of personal nature, insurance policies, pass codes
(19:51):
and pins to your phone in computer, dates of birth.
Keep all that information in a secure place in the
cloud on your computer. Because if you kick the bucket die,
somebody does need that and it's called your spouse, your parents,
your children. Because when my mom died, I had to Fortunately,
before my mom died, I said, Mom, I need all
(20:12):
your stuff. I want to have a document now so
when you do die, I don't have to run around
and play guestwork. Because when my dad died, we didn't
have any of that information. And I am convinced that
we lost some things along the way that would have
been valuable to us, but he didn't leave any information.
So do your loved ones a favor and have this
(20:33):
secure private information in a secure private place and let
them know where it is, but don't share it with
anybody else. Okay, if you have a lawyer who's working
with you, on somebody you trust, but don't share it
with anybody else, Okay, keep a low profile. Okay, So
I'm going to show you. So I went through the
(20:54):
Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Fraud Awareness Group, and
I found top scams. Some of them I have addressed,
so I'm going to cherry pick them. But I think
you need to be on the lookout for these because
this is becoming a huge problem. I talked about identity
theft and fishing and something called farming. Okay, there's fishing,
not go fishing, and there's not farming and digging the dirt.
(21:16):
Farming is pH A R M, I n G. And
one of those is like PayPal will say your account
has been limited. That's a big one that happened to me.
Also PayPal. I was scared. I had to go and
I had charges from freelancer dot com for annual subscriptions
I hadn't signed up for and I had to get
(21:37):
them all canceled. That's happened a lot. Be very careful
about buying anything online where you may end up with
auto subscribe or an annual auto renewal. Don't accept it,
even if it sounds great, because you will forget about it,
and you can't get out of these very easy. It
(21:58):
is so hard to get out an auto renewal, so
with farming and fishing. Sometimes the victim receives an email
that appears to be from a credible bank or credit
card company or insurance company with links to a website
in request to update account information. That's happened to me too,
and I also get this sent to me in the mail.
(22:19):
Don't do it. The website and the email are fake.
They're made to look like a real website. And an
example on this top ten scam list is PayPal. Your
account has been limited. You need to go and update
your information. Check before you act, do your homework. Phone scams,
Oh my god, how many phone scams have you been?
(22:42):
You know how many telemarketers? There is a do not
call list. There's also a do not send. There's something
called catalog choice for all those nine main catalogs that
I still get after my mother's there, my mother gets
more mailed to me here in New Orleans. Can you
imagine catalogs? Robodialer scammers calling out to be from a
bank or credit card company, or an insurance company or
(23:03):
a loan organization. I get a lot of this. Now
you've been you've been qualified for three hundred thousand dollars.
No you haven't. They want your money. They gain access
to your confidential information again, your social Security number data
birth and use it to apply for credit cards in
your name. That has happened to a friend of mine.
She had people take out cards in her name and
(23:25):
other obligations, and it took her. It's called identity theft,
and it took her a long time and legal fees
to get out of it. Okay, they scammers find your
number and you may have it way too out there. Uh,
you may get one. I'm getting it all the time. McAfee,
your McAfee whatever it is. Security data has expired. I
(23:49):
blop it out all the time. I still can't figure
out how to block it. Period. Your Microsoft license has expired.
I get that all the time. Medicare scam tests, I
get that all the time. Okay, half thet I get.
It's scammy. I don't answer anything. I actually spend most
of my morning every morning, I spend every morning deleting
(24:09):
ten emails to things that I don't want and deleting
I wish I could just delete all my emails to
start up for at this point, because I think half
the stuff I get is unsolicited crap. It's too much
debt collectors. Thankfully, I'm not in debt. I worked hard
to get out of debt. Please don't get into credit
card debt. Please don't get into credit card debt. I
(24:30):
beg you to be careful about that. Most companies are
debt collectors. You'll get harassing calls. They'll say that they'll
consolidate all your debt, they'll help you up. Beware because
there are hidden fees. There are hidden fees, and it's
the same with offers to have zero industry zero interest
(24:54):
fee purchases, zero industry purchases for thirty six months, seventy
months downs attempting. But if you buy a high ticket
item like you reroof your house, or you buy a car,
or you redo your floor and all that, and you
do the zero interest, you will pay more for that
service for a roof or floor or car than you
(25:14):
ever thought you would imagine. And when that interest free
time frame ends, all the interests you didn't pay for
that timeframe kicks in. It aggregated, it balloomed. Don't do
it better to negotiate and say, what's the discount you
(25:35):
will offer me if I pay in cash or I
pay upfront in full, what is the discount? Because you
can negotiate discounts with you know, do your homework on
that and be diligent. But don't get stuck in this
revolving debt thing, because then you'll get debt collectors calling
you and they'll offer you deals, and you're going to
(25:56):
be desperate and you're going to take them, and you're
going to just be in the hamster. And I'm sure
real forever I've been there, my parents went there, We
all had problems with spending, the DNA spending problem. We
all got out. I got out of it. My parents
died and left me with THEIRS. Don't go there. Fake
government officials, whether it's the IRS, the FBI, Western Union,
(26:19):
a money gram. They're calling to say that you've got
a problem. They need to talk to you. You've got
to pay hidden fees. No, and they do that a
lot to stingiers. Okay, always say thank you. Could you
put something in writing to me? Put it in writing?
May I have your number and call you back. This
(26:40):
is a bad time to call. Get the name of
the number of the person. Call the number back. Half
the time they won't give it to you. Don't go there.
Scam text messages. Reactivate your old debit card. The bank
needs you to click onto a link to validate something.
Don't do it. Call your bank and say can I
(27:01):
go into your bank? Talk to your credit card company.
Make sure you notify them if you think you've been scammed.
And like I said, if you find suspicious charges on
your credit card or bank statements, you know, as soon
as you get your credit card and bank statements, look
at them immediately. I spent this week disputing credit card
(27:21):
charges that for natural gas in the house I live
in that has no natural gas. Okay, I got them reverse,
but I said, I don't know why I'm paying for
natural gas because I don't have it. In fact, don't
sign up for auto pay on your utility statements or
anything like that. Don't sign up for auto pay. The
(27:42):
only thing I auto pay now is what I call
a fixed cost, but never do it on a variable cost.
So I auto pay my landlord, I rent. I auto
pay insurance policies that have a fixed monthly amount so
I don't miss the amount. But my utility bill, which fluctuates.
Anything that fluctuates, you want to see the bill, you
want to review it. You're going to question it if
(28:04):
it's too high. In my case, I had an energy
electric bill and then suddenly Energy set me the things
and that they were being acquired by Delta Utilities. I
didn't read the fine print. It's a natural gas, so
I thought my new company was called Delta Utilities. And
I got a bill for natural gas charged to my
credit card because I thought it was my new utility company.
And then my husband's like, Melanie, we don't have natural gas.
(28:28):
I was able to dispute it, but it was, you know, headache,
who wants this scrap? Okay? Internet merchandise schemes, online shopping,
As I said, you buy something it doesn't show up.
You know there's some trust there. You got to have
trust that the item will happen. But I see people
all the time saying I bought something, I never got it,
(28:50):
or I got something it wasn't the same thing. You
gotta be very careful. And if you're selling on Facebook, marketplace,
meet at a public place, don't have the meat. Unless
you're selling like boxes and books like I am, and
I have a big six foot three husband to protect me.
Don't let people near your house. If you live alone,
(29:10):
meet in a public made up they don't need to
come to your house. Okay, there are a lot of
online shopping scams. I just honestly don't buy anything online
unless you know what it is. I spend a long
time returning stuff. Another one fake check payments. Just told
you about the one I got. It was wrong. Just
(29:31):
beware another one. Computer performance scams. Equipment software. I get
geek Squad. Geek Squad sends me your geek Squad service
contract has been renewed. Click here for a copy of
your contract. Well, I don't have a service contract with
geek Squad. Never have. That also happened with Microsoft and
a few other internet companies. They want you to click
on the contract because they're going to attack your computer.
(29:58):
Don't go there if you don't know who's sending it,
don't open it. And you can always check the email
and see if it's legit. But half the time I don't.
I don't answer anything if I know what it is.
Credit bureaus are related credit scams. I think this is
happening to me. I am getting a lot of credit
bureau emails thing. You need to check your credit it's changed.
(30:21):
Let's discuss, you know what. I don't need to check
my credit. I check my credit once a year. There's TransUnion,
there's credit Wise, but credit Wise okay, it's tied to
met Capital one, but they seem to be trying to
sell me more credit cards. I'm very careful about that too.
There's also hidden fees with a lot of things. When
you sign up for things, just be really careful because
(30:44):
you don't want those hidden fees. Okay, online dating, I
touched on it earlier. Online dating. Half those people are
fraudsters where they're married. I can't tell you how many
people I know that hooked up online with someone who's married. Sadly,
there's stories of various sad stories and young girls who
hooked up with predators. I don't do online dating because
(31:07):
I'm married. But when I did online dating for a
brief year, my girlfriends actually did. They did an intervention
with me because they said that my online dating profile
was too suggestive and they told me things that I
was using verbally that could be misinterpreted, which I thought
(31:27):
were kind of cute and sexy. You don't need to
put that much of yourself on there. Just be honest
and say you're looking for a normal, real person. You
like to take walks in the beach and go to
the movies and eat fried chicken champagne. Don't get into
too much else, and you have every reason to do
your background check on anyone who you may be going
(31:47):
out with. If you think you're going to get serious
with someone, do a background check. I know a lot
of people who got into relationships online and not and
they found out that their potential spouses were deeply in debt,
they had hien bankruptcies, they had other problems that they
(32:08):
wouldn't have known about if they hadn't done a background check.
So love doesn't conquer all. You got to be smart.
Marriage is also a contract, So going there with your
eyes wide open. Facebook friend scams, Oh my god. Every
week I have friends who've been scammed. I mean every week,
(32:29):
someone has hacked somebody's account. Did you ever get a
friend request on Facebook by someone you thought was already
your friend. That person's probably been hacked. If a friend
is asking you to be their friend again, contact your
real friend and say, friend, I think you've been hacked.
Happens a lot, and there are a lot of con
artists who like to nurture relationships so they could scam
(32:52):
you out of everything, including your personal information or money. Clickbait, well,
everything is clickbait. Now, okay, how many of you have
excuse me, how many of you have done that? This
is what you look like as an Indian princess, or
this is your cartoon character image, or this is your
porn you know, those stupid things, and then you get
(33:15):
like this fun virtual self of you do it looking
like something else. That's called clickbait. And the more you
do it, the more you're just out there for more
fodder for information to bombard your social media and your
personal kills. This gets me hot and bothered, thirsty. A
lot of clickbait, and that includes on LinkedIn with job applications.
(33:37):
A lot of those job notices and job boards just
basically source other jobs that they find. They send them
to you because you signed up for something and suddenly
they're bombarding you with jobs they have nothing to do
with you, or they're just trying to get your information.
I mean, I don't know a damn thing about computer programs.
(34:00):
I mean, I sign up for something and now all
I get is like computer programming jobs. If you really
are interested in If you're only interested in a job
and you see it on LinkedIn, go to the company's
website directly and see if they have a listing for
that job on your careers. Go a step further and
(34:22):
research the director of human resources or job opportunities or
whatever and write and say, I saw on LinkedIn you
have a job for X, Y and Z. Is that
still is that a current job? Rather than go through
a third party source it may not be their source. Again,
there's a lot of clickbait out there, and the more
(34:42):
you click, the more crap you get sent into your
computer screen. Every morning, it seems like every morning I
get a saga about somebody who's trying to retire on
anything from fifty thousand to five million.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Because I'm research and retirement investing, and it's like I
don't want to read about it anymore, so I have
to click these ads are inappropriate or not of interest,
but it takes time out of my time.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Fake bills and invoicing. You get a bill that looks
real as you never order the product or service and
they're not the company you bought it from. Happens all
the time. Tech support schemes. You get a call or
pop up on your computer complaining to be from Microsoft, Norton,
r Apple about a problem on your computer. Happens to
me once a week. They say, if you get tech
support access to your hard drive, they'll fix it immediately.
(35:31):
NET you're getting malware or ransomware or whatever. We're a
you know, my husband's last name is ransom. So I
tease them all about that. Medical alert scams, Oh, a
telemarketing scam that provides free medical alert systems. I get
calls all the time from people who want to sell
me medicare and help me have better medicare. They're trying
to sell me advantage plan, you know, like five minutes
(35:52):
in the conversation and go, are you advantage? Because I
don't want to do advantage. I'm not knocking it. It's
just not my thing. eBay auction reseller, Uh yeah, you know.
They convinced sellers to ship goods prior to receiving payment.
The buyer claims it's an emergency like a child's birthday.
They asked the seller to skip same online fundraising to
(36:14):
help sick. You know, I love GoFundMe. It's very legit,
but unfortunately there are some non legit people who use
online fundraising for their own personal gain and not to
help the charity or the person. Not good. Recently, my
husband bought me a computer on eBay and guess what.
It arrived and it was a different computer and the
(36:35):
message was, well, the computer, the computer that you ordered,
is not available, so we sent you a better one.
I hope you like it. Well, no, we didn't want
it because it was heavy, er, bigger, and that wasn't
what we ordered. That's a little scammy, and it was
a reseller. So be careful. Casting call scam. Oh, I've
been victim of that. I somehow went to some casting
(36:58):
call thing in New York and it was scam. I
still get calls from them all the time, even though
I've deleted them and unsubscribed a million times. Unsubscribed or
like words, they pop back up. You had to be
part of their agency. You had to buy a photo
portfolio and I'm listing and by the time you paid
(37:19):
up all that, it was one thousand dollars and you
probably never got a casting call. Be very careful about that.
Foreign currency scams. Invest in foreign If you don't know,
if you don't anything of my investing, don't do it.
If you want to learn investing, get someone you trust
to help you. Many years ago, I was scammed. It
was so painful to talk about. I hit it from
(37:41):
my father for many years. I didn't know what I
was doing. I didn't hear it. It some money from both
sides of my grandparents. I thought I would go and
invest some scuzball. A scuzzball company came to my place.
He flirted with me. He convinced me to invest all
twenty thousand dollars in let him take care of it.
(38:02):
He put it in margin accounts. Didn't even know what
a margin account was. Lost it all. One of the
most disappointing things I've ever done, and I've done a lot,
lost it all, and he disappeared. It was tough and
regret it, regret it, regret it, but can't live with regrets.
(38:24):
Get rich quick schemes, Nah, you can't get rich. Okay,
Passive residual income scams. I've been looking at that too.
There's a lot of them. Usually you have to read
through a long diatrap of what they do and what
they did, and they used to be poor and they
were struggling and they were a single mom, or they
did this, or they were living out of their car.
(38:45):
There was always a SOB story. And at the very end,
you can sign up for the free class and then
you find out that you have to sign up the
free crass provided that you sign up for a subscription
or a ammership or something else, and you will never
get out of it. Free credit report, free credit record.
(39:09):
This is from the credit reporting people. What a scam?
This one has explanation point. The website is free credit
report dot com. But all you get is a credit
card credit report when you sign up for their paid service. Again,
they fish you in presuming you're gonna look for something
for free, and the next thing you know, you have
an auto subscribe but you can't get out of you
(39:32):
can't get a membership out of They say they're gonna
wipe all your information out of the membership. I've got
one right now, I'm gonna have to like break up with.
There is a government mandated website where you can get
a free credit port or go to TransUnion and one
of the you know, go to something you trust. My
Capital one credit cards do have a free credit record
(39:55):
they sign me up for credit wise. Credit Wise, we'll
try to sell you credit cards, because everybody's trying to
sell you something because they make money doing that. Remember this,
when you're reading about all these investment tips, or how
how retirees have a successful side hustle, or how you
can pick up three thousand dollars more a month, or
you name it, every single paragraph you will see a
(40:16):
live link. Watch. If you click that link, it will
take you to the site where you have to sign
up for something, and for every sign up, that person
gets an affiliate affiliate money. Affiliate affiliate marketing is a
big business. I've actually signed up to be legally. You
(40:38):
have to say somewhere in the article that if you
click links, the writer or media outlet gets some residual income.
The New York Times wirecutter A love wirecutter. You love
like learning, like what scrubs to use? I did that today,
or shampoos or laundry detergents. All those are live links.
(41:02):
But The New York Times is very open and transparent.
If you click this link, the New York Times company
may get some money if you buy something, as long
as it's legit. The same with influencers. Many influencers are
paid to promote you know, shoes, makeup there, whatever, jewelry,
(41:24):
I get it all the time. They have to say
that this is a pay collaboration because you have to
be people have to be honest about this. Work at
home scams it's another one. You can earn all this
money at home if you stuff envelopes or you know, tutor.
(41:44):
Tutor is another one. Tutor. But to do this you
have to either buy the supplies i e. Stuffing envelopes
or tutor you have to or coaching you have to
sign up for the course, which is hundreds and hundreds
or thousands of dollars because a certified tutor or certified
coach so that you can go out and hustle for clients.
(42:09):
There is no easy way to make money at home.
A lot of money at home. You can make some
on eBay, a little bit here, but everybody's going to
try to haggle with you. So just know, get rich
quick schemes don't really exist. Make money now scheme pyramid schemes.
(42:29):
You know there's a lot of that member for Ponzi
scream mat off. Pyramid screams are when it's like cosmetics
or beauty companies approach you and they say, would you
like to be an ambassador or a sales rep for
our chemical free additive free beauty line. When I went
open with my breast cancer, I was bombarded with this.
The deal is you have to sign up, you have
(42:50):
to go through a course, you have to get the
supplies and merch and then you have to sign up
more people under you as sales reps. Because it's called
a pyramid scheme. You're here, you sign people up, You
sign people up. It's called multi level marketing. And yes,
there are some people that swear by it. I don't
(43:10):
because I don't want to like drag people in. I
don't want to have I don't want to go out
and recruit people to do anything anymore. I just want
to I'd rather make less money. I'd rather be a
better investor. I'd rather be a better saver. I'd rather
stop answering all the sales pitches to get face cream
that if you notice, I'm a little shiny and red.
I bought a face cream online. I won't say what brand,
(43:33):
but they swore it would help you with my aging.
I'm like so rashy, right, now I hurt. I returned it,
and I'm not buying anything on line that promises anything.
Don't buy it. I don't buy it. Nine hundred phone schemes,
eight hundred phone schemes, foreign lottery schemes, advance fee broker schemes,
buy shit from telemarketers, loans, There's so much. Again. I
(43:57):
could go on and on, but the key is, don't
open yourself up to being a victim of fraud, scam, fishing, farming,
crazy people that want you to fall in love with
them and give you money. Don't open yourself up too
much online for anything. It's okay to be private, share
with the people who care about you, not with the
whole fricking world. Again. If you want more information, you
(44:20):
can go to the Federal Trade Commission's site and Consumer
Fraud Reporting dot org. I have no commercial relationship with them.
I did the show because I get mad when I
read about friends who've been scammed. I get mad when
I think I have been scammed. I think about my
mom who was scammed. It's out there and it's wrong,
and we have to fight it, and we have to
(44:41):
be fearless about it, and we have to say no,
this is not right, and I'm going to report this
because unless we do those things and say no, it's
not right, I'm reporting you. It will continue. I'm Melanie Young.
This is Fearless Fabulous Shoe follow me a Melanie Fabulous.
(45:02):
I'm legit. You could see the show on more than
sixty five podcast channels like iHeart Podcasts, you know Spotify. Also,
I'm Melanie Young on YouTube. Check up my other show,
The Connected Table Live also Wednesdays at two pm Eastern
or on YouTube and I'm team podcast channels. I want
you to say fearless and fabulous and be in control
(45:23):
of your life and choose life on your terms and
make sure that no one aber takes advantage of fearless
fabulous you. Thank you.
The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are
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We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
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(00:20):
be directed to those show hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thank you for choosing W four WN Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host,
Melanie Young. Today is August twentieth. It would have been
my late mother's ninety first birthday, so in her honor.
She was the Purple Lady of chat Nooka. I'm wearing
one of her purple silk tops, and I'm sitting in
front of my fabulous cousin Hunt Sloane's painting called Andandrobia,
(01:05):
which she gave to my mother when she was honored
for one of her many lifetime achievement awards. I have
dedicated this show to her and also to all the
wonderful people out there who are older and more vulnerable
and also to people that I want to protect. I
originally called this show when is too Much Information? TMI
(01:29):
not okay? Because a friend of mine went on a
massive rant on Facebook about how much she hated her
sister and how she, you know, basically wished her sister
was not alive. And I wrote her, I said, you know,
one day, you're going to regret that you can't take
back things you say on social media and you're saying
hurtful things that your family are reading. I think we
(01:50):
all need to pull it back and not be as virulent,
because you may go viral on social media and pull
it back. If you're feeling emotional, maybe that's not the
time to be on social media. Maybe that's the time
to pull back, take a walk and reflect. But I've
decided because of that, I want to talk about how
(02:12):
being so open on social media can make you very
vulnerable to scams. At the end of the day, I'm
going to call this show say scram to scams? And
why is that? Because I recently have practically almost been
victim of a scam, as have some other people I know,
including the amazing businesswoman here in New Orleans named Lauren
(02:33):
Haitel that she went public with because she was potentially
a victim of scram a scram scam. I say scram
because I want them to scram, but it's getting worse.
And I think that the more we open ourselves up
on social media, the more we open ourselves up to
scams and fraud. And I know I sell a lot
(02:57):
on Facebook, Marketplace, and recently I have had some scammy
things happened to me that Fortunately I had my scam
dar up to make sure that I wasn't fully scam.
But unfortunately, other people aren't so lucky. Because they're trusting, open,
they're sharing a lot, they think they're doing it all
(03:18):
for good reasons, but not. I'm going to tell you
why this is important. The Federal Trade Commission reported that
more than five point eight billion dollars in losses to
two point eight million consumers were due to fraud in
the last reporting year, an increase of over seventy percent.
And we're in twenty twenty five. Elder fraud complaints increased
(03:42):
by fourteen percent twenty twenty three, and over eighty eight
thousand people over sixty, which includes me, we're victims of
financial fraud. Schemes. The top categories of fraud are imposter scams,
followed by all online shopping scams, oh, Facebook, Marketplace, then prizes, sweepstakes, lotteries,
(04:05):
internet services, and fake job opportunities. And I'm going to
run to that because I have also been believe it
or not, at my age of sixty six, I am
looking for work because writing doesn't pay, and I'm looking
and it's hard because of agism. But I think half
the job postings on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn's a great source,
but half the job postings are not real. They're not
(04:27):
the real deal. Another big area is medical scams. They
have become the largest category of scams during COVID, I'm
going to actually what I'm going to do is take
you through scams and fraud and then explaining the difference
so you understand the first. As I said at the
beginning of the show, maybe it's time to not open
(04:48):
your life up so broadly on social media. Pull it back.
Don't let people know when you're taking a vacation, when
you're going to be out of the office, when you're
going to to be out of your house, because then
that opens up people to look up your address and
say hey, let's go rob them. Don't put your phone
number or anything personal on social media. Don't put your
(05:10):
children or grandchildren or underage kids photos on social media.
They could be tracked down. Don't tell them where their
school is. Don't You don't need to be that open
on social media. What's the point. What's it doing for you.
It's opening you up to potentially becoming a victim of
(05:31):
something that could hurt you or your family. And like
I said, if you're going to have a rant, do
it in person, get a journal, Go take a walk,
go rant in your mirror, go rant somewhere else, but
don't rant on social media about anybody and anything. I
tell my husband to pull it back on politics all
the time. I never do. I keep it positive and upbeat,
(05:54):
because you don't know whether a scammer, a fraudster, a
potential job a perpetual employee is looking you up right
now and saying I don't know about that person, I
don't like what they're posting. I don't know, or hey,
I got some information and intel on that person. Maybe
I can take advantage of them, so hear me out.
(06:15):
We all are sharing too much and that can get
you into trouble my late mother. She was a victim
of scams. I was, oh, my god, when I want
to take care of her. In the final two years
of her life, I had to go through credit card
bills where she was still paying for aol okay aos free.
(06:36):
She was paying for automatic subscriptions that she innocently signed
up for and kept renewing. That happened to me recently.
I'm going to go through what are some of the
top scams and frauds from the Consumer Fraud Reporting Dot
Org Oka, wwwww, Dot's Consumer Fraud Reporting dot or. We're
(07:00):
going to talk about them so you can be aware
of them, and I'm gonna also tell you what you
can do to protect yourself. Actually, I'm gonna do that first. Well, now,
first I would explain the difference between scam and fraud
because I looked it up. Because what is the difference?
Kind of interesting fraud. Fraud refers to any intentional deception
(07:21):
made for personal gain, often involving misrepresentation or deceit in
a financial or legal contract. Okay, this could be identity theft,
so you know, don't give away your Social Security number
or deceit in a financial or legal context. It could
be unauthorized access to personal information without the victim's knowledge
(07:42):
or consent. It could be credit card fraud, making fraudulent
charges using stolen credit cards, or insurance fraud submitting false
claims to receive payouts. I have been a victim of
credit card fraud. I had a stolen credit card a
Sears Roebuck years ago, and thankfully my could help me
get out of it, because it was hundreds and hundreds
(08:04):
of dollars of fraudular charges that I would have been
responsible for if we had not diligently looked at our
statements and reported it immediately, which a lot of people
don't do. They just put their statements away and say
I'll look at them later. Well, later doesn't help when
you've been a victim of fraud. Scam. Okay, we talked
about fraud, So what is a scam? Scam? Call this
(08:27):
say scram to scam. A scam is a specific type
of fraud that usually tricks individuals into voluntarily providing money
or sensitive information. Scams often rely on psychological manipulation, exploiting
emotions such as trust, fear, or urgency. Common examples are
(08:52):
lottery scams, phishing, emails. Not go phishing like a little fish,
but pishi, in which I'll explain emails and Ponzi schemes. Okay, phishing.
Fishing is a big term. Do you know what it means?
I had to look it up to make sure I knew.
(09:12):
Phishing is a cybercrime in which a target or targets
are contacted by email, telephone, or texts. And this has
happened to me a lot by someone posing as a
legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive data such
as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details and passwords.
(09:38):
This has happened to me, and I'm going to go
through these and explain what I did. Lottery scales convincing
victims they have won a lottery and need to pay
fees to claim their prize is a form of phishing, Phisi,
ng romance schemes. Oh boy, building a fake relationship online
(09:58):
to solicit money from the victim. That actually happened to
an elderly relative of mine. She had an online boyfriend,
suddenly he wanted money, and more recently, in my case,
Facebook Marketplace. Now I use Facebook Marketplace and there's some
wonderful people on it. However, I've had some not great
(10:20):
diabolical dealings also Facebook, Marketplace asking for personal information, sending
a check for overpayment Zelle. I have been forewarned providing
your Zell which links to your bank account could be dicey. Okay,
I'm going to go through some more examples. But again,
(10:41):
what prompted me to do the show was Lauren Hadel
Lauren mc blake Hatel, who owns Flirty Girl, a series
of wonderful New Orleans focused stores. Great business woman. She
was invited to be on a producer for Katie Kirk
Media asked her to be a guest on the show. Well,
everybody wants to be a guest on the show. When
I've actually asked her to be a guest on this show,
(11:02):
and now I'm sure she's probably wondering if I'm legit.
So I had to write her and say I'm legit
because this is what happened to her. She the producer
asked if they could get access to her computer to
get everything set up. Now I'm on a computer. Now,
I have a wonderful engineer named one who I trust.
He has set me up. I know who I'm dealing with,
(11:23):
but wisely, Lauren got a little suspicious, like who does
she want having access to her computer and show enough
that was a scam and it ended up she reported
it and it became a news story. And that's actually
one of the reasons I decided to address this because
it really angers me that there are unsavory people out
there trying to take advantage of other people, particularly older people,
(11:44):
and I tend to be in that audience. I had
an incident a couple, and I'm going to share them.
I'm selling a lot of stuff on Facebook marketplace because
I still have a lot of stuff to sell. It's
actually a form of income for me, small but helpful.
And a woman said, I'm going to buy a painting.
The painting was advertised for one thousand dollars. It was
(12:06):
a beautiful oil painting. She said, can I pay by
check now? I offer Venmo and PayPal in cash. But
she lived in I think the Midwest, Ohio or something.
And if the check is sent to me as a
money order or to me and it clears the bank,
I will execute the sale. I've done that successfully when
(12:27):
I was running my estate seals in Tennessee. I've done
it with people that are older and they don't have
they're not teching happens a lot with my Civil War
books that I'm selling from my dad. My dad's a library. Anyway,
I come home and there's a fat X on my doorstep. Okay,
this is my home, so this personally has my home.
(12:49):
I open it up and the check for the thousand
dollars painting is for seven thousand, five hundred dollars from
a corporation in Massachusetts. I said, my husband, what's this check?
It's made out to me. I don't know what it's for,
so I sat on it. The woman on Facebook marketplace
said did you get my check? And I said, I
(13:11):
got a check. I don't think it's from you. She
sent me a photo of the FedEx on my doorstep
and said, you got a check. I said, it's not
the right amount. The painting is a thousand. The check
is for seventy five hundred dollars. She said, oh, I
thought it was seven thousand and five hundred for shipping.
(13:32):
Just go ahead and take it to the bank. Well,
immediately my scam door went up. I did take it
to my bank. I showed it to my banker. I said,
what is this It was a scam. It's a common
scam where someone will send you a payment to you
a check and a larger sum than the item they're purchasing.
They expect you to deposit the check, show them a
(13:55):
copy of the deposit slip, which has your bank routing
number on it, send a check back for the send
a check back for the balance of overpayment. Thus they
have your routing number and bank account and then they
scam you and the check is fraudulent and bounces. So
I immediately reported her because I report anything that is
not cool, because I don't want other people to come victim.
(14:17):
I told her she was being reported. She of course
disappeared and I tore up the check. But that's one example,
and that's actually happened to me twice. Now. Another is
people say, oh, I'm getting paid next week, can I
what's your Zell? And then they'll you'll give them Azelle.
I don't. I don't even use zel anymore, guys, I do, ladies.
I don't use Zel. I use Venmo, PayPal, that's it.
(14:41):
Can't get the cell. Send me a copy of the
photo of your oven on your bank They want to
get your bank account number. Never never give your bank number,
a routing number to anyone unless you are doing an
authorized payment to a vendor that you must do it to.
I actually never do that either. I really don't. I
(15:02):
have everything on either auto pay or I pay myself,
but nobody has access to my routing number or ben
a number unless I'm asking money to give, unless they're
paying me. I don't give my social security number. Do
not give your social security number. Do not give your passwords,
pen codes, address phone passwords, anything that is personal you
(15:30):
should not be giving to anyone unless you have a
two thousand trust exchange and you know what you're doing
it for. Another example of how I've been potentially fraud
is I'm trying to learn about investing. I'm trying to
learn about investing, and I thought I would join Investors Club,
And suddenly I started getting invitations to join Investors Club.
I signed up for some and then all of a sudden,
(15:51):
I started getting bombarded with texts from a cute little girl.
I'm convinced she was a bot, not real. She was
trying to befriend me. She said, I see you like wine.
What kind of line would you recommend with spaghetti? You know?
She started asking me tips about me to become my friend.
She said, here's a tip on a stock. Tell me
(16:13):
when you buy it, show me where it is on
your account, and show me the codes. And that's when
I said, Nah, not going there. That's fraudulent. There are
a lot of online investment clubs. They're trying to get
access to your account. Do not give anyone any of
your account numbers. Okay, no passwords, no account numbers, no names,
none of their business. They want you, They want access
(16:36):
to you. That happened to me a few times. It
happened with some cryptocurrency people. It happens a lot because
I researched my shows and articles thoroughly, and suddenly I
get bombarded online with ads and solicitations because I've researched something.
So I've started doing dark searches, like I use duck
(16:58):
dot Go or I'll go on the dark web to
do my searches because I don't want people knowing what
I'm looking for. I don't want them to start tracking
me down and then soliciting me finding my phone number
or address, which may be online. It's easy to find
a phone number address. I get a zillion solicitations on
text and ladies. I never answer any phone call or
(17:19):
text or invitation to connect on Facebook unless I know
who it is, because a few times I have, you know,
because I do marketplace. I'll answer a messaging to connect
with someone on Facebook and I will get you have
been attacked by a virus. And I've had enough attacks
by a computer virus that I'm in the process of
(17:40):
buying a new computer. It gets expensive. So if you
don't know who's contacting you, you don't have to respond.
You don't need to be everybody's friend. You should look
up anyone who wants to friend you, whether it's on
LinkedIn or Facebook, to see if they're real. Recently on
LinkedIn becaus I am looking for some work, I answered
an ad to be a podcast host. I'm like, wait,
(18:00):
I host the podcast. I'm qualified. I can host the
hospitality pod guests. The guy reached out to me directly
said here are all my links to my information it shows.
I looked up two of them and they were like empty,
there was nothing there, so I just said I'm done.
I wrote it back and said, listen, you have no
information on your site. How can I possibly affiliate with you? You
have no information? I stopped all communication with him because
(18:24):
I'm convinced that they're phonies. That's happened to me a
couple of times with people I won't say who. One was,
somebody from Saudi Arabia, and they tried to start conversations
with you and get your trust, and the next thing
you know, they want something from you. Don't go there.
As I said in the beginning of the show, pull
(18:45):
it back, you don't need to be everybody's friend. You
do need to be connected with everybody. You need to
pull it back because you're putting too much out there,
and I one of those people. I've done it, so
I don't. I'm careful with Facebook Marketplace now. I have
set my rules on what I will and will accept
in terms of payment. I don't answer phone calls or
(19:05):
texts from anyone I don't know. Let it go to voicemail.
If they really want to reach you, they'll leave you
a voicemail. If they don't, forget about it and erase it.
Anything suspicious I block, I report, I make sure I
report it, and I let people know if you do
this again, you will be reported, because the only way
to stop this crap is to report it and it's
(19:28):
getting worse. And with artificial intelligence and bots where you're
talking to people who are not even human anymore, it's
getting worse. Okay, I said, never give your social Security number,
your bank account and routing number, your stock investor, portfolio information,
anything that is of personal nature, insurance policies, pass codes
(19:51):
and pins to your phone in computer, dates of birth.
Keep all that information in a secure place in the
cloud on your computer. Because if you kick the bucket die,
somebody does need that and it's called your spouse, your parents,
your children. Because when my mom died, I had to Fortunately,
before my mom died, I said, Mom, I need all
(20:12):
your stuff. I want to have a document now so
when you do die, I don't have to run around
and play guestwork. Because when my dad died, we didn't
have any of that information. And I am convinced that
we lost some things along the way that would have
been valuable to us, but he didn't leave any information.
So do your loved ones a favor and have this
(20:33):
secure private information in a secure private place and let
them know where it is, but don't share it with
anybody else. Okay, if you have a lawyer who's working
with you, on somebody you trust, but don't share it
with anybody else, Okay, keep a low profile. Okay, So
I'm going to show you. So I went through the
(20:54):
Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Fraud Awareness Group, and
I found top scams. Some of them I have addressed,
so I'm going to cherry pick them. But I think
you need to be on the lookout for these because
this is becoming a huge problem. I talked about identity
theft and fishing and something called farming. Okay, there's fishing,
not go fishing, and there's not farming and digging the dirt.
(21:16):
Farming is pH A R M, I n G. And
one of those is like PayPal will say your account
has been limited. That's a big one that happened to me.
Also PayPal. I was scared. I had to go and
I had charges from freelancer dot com for annual subscriptions
I hadn't signed up for and I had to get
(21:37):
them all canceled. That's happened a lot. Be very careful
about buying anything online where you may end up with
auto subscribe or an annual auto renewal. Don't accept it,
even if it sounds great, because you will forget about it,
and you can't get out of these very easy. It
(21:58):
is so hard to get out an auto renewal, so
with farming and fishing. Sometimes the victim receives an email
that appears to be from a credible bank or credit
card company or insurance company with links to a website
in request to update account information. That's happened to me too,
and I also get this sent to me in the mail.
(22:19):
Don't do it. The website and the email are fake.
They're made to look like a real website. And an
example on this top ten scam list is PayPal. Your
account has been limited. You need to go and update
your information. Check before you act, do your homework. Phone scams,
Oh my god, how many phone scams have you been?
(22:42):
You know how many telemarketers? There is a do not
call list. There's also a do not send. There's something
called catalog choice for all those nine main catalogs that
I still get after my mother's there, my mother gets
more mailed to me here in New Orleans. Can you
imagine catalogs? Robodialer scammers calling out to be from a
bank or credit card company, or an insurance company or
(23:03):
a loan organization. I get a lot of this. Now
you've been you've been qualified for three hundred thousand dollars.
No you haven't. They want your money. They gain access
to your confidential information again, your social Security number data
birth and use it to apply for credit cards in
your name. That has happened to a friend of mine.
She had people take out cards in her name and
(23:25):
other obligations, and it took her. It's called identity theft,
and it took her a long time and legal fees
to get out of it. Okay, they scammers find your
number and you may have it way too out there. Uh,
you may get one. I'm getting it all the time. McAfee,
your McAfee whatever it is. Security data has expired. I
(23:49):
blop it out all the time. I still can't figure
out how to block it. Period. Your Microsoft license has expired.
I get that all the time. Medicare scam tests, I
get that all the time. Okay, half thet I get.
It's scammy. I don't answer anything. I actually spend most
of my morning every morning, I spend every morning deleting
(24:09):
ten emails to things that I don't want and deleting
I wish I could just delete all my emails to
start up for at this point, because I think half
the stuff I get is unsolicited crap. It's too much
debt collectors. Thankfully, I'm not in debt. I worked hard
to get out of debt. Please don't get into credit
card debt. Please don't get into credit card debt. I
(24:30):
beg you to be careful about that. Most companies are
debt collectors. You'll get harassing calls. They'll say that they'll
consolidate all your debt, they'll help you up. Beware because
there are hidden fees. There are hidden fees, and it's
the same with offers to have zero industry zero interest
(24:54):
fee purchases, zero industry purchases for thirty six months, seventy
months downs attempting. But if you buy a high ticket
item like you reroof your house, or you buy a car,
or you redo your floor and all that, and you
do the zero interest, you will pay more for that
service for a roof or floor or car than you
(25:14):
ever thought you would imagine. And when that interest free
time frame ends, all the interests you didn't pay for
that timeframe kicks in. It aggregated, it balloomed. Don't do
it better to negotiate and say, what's the discount you
(25:35):
will offer me if I pay in cash or I
pay upfront in full, what is the discount? Because you
can negotiate discounts with you know, do your homework on
that and be diligent. But don't get stuck in this
revolving debt thing, because then you'll get debt collectors calling
you and they'll offer you deals, and you're going to
(25:56):
be desperate and you're going to take them, and you're
going to just be in the hamster. And I'm sure
real forever I've been there, my parents went there, We
all had problems with spending, the DNA spending problem. We
all got out. I got out of it. My parents
died and left me with THEIRS. Don't go there. Fake
government officials, whether it's the IRS, the FBI, Western Union,
(26:19):
a money gram. They're calling to say that you've got
a problem. They need to talk to you. You've got
to pay hidden fees. No, and they do that a
lot to stingiers. Okay, always say thank you. Could you
put something in writing to me? Put it in writing?
May I have your number and call you back. This
(26:40):
is a bad time to call. Get the name of
the number of the person. Call the number back. Half
the time they won't give it to you. Don't go there.
Scam text messages. Reactivate your old debit card. The bank
needs you to click onto a link to validate something.
Don't do it. Call your bank and say can I
(27:01):
go into your bank? Talk to your credit card company.
Make sure you notify them if you think you've been scammed.
And like I said, if you find suspicious charges on
your credit card or bank statements, you know, as soon
as you get your credit card and bank statements, look
at them immediately. I spent this week disputing credit card
(27:21):
charges that for natural gas in the house I live
in that has no natural gas. Okay, I got them reverse,
but I said, I don't know why I'm paying for
natural gas because I don't have it. In fact, don't
sign up for auto pay on your utility statements or
anything like that. Don't sign up for auto pay. The
(27:42):
only thing I auto pay now is what I call
a fixed cost, but never do it on a variable cost.
So I auto pay my landlord, I rent. I auto
pay insurance policies that have a fixed monthly amount so
I don't miss the amount. But my utility bill, which fluctuates.
Anything that fluctuates, you want to see the bill, you
want to review it. You're going to question it if
(28:04):
it's too high. In my case, I had an energy
electric bill and then suddenly Energy set me the things
and that they were being acquired by Delta Utilities. I
didn't read the fine print. It's a natural gas, so
I thought my new company was called Delta Utilities. And
I got a bill for natural gas charged to my
credit card because I thought it was my new utility company.
And then my husband's like, Melanie, we don't have natural gas.
(28:28):
I was able to dispute it, but it was, you know, headache,
who wants this scrap? Okay? Internet merchandise schemes, online shopping,
As I said, you buy something it doesn't show up.
You know there's some trust there. You got to have
trust that the item will happen. But I see people
all the time saying I bought something, I never got it,
(28:50):
or I got something it wasn't the same thing. You
gotta be very careful. And if you're selling on Facebook, marketplace,
meet at a public place, don't have the meat. Unless
you're selling like boxes and books like I am, and
I have a big six foot three husband to protect me.
Don't let people near your house. If you live alone,
(29:10):
meet in a public made up they don't need to
come to your house. Okay, there are a lot of
online shopping scams. I just honestly don't buy anything online
unless you know what it is. I spend a long
time returning stuff. Another one fake check payments. Just told
you about the one I got. It was wrong. Just
(29:31):
beware another one. Computer performance scams. Equipment software. I get
geek Squad. Geek Squad sends me your geek Squad service
contract has been renewed. Click here for a copy of
your contract. Well, I don't have a service contract with
geek Squad. Never have. That also happened with Microsoft and
a few other internet companies. They want you to click
on the contract because they're going to attack your computer.
(29:58):
Don't go there if you don't know who's sending it,
don't open it. And you can always check the email
and see if it's legit. But half the time I don't.
I don't answer anything if I know what it is.
Credit bureaus are related credit scams. I think this is
happening to me. I am getting a lot of credit
bureau emails thing. You need to check your credit it's changed.
(30:21):
Let's discuss, you know what. I don't need to check
my credit. I check my credit once a year. There's TransUnion,
there's credit Wise, but credit Wise okay, it's tied to
met Capital one, but they seem to be trying to
sell me more credit cards. I'm very careful about that too.
There's also hidden fees with a lot of things. When
you sign up for things, just be really careful because
(30:44):
you don't want those hidden fees. Okay, online dating, I
touched on it earlier. Online dating. Half those people are
fraudsters where they're married. I can't tell you how many
people I know that hooked up online with someone who's married. Sadly,
there's stories of various sad stories and young girls who
hooked up with predators. I don't do online dating because
(31:07):
I'm married. But when I did online dating for a
brief year, my girlfriends actually did. They did an intervention
with me because they said that my online dating profile
was too suggestive and they told me things that I
was using verbally that could be misinterpreted, which I thought
(31:27):
were kind of cute and sexy. You don't need to
put that much of yourself on there. Just be honest
and say you're looking for a normal, real person. You
like to take walks in the beach and go to
the movies and eat fried chicken champagne. Don't get into
too much else, and you have every reason to do
your background check on anyone who you may be going
(31:47):
out with. If you think you're going to get serious
with someone, do a background check. I know a lot
of people who got into relationships online and not and
they found out that their potential spouses were deeply in debt,
they had hien bankruptcies, they had other problems that they
(32:08):
wouldn't have known about if they hadn't done a background check.
So love doesn't conquer all. You got to be smart.
Marriage is also a contract, So going there with your
eyes wide open. Facebook friend scams, Oh my god. Every
week I have friends who've been scammed. I mean every week,
(32:29):
someone has hacked somebody's account. Did you ever get a
friend request on Facebook by someone you thought was already
your friend. That person's probably been hacked. If a friend
is asking you to be their friend again, contact your
real friend and say, friend, I think you've been hacked.
Happens a lot, and there are a lot of con
artists who like to nurture relationships so they could scam
(32:52):
you out of everything, including your personal information or money. Clickbait, well,
everything is clickbait. Now, okay, how many of you have
excuse me, how many of you have done that? This
is what you look like as an Indian princess, or
this is your cartoon character image, or this is your
porn you know, those stupid things, and then you get
(33:15):
like this fun virtual self of you do it looking
like something else. That's called clickbait. And the more you
do it, the more you're just out there for more
fodder for information to bombard your social media and your
personal kills. This gets me hot and bothered, thirsty. A
lot of clickbait, and that includes on LinkedIn with job applications.
(33:37):
A lot of those job notices and job boards just
basically source other jobs that they find. They send them
to you because you signed up for something and suddenly
they're bombarding you with jobs they have nothing to do
with you, or they're just trying to get your information.
I mean, I don't know a damn thing about computer programs.
(34:00):
I mean, I sign up for something and now all
I get is like computer programming jobs. If you really
are interested in If you're only interested in a job
and you see it on LinkedIn, go to the company's
website directly and see if they have a listing for
that job on your careers. Go a step further and
(34:22):
research the director of human resources or job opportunities or
whatever and write and say, I saw on LinkedIn you
have a job for X, Y and Z. Is that
still is that a current job? Rather than go through
a third party source it may not be their source. Again,
there's a lot of clickbait out there, and the more
(34:42):
you click, the more crap you get sent into your
computer screen. Every morning, it seems like every morning I
get a saga about somebody who's trying to retire on
anything from fifty thousand to five million.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Because I'm research and retirement investing, and it's like I
don't want to read about it anymore, so I have
to click these ads are inappropriate or not of interest,
but it takes time out of my time.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Fake bills and invoicing. You get a bill that looks
real as you never order the product or service and
they're not the company you bought it from. Happens all
the time. Tech support schemes. You get a call or
pop up on your computer complaining to be from Microsoft, Norton,
r Apple about a problem on your computer. Happens to
me once a week. They say, if you get tech
support access to your hard drive, they'll fix it immediately.
(35:31):
NET you're getting malware or ransomware or whatever. We're a
you know, my husband's last name is ransom. So I
tease them all about that. Medical alert scams, Oh, a
telemarketing scam that provides free medical alert systems. I get
calls all the time from people who want to sell
me medicare and help me have better medicare. They're trying
to sell me advantage plan, you know, like five minutes
(35:52):
in the conversation and go, are you advantage? Because I
don't want to do advantage. I'm not knocking it. It's
just not my thing. eBay auction reseller, Uh yeah, you know.
They convinced sellers to ship goods prior to receiving payment.
The buyer claims it's an emergency like a child's birthday.
They asked the seller to skip same online fundraising to
(36:14):
help sick. You know, I love GoFundMe. It's very legit,
but unfortunately there are some non legit people who use
online fundraising for their own personal gain and not to
help the charity or the person. Not good. Recently, my
husband bought me a computer on eBay and guess what.
It arrived and it was a different computer and the
(36:35):
message was, well, the computer, the computer that you ordered,
is not available, so we sent you a better one.
I hope you like it. Well, no, we didn't want
it because it was heavy, er, bigger, and that wasn't
what we ordered. That's a little scammy, and it was
a reseller. So be careful. Casting call scam. Oh, I've
been victim of that. I somehow went to some casting
(36:58):
call thing in New York and it was scam. I
still get calls from them all the time, even though
I've deleted them and unsubscribed a million times. Unsubscribed or
like words, they pop back up. You had to be
part of their agency. You had to buy a photo
portfolio and I'm listing and by the time you paid
(37:19):
up all that, it was one thousand dollars and you
probably never got a casting call. Be very careful about that.
Foreign currency scams. Invest in foreign If you don't know,
if you don't anything of my investing, don't do it.
If you want to learn investing, get someone you trust
to help you. Many years ago, I was scammed. It
was so painful to talk about. I hit it from
(37:41):
my father for many years. I didn't know what I
was doing. I didn't hear it. It some money from both
sides of my grandparents. I thought I would go and
invest some scuzball. A scuzzball company came to my place.
He flirted with me. He convinced me to invest all
twenty thousand dollars in let him take care of it.
(38:02):
He put it in margin accounts. Didn't even know what
a margin account was. Lost it all. One of the
most disappointing things I've ever done, and I've done a lot,
lost it all, and he disappeared. It was tough and
regret it, regret it, regret it, but can't live with regrets.
(38:24):
Get rich quick schemes, Nah, you can't get rich. Okay,
Passive residual income scams. I've been looking at that too.
There's a lot of them. Usually you have to read
through a long diatrap of what they do and what
they did, and they used to be poor and they
were struggling and they were a single mom, or they
did this, or they were living out of their car.
(38:45):
There was always a SOB story. And at the very end,
you can sign up for the free class and then
you find out that you have to sign up the
free crass provided that you sign up for a subscription
or a ammership or something else, and you will never
get out of it. Free credit report, free credit record.
(39:09):
This is from the credit reporting people. What a scam?
This one has explanation point. The website is free credit
report dot com. But all you get is a credit
card credit report when you sign up for their paid service. Again,
they fish you in presuming you're gonna look for something
for free, and the next thing you know, you have
an auto subscribe but you can't get out of you
(39:32):
can't get a membership out of They say they're gonna
wipe all your information out of the membership. I've got
one right now, I'm gonna have to like break up with.
There is a government mandated website where you can get
a free credit port or go to TransUnion and one
of the you know, go to something you trust. My
Capital one credit cards do have a free credit record
(39:55):
they sign me up for credit wise. Credit Wise, we'll
try to sell you credit cards, because everybody's trying to
sell you something because they make money doing that. Remember this,
when you're reading about all these investment tips, or how
how retirees have a successful side hustle, or how you
can pick up three thousand dollars more a month, or
you name it, every single paragraph you will see a
(40:16):
live link. Watch. If you click that link, it will
take you to the site where you have to sign
up for something, and for every sign up, that person
gets an affiliate affiliate money. Affiliate affiliate marketing is a
big business. I've actually signed up to be legally. You
(40:38):
have to say somewhere in the article that if you
click links, the writer or media outlet gets some residual income.
The New York Times wirecutter A love wirecutter. You love
like learning, like what scrubs to use? I did that today,
or shampoos or laundry detergents. All those are live links.
(41:02):
But The New York Times is very open and transparent.
If you click this link, the New York Times company
may get some money if you buy something, as long
as it's legit. The same with influencers. Many influencers are
paid to promote you know, shoes, makeup there, whatever, jewelry,
(41:24):
I get it all the time. They have to say
that this is a pay collaboration because you have to
be people have to be honest about this. Work at
home scams it's another one. You can earn all this
money at home if you stuff envelopes or you know, tutor.
(41:44):
Tutor is another one. Tutor. But to do this you
have to either buy the supplies i e. Stuffing envelopes
or tutor you have to or coaching you have to
sign up for the course, which is hundreds and hundreds
or thousands of dollars because a certified tutor or certified
coach so that you can go out and hustle for clients.
(42:09):
There is no easy way to make money at home.
A lot of money at home. You can make some
on eBay, a little bit here, but everybody's going to
try to haggle with you. So just know, get rich
quick schemes don't really exist. Make money now scheme pyramid schemes.
(42:29):
You know there's a lot of that member for Ponzi
scream mat off. Pyramid screams are when it's like cosmetics
or beauty companies approach you and they say, would you
like to be an ambassador or a sales rep for
our chemical free additive free beauty line. When I went
open with my breast cancer, I was bombarded with this.
The deal is you have to sign up, you have
(42:50):
to go through a course, you have to get the
supplies and merch and then you have to sign up
more people under you as sales reps. Because it's called
a pyramid scheme. You're here, you sign people up, You
sign people up. It's called multi level marketing. And yes,
there are some people that swear by it. I don't
(43:10):
because I don't want to like drag people in. I
don't want to have I don't want to go out
and recruit people to do anything anymore. I just want
to I'd rather make less money. I'd rather be a
better investor. I'd rather be a better saver. I'd rather
stop answering all the sales pitches to get face cream
that if you notice, I'm a little shiny and red.
I bought a face cream online. I won't say what brand,
(43:33):
but they swore it would help you with my aging.
I'm like so rashy, right, now I hurt. I returned it,
and I'm not buying anything on line that promises anything.
Don't buy it. I don't buy it. Nine hundred phone schemes,
eight hundred phone schemes, foreign lottery schemes, advance fee broker schemes,
buy shit from telemarketers, loans, There's so much. Again. I
(43:57):
could go on and on, but the key is, don't
open yourself up to being a victim of fraud, scam, fishing, farming,
crazy people that want you to fall in love with
them and give you money. Don't open yourself up too
much online for anything. It's okay to be private, share
with the people who care about you, not with the
whole fricking world. Again. If you want more information, you
(44:20):
can go to the Federal Trade Commission's site and Consumer
Fraud Reporting dot org. I have no commercial relationship with them.
I did the show because I get mad when I
read about friends who've been scammed. I get mad when
I think I have been scammed. I think about my
mom who was scammed. It's out there and it's wrong,
and we have to fight it, and we have to
(44:41):
be fearless about it, and we have to say no,
this is not right, and I'm going to report this
because unless we do those things and say no, it's
not right, I'm reporting you. It will continue. I'm Melanie Young.
This is Fearless Fabulous Shoe follow me a Melanie Fabulous.
(45:02):
I'm legit. You could see the show on more than
sixty five podcast channels like iHeart Podcasts, you know Spotify. Also,
I'm Melanie Young on YouTube. Check up my other show,
The Connected Table Live also Wednesdays at two pm Eastern
or on YouTube and I'm team podcast channels. I want
you to say fearless and fabulous and be in control
(45:23):
of your life and choose life on your terms and
make sure that no one aber takes advantage of fearless
fabulous you. Thank you.
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My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.