December 2, 2024 • 37 mins
Beware of Frauds and Scams – Chris Boyd and Jeff Perry focus this episode with an update on recent methods that criminals are using to steal your funds and your identity. Chris and Jeff begin by discussing the growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to trick victims into providing personal information. Other topics covered are spoofing, phishing, and customer service fakes. The conversation turns to methods to safeguard against becoming an identity theft victim, including credit freezes, requesting fraud alerts, enrolling in multifactor authentication, and checking your bank and credit card statements.
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For more information or to reach Chris Boyd, Russ Ball or Jeff Perry, click the following link: https://www.wealthenhancement.com/s/advisor-teams/amr
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
thank you hit the wrong
button the following is
paid programming welcome to
something more with chris
boyd chris boyd is a
certified financial planner
practitioner and senior
vice president financial
advisor at wealth
enhancement group one of
the nation's largest
registered investment
advisors we call it
(00:22):
something more because we'd
like to talk not only about
those important dollar and
sense issues but also the
quality of life issues that
make the money matters matter
Here he is, your fulfillment facilitator,
your partner in prosperity,
advising clients on Cape
Cod and across the country.
Here's your host, Jay Christopher Boyd.
(00:44):
Thank you for being with us
for another episode of
Something More with Chris Boyd.
I'm here with Jeff Perry.
We are both of the AMR team
at Wealth Enhancement Group,
and it is well into the
season where we start to do
our holiday shopping.
And there's that.
And we get distracted.
There's so much going on.
(01:05):
It's so busy.
Sure is.
It's an easy time to get
taken on a ride when it
comes to the scams and
fraudsters that are out there.
They seem to be getting
better and better each year, Jeff.
when it comes to some of
these scams no doubt no
doubt they're getting
better and better and their
(01:26):
tools are getting better
and better one of the
recent articles that I saw
was talking about AI I know
that seems to be everything
right in a positive side
and you know medical
advances AI and writing all
these tools that are
available now with the
developing technology of AI but
you think about it some of
(01:47):
the some of the obvious
signs of a scam whether
it's a phone call or an
email have been in the past
uh maybe individuals who uh
don't speak english native
language it's easier to
detect like idioms or
something but just the
grammar was poor or you'd be like
hmm well you're just really
(02:08):
a nigerian prince you know
yeah right but with ai not
only is will their writing
be better for us emails or
websites but also and this
one I hadn't I hadn't even
contemplated this one you
know we heard about fake uh
messages during the
political campaign of
someone's I'm going to use
the word spoofing I don't
know if I'm using it correctly but
(02:30):
Pretending to be someone else.
Yes.
So now they'll be able to create,
even if they don't speak,
even if the scammer is overseas,
they'll be able to create a
perfectly sounding American
business woman.
Yeah.
Audio and video.
They can even make a person
appear to be a fake person.
(02:52):
Absolutely.
Video content or replicate
someone who like,
you know how that grandchild scans.
That's right.
often here if there's
content of that individual
online they could
potentially replicate
that's right so that it
appears to be what they're saying
(03:12):
So if you post a photo or a video,
a video even better, right?
Yeah, that's right.
Of you and your grandchild doing something,
or the scammer goes from
your account to the
grandchild's TikTok account.
Right.
And there's endless content there.
Voices and images.
Or a lot of teenagers, yeah.
You could get a call that
sounds a lot like your grandchild.
(03:35):
Saying,
I'm in Europe and I need to get
bailed out or whatever.
That's right.
When I worked for the sheriff's office,
it wasn't a voice,
meaning a replica voice,
but we had scams that were
happening on the Cape where
someone would pose as a law
enforcement officer, call grandma and say,
(03:56):
all right,
we have your grandchild Joey in here.
And they'd say a few things
about Joey based upon
Joey's social media.
He got picked up for shoplifting.
You know, we had to take him in.
The merchant was really great.
Joey would never shoplift.
Well,
he asked us to call you because he is
too nervous about calling his parents.
(04:19):
And I think I'm going to be
able actually to get the
merchant to drop the charges.
but we just need two hundred
dollars to release joey and
uh if you'd like to do it
right away so he doesn't
have to stay here if you
just run down to the cvs so
they can get a gift card
get a green card and get a
gift card and you know so I
think the theme of
(04:39):
everything we want to talk
about in this episode chris is
go slower, pause.
When something happens that
you're reacting to quickly,
especially if it's not in person,
even if it is in person,
but just slow down, right?
Slow down and say, can I get back to you?
Like for the one I was
(05:00):
explaining that happened on
the Cape when I was working
at the sheriff's office,
if the people just said, okay, um,
I have somebody here right now.
Can you just give me your
phone number to call back
and I'll get right on this.
You don't you don't have to
challenge the person calling.
Yeah.
Just be as if you're going
(05:21):
to go along with it.
Maybe say, OK,
let me get let me get back to you.
I need to raise some funds
or whatever it is.
Yeah.
Then you don't call that number, though.
No,
you don't call the number that they
give you.
You go to the original source.
So that's how we found out
the sheriff's office.
Because people would call
the sheriff's office and say,
did someone just call here?
(05:41):
Do you have Joey in custody?
And we were able to.
They're like, don't know who Joey is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Something's going on.
To the AI point,
that's just being magnified
with the advances in
artificial intelligence.
It's going to make it harder
(06:02):
to really discern.
Even before AI, when you get emails,
nowadays you get an email,
it looks like it's from an
official source with a
statement or something.
I'll call it FedEx or something.
know the postal service or
something right there'll be
a communication uh a a bill
(06:25):
like a credit card or
something and it's like oh
you have this fraudulent
sure charge and if you just
click through here we can
you know, rectify it or whatever.
So like sometimes it's stuff you're like,
you just can fall suspect like, Oh,
is this really, is this far?
Is this fake?
And sometimes it's so,
(06:46):
it appears to be good
enough that you could think, Oh,
maybe it is.
Or if you're not paying close attention,
you wouldn't catch that.
It's,
a bogus one oh the email
address is not an email
address that would be that
institution well they can
they can make it look
pretty close so they can
hide it they can encrypt
the email address and so it
still says u.s post office
(07:07):
until you click the actual
email address yeah and
before you know you're
entering your name date of
birth so security number
address you know to file
this claim on this fraudulent thing and
And that's if you just give
them your identities and
you don't start giving them
your bank account number so
they can refund the number.
(07:27):
And I know a lot of people
who are listening right now
say that would never,
happen to me.
And, you know, I feel,
I feel the same way.
I'm one of those people who would say,
I wouldn't fall.
No, I wouldn't fall for that.
But they would catch you at a weak moment,
a distracted moment.
Um, and, uh, just it's,
(07:49):
it happens to everybody,
people who you would say,
how did they fall for that?
Right.
Not, I mean, if someone is, um,
Oftentimes elderly are the
target of some of these things,
partly because sometimes
they're less technology savvy, right?
(08:10):
Technologically savvy.
Sometimes it's because they
may be at an age where they
are not as cognitively astute.
And so they may be in the habit of
being generous anyway at
this stage of life or whatever it is,
(08:31):
right?
So there's all these prompts
that can make them more
susceptible to these kinds of issues.
But it doesn't have to be
because anyone is
technologically inept or a
variety of reasons.
I think anybody can fall
(08:52):
susceptible to these things
now because they've gotten
so good at being deceptive.
Right.
They learn every day.
The fraudsters learn every
day what the objections are
and what point they're being questioned.
And they're just modifying
their tactics to deal with
those objections.
And so I wanted to bring
this some of these common
(09:12):
or new scams up.
It is, by the way,
International Fraud Awareness Week.
And your wife, Kristen,
actually let me know
because we had a client,
we have a client who,
not related to the accounts
that she has with us,
but I was talking to her
about another matter and
she let me know that she
(09:34):
had fallen prey to one of these scams.
It all started on Facebook.
And, you know, say Facebook,
people know there's scams there,
but she got a message saying,
in her message you know the
private messages messenger
yeah that looked to her
perfectly that this was a
fraud this was facebook
(09:56):
fraud bureau whatever they
called themselves okay and
they had some facebook
trying to rectify this
looking from facebook in
facebook private message
that said, you know,
your account has been hacked.
We need to clean this up.
Don't worry about this.
And we'll help you resolve it.
And the key in the door was, and you know,
(10:20):
this,
this person is a very intelligent person.
I would not think she would
have done this.
And she today would say it's my fault,
but she allowed them to download.
She downloaded a file and,
to allow them access to her computer.
And then from there, just, you know,
(10:43):
they cloned it or whatever
they did and gained all
these personal information.
And then they're off to the races,
opening new accounts and bank accounts.
And wow.
Wow.
So, you know,
someone's posing as client service.
Um, incidentally, just, um,
you probably haven't seen this,
but there's a movie called beekeeper.
Have you ever seen this?
(11:03):
I think I have.
Yes.
Um, it's an action flick really,
but the premise starts off
with the same kind of thing where someone,
um,
is getting a little bit of
technological technology support,
whatever.
Right.
And they, uh,
they basically wipe out their
bank accounts through this process.
(11:24):
Same kind of concept, you know?
a little bit of trickery and, oh, Josh,
I withdrew, you know,
I was supposed to take
fifty thousand dollars.
It's now fifty thousand
dollars or whatever it is.
Gosh, I need to get that back.
Can you just front me that
money or whatever?
And ultimately they they wipe them out,
(11:46):
you know, this fictional event.
But I don't think it's
entirely hard to stretch to
think these kind of things happen.
you know and you know for
the facebook you're
thinking like there's
fraudulent people like
pretending to be other
people but you're on it and
you get a private message
from an entity that looks
like them and they're
(12:07):
trying to help you right
and so people may have
these experience with work with
Someone else would log into
their computer to fix something,
which is really normal to
give somebody authority.
I got hacked on Facebook
once before where we had
credit card information on
the account to be able to do advertising.
(12:29):
Right.
And someone somehow hacked
in and had false charges.
They bought all kinds of
stuff through that credit card link.
Yeah.
So it's, it's really endless.
And so you're not going to
be able to prevent everything, anything.
If there's a data breach at a company,
that's not your fault.
And you know,
you'll be protected
ultimately by your credit card.
(12:50):
But when something is going on,
whether it's a call or a
mess incoming message to you,
the best advice for,
we'll go over some of these quickly,
but the best advice is just to pause.
Right.
So you talked about those fake invoices.
Um,
Sometimes it'll be from PayPal even,
(13:11):
or a credit card, or it'll be a bank,
Wells Fargo, Bank of America.
And does fraudsters know that
only ten percent of the
people that they're giving
enough people have that
bank account that they'll
think twice right oh it's
the wells fargo I have a
wells fargo checking
account this must be right
whereas you I don't know if
(13:31):
you I don't have wells
fargo so I look at that and
be like yeah it's a scam
it's just the more personal
they can make it to you the
more likely you are to fall
for this right right or the
paypal one is um
They'll send you an invoice, like you said,
and says this item's being shipped.
If you have any questions
about your billing, click here.
(13:54):
And then you're heading down
that rabbit hole.
Where they're dropping
something on your computer
or whatever it might be.
So if you pause in those examples,
or when you get a phone call, whatever,
if you just pause and say, okay,
I'm not going to trust anything.
And I hate to live like that,
but you kind of have to.
(14:14):
All right, this is Wells Fargo.
I have a Wells Fargo account.
Let me log in separately to
a link that you saved that
you know is legitimate and to see.
And if you want to go
further to use a customer
service number or go to the bank itself,
but to know that...
is legitimate and you choose
the number that you call,
(14:35):
not the number that they're giving you.
Right.
yeah I had uh something this
while ago I probably told
you this jeff I went to um
I was in california and
went to the gas station and
somehow they spoofed my
card maybe a scanner some
kind of thing right so um
so I when I'm back here I
(14:56):
got a call saying you know
are you charging something
in california and I'm like
who is this I'm thinking
the bank it's like
Do you think this call is a scam?
I'm thinking it's a scam from the bank.
Like, what is this?
I'll call you back.
So I called the bank.
And they're like, yeah,
are you in California?
(15:16):
Because there's charges
going on your card.
And I'm like,
no you know so I don't know
how it happened other than
I think they think it was
when I went to get gas um
somehow the the pump had
been compromised in a way
that the strips uh when you
were doing your bank card
got captured somehow so um in any case um
(15:40):
Yeah, so you have to,
even when they're trying to
protect you from the fraud, you're like,
all right, are you real?
It's a terrible posture to maintain,
but you kind of have to.
Another scam that's recent, which...
I might have been
susceptible to it because
(16:00):
I've done this before.
Sometimes the best way to
get an airline's attention, you know,
when you have long customer
service or people have been
resorting to Twitter or
social media posts.
You can comment on social
media and oftentimes
they're paying attention.
I did this with a JetBlue incident.
It could be any airline.
This is an anti-JetBlue.
(16:20):
I love JetBlue.
I got my issues with JetBlue.
I used to love JetBlue.
Okay.
Well,
I was having an issue with JetBlue
about something,
and so they weren't responding,
and it was very frustrating.
So when I was on Twitter,
which I'm not anymore,
but when I was on Twitter, I did it,
and I tagged them, so to speak,
(16:43):
at JetBlue.
Yeah.
And I instantly got a message back,
a private message from JetBlue.
So was it really JetBlue?
It was real.
And I got it.
And they said,
we're sorry to hear about this.
Can you give us the ticket number?
And I gave them the ticket number,
which really isn't that harmful, I guess.
But I didn't process anything.
(17:04):
I made a complaint.
Here's JetBlue.
They're helping me.
I'm a happier person.
Right.
And so it worked out.
They helped me with the situation.
But now there are people faking that.
Well, they're faking the name.
So they create a handle that says,
I don't know, doing it somehow.
(17:25):
Blue assistance or whatever, right?
Yeah.
I'm making that up.
I don't know if that's a real thing.
Whatever.
You get the point.
Right.
And then they troll for
these posts and they find
one and they contact you and they'll say,
sorry to hear about your trouble.
Can I validate that it's you?
Would you please give us your name,
database, social security number,
(17:45):
bank account number,
as much as you'll give them.
yeah they'll take and
obviously they're not gonna
fix your problem so that's
very interesting so you can
be it you know the first
examples where you're not
doing business with these people like a
email that you get from PayPal or Best Buy,
(18:07):
Geek Squad or all the common ones,
or a bank that you don't do
business with.
That's something coming at
you and you're maybe heightened security,
but this is one that you
reach out to an entity.
And something comes back to
you and it looks like it's
who you contacted.
Right.
So that's,
(18:27):
I think you're a bit more
vulnerable in situations.
That's really insidious.
You know, as you're,
you're trying to solve this
waiting online with
whatever your frustration
is and you're at wit's end and yeah,
catch you when you're weak.
Right.
When you're with these kinds of things,
what are some other ones that are common?
(18:48):
I think I can make a blanket
category here is the
government's trying to, um,
find you because you missed
the IRS or a common one down here was a,
uh,
actually friend of ours got this call.
They didn't fall for it, but they called,
they called me about it and
asked cause they knew I had
(19:08):
been in law enforcement where they get a,
they get a call from
somebody said that they
were with a sheriff's
office and they were, um,
following up on people who
had missed jury duty.
Now you might say, well,
I didn't have jury duty,
but they convince you that
you must've missed it.
Then you think, well,
I don't really look at all my mail.
Like I should.
Yeah.
So maybe I did.
Um, it went to the, you know, whatever.
(19:30):
Yeah.
And so they give you two choices and,
So in this example,
they gave you two choices.
They said, okay,
well you can report to the St.
Lucie County court on Monday
at nine o'clock and see the
clerk and clear it up.
Or if you'd like,
you can pay the fine now.
And you know, it's, you just need to,
(19:50):
we'll take a ETF out of
your bank account.
If you'd like to do that,
we can do that right now.
If you'd like to pay the and
how many people in that moment,
In that moment, think, well,
it's fifty bucks of least resistance.
Yeah.
You know,
they add on by they send a they
send an email when you question them.
(20:11):
They sent my friend this
email that looked like a KPS, a warrant,
a civil warrant with your
name on it because you missed jury duty.
And of course,
it's how easy it is to
replicate a public looking document.
Yeah.
Make it look real.
Yeah.
And they just say, OK,
after we receive payment, we will.
Send you a release.
(20:32):
Keep that release in case
you get pulled over and
this warrant's still in the system.
It sounded legit.
Luckily, this friend called and I said,
they don't do this.
They do not do this.
Believe me, they do not do this.
If you want to find out,
call the sheriff's office
and ask them if they do that.
So the IRS doesn't call you.
(20:54):
The sheriff's office,
the police department,
they don't call you.
The tax collector, they don't call you.
They send you a
communication by mail
usually is the way that works.
That's correct.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's correct.
So-
if you or if you have an
online portal or something
like that you know like I'm
thinking the uh I wonder if
(21:15):
uh social security if you
have a username on on
social security to they
reach out through that do
you think I don't know I
think it's only by mail but
I wonder yeah I think it's
by mail and I think most of
the criminals at least at
this point don't subject
themselves to mail because of the
the, why, uh,
the fraud cases by using the
(21:36):
postal service fence.
Yeah.
They get federal authorities
involved as actually a trail on this.
So, so that's a broad category.
If someone's claiming to be the government,
um,
please don't take their call.
And the other thing that
since I'm focused on some
(21:56):
law enforcement stuff here
is there's a lot of
entities that call you and
they have a very official
sounding name as some type of charity for,
you know,
the police benevolent association or.
I'm glad you brought that up.
I get those calls from time
to time and they always
have like a deep resonant voice too.
(22:18):
They do.
They sound like a retired
old police officer.
Yeah.
And I'm always like, you know,
you're always afraid you're
going to get pulled over
the next day if you don't
donate a little something, right?
Yeah.
I can assure you that ninety
nine percent of there might
be one real one out there
that some that I'm not aware of,
but they're not real.
they're not real um if you
(22:40):
want to make a donation if
something's compelling to
you we just lost three
deputies down here in a
horrific car accident and
you know they're raising
money for their families
but there's gofundme pages
set up you know by by loved
ones and you can validate
those and so forth but if
you just get an incoming
phone call you know please
(23:03):
don't fall for it because
it's not legitimate
Odds are it's not legitimate,
and you're opening up your
heart and your pocketbook
because you want to help
somebody like this.
But most of them, the super majority,
I haven't seen a real one,
but I just don't want to preclude it.
And if there is a real one,
you can validate that by
calling the sheriff's
office in this case and saying,
(23:25):
I saw that your three
deputies were killed.
I'd like to help.
How can I do that rather
than getting some link?
The same thing goes for
links on social media.
They may or may not be
legitimate charities.
There's plenty of scams there.
I hope we're not scaring people.
I know, really.
(23:47):
I'll share a recent one.
My mom called me just yesterday.
I think it was last night just saying, Hey,
I got,
I got something that your student
loans are overdue.
Should I,
should I do you know like
worried that I was going to
have a credit problem from
something that uh you know
was bogus right so um I was
(24:10):
like oh you don't worry
about that our student
loans my student loans were
paid a long time ago and uh
our kids are also you know
so don't worry about it
it's it's it's a it's a
come on you know there's
but there's all there's so
many creative ones I don't
know how they keep coming up with them
but they keep coming up with
(24:30):
them because it's a numbers game, right?
Right.
Yep.
And as soon as one idea is
saturated and the public is
reasonably well informed.
Yeah.
I mean this, you know, you,
you joked about the Nigerian prince,
but that's a joke now
because everybody kind of gets it,
but we've seen it so long.
Yeah.
When it started,
people were falling for it that they,
(24:52):
or they had won some lottery.
Right.
You just need to pay the
five hundred dollar processing fee.
It'll be between us.
That's right.
Then the other common one
that maybe we'll end on and
shift gears a little bit
but is if someone's
offering to send you a
check for something and
(25:14):
then they just need you to
send them a little money to
get it started or something?
No.
I had this a couple times
when I was a practicing attorney is that
They'll send you a check for
payment or they'll say,
I'm going to send you this
check for payment.
Oh, and then they'll call you back and say,
you know what?
I mailed it.
It's for too much.
(25:36):
I only, you know, I sent you, you know,
X dollars.
Could you mind just sending me back?
Could you write a check for
the difference that I received?
Right.
You check for five thousand.
Just send me the one thousand back.
The four thousand is for
this business that you're
going to run or this
product you're going to
sell for me to go buy it.
Are you going to be a secret shopper?
So this is for your purchases.
(25:58):
Right.
And so they send you a bank
check usually with some
name that sounds like a good bank.
Chris Boyd's bank could be right on it.
Jeff Berry's bank.
Right.
And sometimes they're even Canadian banks,
which delays the processing.
It's not a Canadian bank.
Sometimes it's Canadian bank
routing or whatever.
(26:18):
Right.
And so what happens is you take your check,
you bring it to your bank,
you put it in the bank and
three or four days goes by.
Like where's my money?
No, the money is still there,
but because the check is
fraudulent and perhaps at a
different country,
but even if it's fraudulent,
the process slows it down
because it just doesn't
automatically go through.
(26:40):
And so in the meantime,
you sent back a legitimate
check for that thousand dollars,
they cash it, which is a real check.
And by the time this happens,
because people aren't
checking their bank
accounts every day also,
you're out the money and
there's no one to get it
back from because that they
(27:02):
were never real in the first place.
It's not an insufficient funds check.
It's a full check.
It's all made up.
It's a bogus check,
so there's nothing to be obtained.
I would also, just as a rule of thumb,
if anyone is asking you to
send them money and gift
cards of some kind,
(27:23):
that's probably not legit.
Yeah.
it yeah it isn't legit or
that even worse they're
asking you to get the gift
card and read them the code
yeah so don't do that don't
do that that's not that's
not legit charities don't
collect money this way uh
law enforcement doesn't
collect bail money this way
(27:43):
um you don't and you know
we haven't even mentioned
it but cryptocurrency is
another method that
sometimes fraudster will
will ask you to buy a certain amount of
Pick your cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is the most common cryptocurrency.
And then transfer it to us and so forth,
right?
Right, exactly.
(28:06):
Just don't do it.
On the topic of fraud,
let's spend a few minutes, Chris,
if we have time.
Yeah, I just mentioned,
and maybe this is where
you're going with this,
but all this talk about
this kind of stuff raises the thought
From time to time,
it's probably a good idea
to do a credit check.
And you can always take a look.
(28:28):
There's lots of ways you can
do this with the credit
companies themselves.
But you can go to
freecreditreport.com as a
way to take a look at your
credit and look for any
identity theft or that kind of thing.
(28:48):
Right.
That's,
that's exactly where I wanted to
transition because
sometimes they're just stealing your,
we've given a bunch of
examples of where they're
stealing your information or your money.
When they steal your information,
they're not just getting
your information for no reason.
They intend to do something with it.
And sometimes it's creating
a whole new account,
(29:10):
applying for a credit card
or whatever the case may be in your name.
Um,
so you'll see that when you check your
credit report,
you'll see that you have this.
You're like,
I don't remember having a bank
of America credit card or whatever it is,
you know?
That's right.
Um,
worse.
I mean,
when there's like people going out
(29:30):
buying houses or something, right.
Isn't there stuff like
people trying to sell your
house out from under you or something?
I've heard some of these crazy stories.
I'm not sure that the insurance is, uh,
you know,
there's an insurance product
that you might hear advertised.
Um,
They're not doing anything
that you can't do.
(29:50):
This is all public record.
So they're not doing
anything that you can't do on your own.
You can check your county online.
I'd say in ninety nine
percent of the counties in the country,
you can check your.
It's not really checking
your deed because it really, you know,
you're checking the chain of title.
Yeah.
See if anybody's done
anything on your title and
(30:10):
you can check that.
know you put on your
calendar to check annually
or quarterly and just to
make sure there's nothing
after your purchase or no
mortgages on it or so sorry
I just say if you paid for
the insurance they're just
doing it for you and it's
in an automated fashion and
they're not preventing it
(30:31):
they're informing you that
somebody did it yeah right
and you can check yourself for nothing
So we've talked about this
notion about freezing your credit,
this ability so that if
someone tries to take out a
loan as if they're you,
(30:52):
they would be unable to do
that because you need a
credit report to be able to do that.
And this is something that
can be a possibility,
but it's definitely an inconvenience.
So you have to be deliberate
about being able to turn it
on and turn it off.
when you do that approach to
freezing credit.
We're in a world now, Jeff,
(31:12):
where we now have to think
about multi-factor inconvenience.
I mean, authentication.
You know, it's like,
not only do you have to have a password,
now the password has to be, you know,
changed every so often.
And it has to be not, you know,
four letters or numbers, but, you know,
eight letters or numbers.
No, it's got to be twelve, eight, or,
(31:32):
you know, all these, like,
longer and longer characters and
And now you got to have two
things come in.
One's going to hit you with
a text and the others, you know,
you put in your password or whatever.
Right.
It's right.
It gets to a point where, I mean,
it's pretty darn
frustrating to have to have this,
but it's for protection so
(31:52):
that you don't have these
kind of frustrations where
someone's running off with
your money in one form or
another or your your credit,
your identity, et cetera, et cetera.
Right.
If you're, if you're financial situation,
I mean, you're, you're like stable,
meaning you're not opening new cards.
You're not opening new bank accounts.
You're not out shopping for
(32:14):
insurance quotes because
sometimes they're related
to your credit score.
So if you're just kind of, I have my stuff,
I'm in this, I have my bank accounts.
I have these credit lines that I have.
I have this insurance.
I'm, I'm all happy with it.
I'm an advocate.
to freeze your credit reports.
It's a peace of mind thing.
But you're right.
You do have to be aware if
(32:35):
you go to buy a new car and
you think you might want to
explore a loan on it or if
you're shopping around for
new auto insurance,
you're going to have to
unfreeze it before you do
that or you won't be able
to get the vendor,
the car dealer or the
insurance company won't be
able to get a credit score
or a credit report when they ask for one.
(32:57):
So I do it.
My credit is frozen because I don't.
I think it's prudent.
It's challenging.
And then so you think those
Services where you get protection,
air quotes,
is maybe more just reporting than it is.
(33:21):
I do.
I do.
And I'm not, you know,
if people feel comfortable
with it and they think it's
worth the money.
to not have to do it themselves.
Maybe that's value.
That's fine.
People pay for coffee to
have it made for them.
And some people make it at home.
So it's not a value judgment.
I'm just saying,
don't think you're getting
(33:42):
this super protection.
It can still happen.
But you'd be alerted to it
in that scenario.
As we wind down,
there might be other things
you wanted to cover, Jeff.
But one thing I wanted to remind everyone,
if you want to hear more
about scams and schemes,
in June,
on the June tenth episode of
Something More with Chris Boyd,
(34:03):
we spoke with Bob Powell
about this very topic and
there'll probably be some
more tidbits you might
benefit from that as well.
Was there anything else you
wanted to cover, Jeff?
No, we could go on indefinitely,
but I guess I'll end my
comment on where I started
it is even if you are
(34:23):
reasonably confident that
whatever you're looking at is real,
just pause.
You know,
and think about how did I receive
this information?
And there's nothing wrong
with telling someone, I hear you,
I'm going to deal with this.
Give me your number and hang up or let the,
you know, if it's in person.
(34:45):
Good counsel, Jeff.
Step back.
Don't get caught up in this.
intended haste.
That's right.
Because it might catch you off guard.
Whereas if you can slow it down,
you have a moment to catch your breath.
Maybe you'll have the opportunity to say,
let me check on this.
(35:06):
Let me make sure this is the legit.
And if you don't have to
call the sheriff's office,
if that makes you nervous,
you can call a friend and say,
this just happened.
Does this make sense to you?
You can call
If you have a financial advisor,
I'd love you to call us, you know,
our clients.
Yeah.
(35:26):
Some of these things you can
even just Google.
That's right.
And there'll be all kinds of
insights about, you know,
some of these scams that are repeated.
Yeah.
You'll be able to identify
just with a quick search sometimes.
Yeah.
You can put anything that's
happening and put the word
scam after it and it will
highlight everything.
(35:46):
you know, the likely related subjects.
So just pause, talk to somebody,
even if it's little Johnny,
potentially in handcuffs behind,
behind the prison cells, you know,
five more minutes,
isn't going to change this, you know,
just, just pause,
talk to somebody and you
(36:08):
could be saving yourself a
lot of headache and a lot of money.
Because it can happen to you.
It can happen to all of us.
None of us are beyond
falling for something.
It's a huge fraudulent industry.
And there's a lot of money
that's transacted by virtue
of people unwittingly
falling prey to these kind of tactics.
(36:29):
So as much as we all think, well,
it doesn't happen to me.
It can happen to anybody.
It can.
It can.
All right.
Well, uh, good thoughts.
Uh, let's, I mean, tough, tough topic here,
Jeff.
I mean, there's a little scary stuff,
right?
But we, you know, knowledge is power.
Want to make sure that
you're in a better position.
(36:50):
If you see these things,
if they come up across your
email or your phone call or whatever,
you're in a better position
to be prepared.
Yep.
So, uh, with that, everybody,
thanks for being with us.
Um, until next time,
keep striving for something more.
Thank you for listening to
Something More with Chris Boyd.
Call us for help,
(37:10):
whether it's for financial
planning or portfolio management,
insurance concerns,
or those quality of life
issues that make the money
matters matter.
Whatever's on your mind,
visit us at
somethingmorewithchrisboyd.com
or call us toll free at eight, six, six,
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(37:30):
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(37:51):
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(00:22):
something more because we'd
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Here he is, your fulfillment facilitator,
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advising clients on Cape
Cod and across the country.
Here's your host, Jay Christopher Boyd.
(00:44):
Thank you for being with us
for another episode of
Something More with Chris Boyd.
I'm here with Jeff Perry.
We are both of the AMR team
at Wealth Enhancement Group,
and it is well into the
season where we start to do
our holiday shopping.
And there's that.
And we get distracted.
There's so much going on.
(01:05):
It's so busy.
Sure is.
It's an easy time to get
taken on a ride when it
comes to the scams and
fraudsters that are out there.
They seem to be getting
better and better each year, Jeff.
when it comes to some of
these scams no doubt no
doubt they're getting
better and better and their
(01:26):
tools are getting better
and better one of the
recent articles that I saw
was talking about AI I know
that seems to be everything
right in a positive side
and you know medical
advances AI and writing all
these tools that are
available now with the
developing technology of AI but
you think about it some of
(01:47):
the some of the obvious
signs of a scam whether
it's a phone call or an
email have been in the past
uh maybe individuals who uh
don't speak english native
language it's easier to
detect like idioms or
something but just the
grammar was poor or you'd be like
hmm well you're just really
(02:08):
a nigerian prince you know
yeah right but with ai not
only is will their writing
be better for us emails or
websites but also and this
one I hadn't I hadn't even
contemplated this one you
know we heard about fake uh
messages during the
political campaign of
someone's I'm going to use
the word spoofing I don't
know if I'm using it correctly but
(02:30):
Pretending to be someone else.
Yes.
So now they'll be able to create,
even if they don't speak,
even if the scammer is overseas,
they'll be able to create a
perfectly sounding American
business woman.
Yeah.
Audio and video.
They can even make a person
appear to be a fake person.
(02:52):
Absolutely.
Video content or replicate
someone who like,
you know how that grandchild scans.
That's right.
often here if there's
content of that individual
online they could
potentially replicate
that's right so that it
appears to be what they're saying
(03:12):
So if you post a photo or a video,
a video even better, right?
Yeah, that's right.
Of you and your grandchild doing something,
or the scammer goes from
your account to the
grandchild's TikTok account.
Right.
And there's endless content there.
Voices and images.
Or a lot of teenagers, yeah.
You could get a call that
sounds a lot like your grandchild.
(03:35):
Saying,
I'm in Europe and I need to get
bailed out or whatever.
That's right.
When I worked for the sheriff's office,
it wasn't a voice,
meaning a replica voice,
but we had scams that were
happening on the Cape where
someone would pose as a law
enforcement officer, call grandma and say,
(03:56):
all right,
we have your grandchild Joey in here.
And they'd say a few things
about Joey based upon
Joey's social media.
He got picked up for shoplifting.
You know, we had to take him in.
The merchant was really great.
Joey would never shoplift.
Well,
he asked us to call you because he is
too nervous about calling his parents.
(04:19):
And I think I'm going to be
able actually to get the
merchant to drop the charges.
but we just need two hundred
dollars to release joey and
uh if you'd like to do it
right away so he doesn't
have to stay here if you
just run down to the cvs so
they can get a gift card
get a green card and get a
gift card and you know so I
think the theme of
(04:39):
everything we want to talk
about in this episode chris is
go slower, pause.
When something happens that
you're reacting to quickly,
especially if it's not in person,
even if it is in person,
but just slow down, right?
Slow down and say, can I get back to you?
Like for the one I was
(05:00):
explaining that happened on
the Cape when I was working
at the sheriff's office,
if the people just said, okay, um,
I have somebody here right now.
Can you just give me your
phone number to call back
and I'll get right on this.
You don't you don't have to
challenge the person calling.
Yeah.
Just be as if you're going
(05:21):
to go along with it.
Maybe say, OK,
let me get let me get back to you.
I need to raise some funds
or whatever it is.
Yeah.
Then you don't call that number, though.
No,
you don't call the number that they
give you.
You go to the original source.
So that's how we found out
the sheriff's office.
Because people would call
the sheriff's office and say,
did someone just call here?
(05:41):
Do you have Joey in custody?
And we were able to.
They're like, don't know who Joey is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Something's going on.
To the AI point,
that's just being magnified
with the advances in
artificial intelligence.
It's going to make it harder
(06:02):
to really discern.
Even before AI, when you get emails,
nowadays you get an email,
it looks like it's from an
official source with a
statement or something.
I'll call it FedEx or something.
know the postal service or
something right there'll be
a communication uh a a bill
(06:25):
like a credit card or
something and it's like oh
you have this fraudulent
sure charge and if you just
click through here we can
you know, rectify it or whatever.
So like sometimes it's stuff you're like,
you just can fall suspect like, Oh,
is this really, is this far?
Is this fake?
And sometimes it's so,
(06:46):
it appears to be good
enough that you could think, Oh,
maybe it is.
Or if you're not paying close attention,
you wouldn't catch that.
It's,
a bogus one oh the email
address is not an email
address that would be that
institution well they can
they can make it look
pretty close so they can
hide it they can encrypt
the email address and so it
still says u.s post office
(07:07):
until you click the actual
email address yeah and
before you know you're
entering your name date of
birth so security number
address you know to file
this claim on this fraudulent thing and
And that's if you just give
them your identities and
you don't start giving them
your bank account number so
they can refund the number.
(07:27):
And I know a lot of people
who are listening right now
say that would never,
happen to me.
And, you know, I feel,
I feel the same way.
I'm one of those people who would say,
I wouldn't fall.
No, I wouldn't fall for that.
But they would catch you at a weak moment,
a distracted moment.
Um, and, uh, just it's,
(07:49):
it happens to everybody,
people who you would say,
how did they fall for that?
Right.
Not, I mean, if someone is, um,
Oftentimes elderly are the
target of some of these things,
partly because sometimes
they're less technology savvy, right?
(08:10):
Technologically savvy.
Sometimes it's because they
may be at an age where they
are not as cognitively astute.
And so they may be in the habit of
being generous anyway at
this stage of life or whatever it is,
(08:31):
right?
So there's all these prompts
that can make them more
susceptible to these kinds of issues.
But it doesn't have to be
because anyone is
technologically inept or a
variety of reasons.
I think anybody can fall
(08:52):
susceptible to these things
now because they've gotten
so good at being deceptive.
Right.
They learn every day.
The fraudsters learn every
day what the objections are
and what point they're being questioned.
And they're just modifying
their tactics to deal with
those objections.
And so I wanted to bring
this some of these common
(09:12):
or new scams up.
It is, by the way,
International Fraud Awareness Week.
And your wife, Kristen,
actually let me know
because we had a client,
we have a client who,
not related to the accounts
that she has with us,
but I was talking to her
about another matter and
she let me know that she
(09:34):
had fallen prey to one of these scams.
It all started on Facebook.
And, you know, say Facebook,
people know there's scams there,
but she got a message saying,
in her message you know the
private messages messenger
yeah that looked to her
perfectly that this was a
fraud this was facebook
(09:56):
fraud bureau whatever they
called themselves okay and
they had some facebook
trying to rectify this
looking from facebook in
facebook private message
that said, you know,
your account has been hacked.
We need to clean this up.
Don't worry about this.
And we'll help you resolve it.
And the key in the door was, and you know,
(10:20):
this,
this person is a very intelligent person.
I would not think she would
have done this.
And she today would say it's my fault,
but she allowed them to download.
She downloaded a file and,
to allow them access to her computer.
And then from there, just, you know,
(10:43):
they cloned it or whatever
they did and gained all
these personal information.
And then they're off to the races,
opening new accounts and bank accounts.
And wow.
Wow.
So, you know,
someone's posing as client service.
Um, incidentally, just, um,
you probably haven't seen this,
but there's a movie called beekeeper.
Have you ever seen this?
(11:03):
I think I have.
Yes.
Um, it's an action flick really,
but the premise starts off
with the same kind of thing where someone,
um,
is getting a little bit of
technological technology support,
whatever.
Right.
And they, uh,
they basically wipe out their
bank accounts through this process.
(11:24):
Same kind of concept, you know?
a little bit of trickery and, oh, Josh,
I withdrew, you know,
I was supposed to take
fifty thousand dollars.
It's now fifty thousand
dollars or whatever it is.
Gosh, I need to get that back.
Can you just front me that
money or whatever?
And ultimately they they wipe them out,
(11:46):
you know, this fictional event.
But I don't think it's
entirely hard to stretch to
think these kind of things happen.
you know and you know for
the facebook you're
thinking like there's
fraudulent people like
pretending to be other
people but you're on it and
you get a private message
from an entity that looks
like them and they're
(12:07):
trying to help you right
and so people may have
these experience with work with
Someone else would log into
their computer to fix something,
which is really normal to
give somebody authority.
I got hacked on Facebook
once before where we had
credit card information on
the account to be able to do advertising.
(12:29):
Right.
And someone somehow hacked
in and had false charges.
They bought all kinds of
stuff through that credit card link.
Yeah.
So it's, it's really endless.
And so you're not going to
be able to prevent everything, anything.
If there's a data breach at a company,
that's not your fault.
And you know,
you'll be protected
ultimately by your credit card.
(12:50):
But when something is going on,
whether it's a call or a
mess incoming message to you,
the best advice for,
we'll go over some of these quickly,
but the best advice is just to pause.
Right.
So you talked about those fake invoices.
Um,
Sometimes it'll be from PayPal even,
(13:11):
or a credit card, or it'll be a bank,
Wells Fargo, Bank of America.
And does fraudsters know that
only ten percent of the
people that they're giving
enough people have that
bank account that they'll
think twice right oh it's
the wells fargo I have a
wells fargo checking
account this must be right
whereas you I don't know if
(13:31):
you I don't have wells
fargo so I look at that and
be like yeah it's a scam
it's just the more personal
they can make it to you the
more likely you are to fall
for this right right or the
paypal one is um
They'll send you an invoice, like you said,
and says this item's being shipped.
If you have any questions
about your billing, click here.
(13:54):
And then you're heading down
that rabbit hole.
Where they're dropping
something on your computer
or whatever it might be.
So if you pause in those examples,
or when you get a phone call, whatever,
if you just pause and say, okay,
I'm not going to trust anything.
And I hate to live like that,
but you kind of have to.
(14:14):
All right, this is Wells Fargo.
I have a Wells Fargo account.
Let me log in separately to
a link that you saved that
you know is legitimate and to see.
And if you want to go
further to use a customer
service number or go to the bank itself,
but to know that...
is legitimate and you choose
the number that you call,
(14:35):
not the number that they're giving you.
Right.
yeah I had uh something this
while ago I probably told
you this jeff I went to um
I was in california and
went to the gas station and
somehow they spoofed my
card maybe a scanner some
kind of thing right so um
so I when I'm back here I
(14:56):
got a call saying you know
are you charging something
in california and I'm like
who is this I'm thinking
the bank it's like
Do you think this call is a scam?
I'm thinking it's a scam from the bank.
Like, what is this?
I'll call you back.
So I called the bank.
And they're like, yeah,
are you in California?
(15:16):
Because there's charges
going on your card.
And I'm like,
no you know so I don't know
how it happened other than
I think they think it was
when I went to get gas um
somehow the the pump had
been compromised in a way
that the strips uh when you
were doing your bank card
got captured somehow so um in any case um
(15:40):
Yeah, so you have to,
even when they're trying to
protect you from the fraud, you're like,
all right, are you real?
It's a terrible posture to maintain,
but you kind of have to.
Another scam that's recent, which...
I might have been
susceptible to it because
(16:00):
I've done this before.
Sometimes the best way to
get an airline's attention, you know,
when you have long customer
service or people have been
resorting to Twitter or
social media posts.
You can comment on social
media and oftentimes
they're paying attention.
I did this with a JetBlue incident.
It could be any airline.
This is an anti-JetBlue.
(16:20):
I love JetBlue.
I got my issues with JetBlue.
I used to love JetBlue.
Okay.
Well,
I was having an issue with JetBlue
about something,
and so they weren't responding,
and it was very frustrating.
So when I was on Twitter,
which I'm not anymore,
but when I was on Twitter, I did it,
and I tagged them, so to speak,
(16:43):
at JetBlue.
Yeah.
And I instantly got a message back,
a private message from JetBlue.
So was it really JetBlue?
It was real.
And I got it.
And they said,
we're sorry to hear about this.
Can you give us the ticket number?
And I gave them the ticket number,
which really isn't that harmful, I guess.
But I didn't process anything.
(17:04):
I made a complaint.
Here's JetBlue.
They're helping me.
I'm a happier person.
Right.
And so it worked out.
They helped me with the situation.
But now there are people faking that.
Well, they're faking the name.
So they create a handle that says,
I don't know, doing it somehow.
(17:25):
Blue assistance or whatever, right?
Yeah.
I'm making that up.
I don't know if that's a real thing.
Whatever.
You get the point.
Right.
And then they troll for
these posts and they find
one and they contact you and they'll say,
sorry to hear about your trouble.
Can I validate that it's you?
Would you please give us your name,
database, social security number,
(17:45):
bank account number,
as much as you'll give them.
yeah they'll take and
obviously they're not gonna
fix your problem so that's
very interesting so you can
be it you know the first
examples where you're not
doing business with these people like a
email that you get from PayPal or Best Buy,
(18:07):
Geek Squad or all the common ones,
or a bank that you don't do
business with.
That's something coming at
you and you're maybe heightened security,
but this is one that you
reach out to an entity.
And something comes back to
you and it looks like it's
who you contacted.
Right.
So that's,
(18:27):
I think you're a bit more
vulnerable in situations.
That's really insidious.
You know, as you're,
you're trying to solve this
waiting online with
whatever your frustration
is and you're at wit's end and yeah,
catch you when you're weak.
Right.
When you're with these kinds of things,
what are some other ones that are common?
(18:48):
I think I can make a blanket
category here is the
government's trying to, um,
find you because you missed
the IRS or a common one down here was a,
uh,
actually friend of ours got this call.
They didn't fall for it, but they called,
they called me about it and
asked cause they knew I had
(19:08):
been in law enforcement where they get a,
they get a call from
somebody said that they
were with a sheriff's
office and they were, um,
following up on people who
had missed jury duty.
Now you might say, well,
I didn't have jury duty,
but they convince you that
you must've missed it.
Then you think, well,
I don't really look at all my mail.
Like I should.
Yeah.
So maybe I did.
Um, it went to the, you know, whatever.
(19:30):
Yeah.
And so they give you two choices and,
So in this example,
they gave you two choices.
They said, okay,
well you can report to the St.
Lucie County court on Monday
at nine o'clock and see the
clerk and clear it up.
Or if you'd like,
you can pay the fine now.
And you know, it's, you just need to,
(19:50):
we'll take a ETF out of
your bank account.
If you'd like to do that,
we can do that right now.
If you'd like to pay the and
how many people in that moment,
In that moment, think, well,
it's fifty bucks of least resistance.
Yeah.
You know,
they add on by they send a they
send an email when you question them.
(20:11):
They sent my friend this
email that looked like a KPS, a warrant,
a civil warrant with your
name on it because you missed jury duty.
And of course,
it's how easy it is to
replicate a public looking document.
Yeah.
Make it look real.
Yeah.
And they just say, OK,
after we receive payment, we will.
Send you a release.
(20:32):
Keep that release in case
you get pulled over and
this warrant's still in the system.
It sounded legit.
Luckily, this friend called and I said,
they don't do this.
They do not do this.
Believe me, they do not do this.
If you want to find out,
call the sheriff's office
and ask them if they do that.
So the IRS doesn't call you.
(20:54):
The sheriff's office,
the police department,
they don't call you.
The tax collector, they don't call you.
They send you a
communication by mail
usually is the way that works.
That's correct.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's correct.
So-
if you or if you have an
online portal or something
like that you know like I'm
thinking the uh I wonder if
(21:15):
uh social security if you
have a username on on
social security to they
reach out through that do
you think I don't know I
think it's only by mail but
I wonder yeah I think it's
by mail and I think most of
the criminals at least at
this point don't subject
themselves to mail because of the
the, why, uh,
the fraud cases by using the
(21:36):
postal service fence.
Yeah.
They get federal authorities
involved as actually a trail on this.
So, so that's a broad category.
If someone's claiming to be the government,
um,
please don't take their call.
And the other thing that
since I'm focused on some
(21:56):
law enforcement stuff here
is there's a lot of
entities that call you and
they have a very official
sounding name as some type of charity for,
you know,
the police benevolent association or.
I'm glad you brought that up.
I get those calls from time
to time and they always
have like a deep resonant voice too.
(22:18):
They do.
They sound like a retired
old police officer.
Yeah.
And I'm always like, you know,
you're always afraid you're
going to get pulled over
the next day if you don't
donate a little something, right?
Yeah.
I can assure you that ninety
nine percent of there might
be one real one out there
that some that I'm not aware of,
but they're not real.
they're not real um if you
(22:40):
want to make a donation if
something's compelling to
you we just lost three
deputies down here in a
horrific car accident and
you know they're raising
money for their families
but there's gofundme pages
set up you know by by loved
ones and you can validate
those and so forth but if
you just get an incoming
phone call you know please
(23:03):
don't fall for it because
it's not legitimate
Odds are it's not legitimate,
and you're opening up your
heart and your pocketbook
because you want to help
somebody like this.
But most of them, the super majority,
I haven't seen a real one,
but I just don't want to preclude it.
And if there is a real one,
you can validate that by
calling the sheriff's
office in this case and saying,
(23:25):
I saw that your three
deputies were killed.
I'd like to help.
How can I do that rather
than getting some link?
The same thing goes for
links on social media.
They may or may not be
legitimate charities.
There's plenty of scams there.
I hope we're not scaring people.
I know, really.
(23:47):
I'll share a recent one.
My mom called me just yesterday.
I think it was last night just saying, Hey,
I got,
I got something that your student
loans are overdue.
Should I,
should I do you know like
worried that I was going to
have a credit problem from
something that uh you know
was bogus right so um I was
(24:10):
like oh you don't worry
about that our student
loans my student loans were
paid a long time ago and uh
our kids are also you know
so don't worry about it
it's it's it's a it's a
come on you know there's
but there's all there's so
many creative ones I don't
know how they keep coming up with them
but they keep coming up with
(24:30):
them because it's a numbers game, right?
Right.
Yep.
And as soon as one idea is
saturated and the public is
reasonably well informed.
Yeah.
I mean this, you know, you,
you joked about the Nigerian prince,
but that's a joke now
because everybody kind of gets it,
but we've seen it so long.
Yeah.
When it started,
people were falling for it that they,
(24:52):
or they had won some lottery.
Right.
You just need to pay the
five hundred dollar processing fee.
It'll be between us.
That's right.
Then the other common one
that maybe we'll end on and
shift gears a little bit
but is if someone's
offering to send you a
check for something and
(25:14):
then they just need you to
send them a little money to
get it started or something?
No.
I had this a couple times
when I was a practicing attorney is that
They'll send you a check for
payment or they'll say,
I'm going to send you this
check for payment.
Oh, and then they'll call you back and say,
you know what?
I mailed it.
It's for too much.
(25:36):
I only, you know, I sent you, you know,
X dollars.
Could you mind just sending me back?
Could you write a check for
the difference that I received?
Right.
You check for five thousand.
Just send me the one thousand back.
The four thousand is for
this business that you're
going to run or this
product you're going to
sell for me to go buy it.
Are you going to be a secret shopper?
So this is for your purchases.
(25:58):
Right.
And so they send you a bank
check usually with some
name that sounds like a good bank.
Chris Boyd's bank could be right on it.
Jeff Berry's bank.
Right.
And sometimes they're even Canadian banks,
which delays the processing.
It's not a Canadian bank.
Sometimes it's Canadian bank
routing or whatever.
(26:18):
Right.
And so what happens is you take your check,
you bring it to your bank,
you put it in the bank and
three or four days goes by.
Like where's my money?
No, the money is still there,
but because the check is
fraudulent and perhaps at a
different country,
but even if it's fraudulent,
the process slows it down
because it just doesn't
automatically go through.
(26:40):
And so in the meantime,
you sent back a legitimate
check for that thousand dollars,
they cash it, which is a real check.
And by the time this happens,
because people aren't
checking their bank
accounts every day also,
you're out the money and
there's no one to get it
back from because that they
(27:02):
were never real in the first place.
It's not an insufficient funds check.
It's a full check.
It's all made up.
It's a bogus check,
so there's nothing to be obtained.
I would also, just as a rule of thumb,
if anyone is asking you to
send them money and gift
cards of some kind,
(27:23):
that's probably not legit.
Yeah.
it yeah it isn't legit or
that even worse they're
asking you to get the gift
card and read them the code
yeah so don't do that don't
do that that's not that's
not legit charities don't
collect money this way uh
law enforcement doesn't
collect bail money this way
(27:43):
um you don't and you know
we haven't even mentioned
it but cryptocurrency is
another method that
sometimes fraudster will
will ask you to buy a certain amount of
Pick your cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is the most common cryptocurrency.
And then transfer it to us and so forth,
right?
Right, exactly.
(28:06):
Just don't do it.
On the topic of fraud,
let's spend a few minutes, Chris,
if we have time.
Yeah, I just mentioned,
and maybe this is where
you're going with this,
but all this talk about
this kind of stuff raises the thought
From time to time,
it's probably a good idea
to do a credit check.
And you can always take a look.
(28:28):
There's lots of ways you can
do this with the credit
companies themselves.
But you can go to
freecreditreport.com as a
way to take a look at your
credit and look for any
identity theft or that kind of thing.
(28:48):
Right.
That's,
that's exactly where I wanted to
transition because
sometimes they're just stealing your,
we've given a bunch of
examples of where they're
stealing your information or your money.
When they steal your information,
they're not just getting
your information for no reason.
They intend to do something with it.
And sometimes it's creating
a whole new account,
(29:10):
applying for a credit card
or whatever the case may be in your name.
Um,
so you'll see that when you check your
credit report,
you'll see that you have this.
You're like,
I don't remember having a bank
of America credit card or whatever it is,
you know?
That's right.
Um,
worse.
I mean,
when there's like people going out
(29:30):
buying houses or something, right.
Isn't there stuff like
people trying to sell your
house out from under you or something?
I've heard some of these crazy stories.
I'm not sure that the insurance is, uh,
you know,
there's an insurance product
that you might hear advertised.
Um,
They're not doing anything
that you can't do.
(29:50):
This is all public record.
So they're not doing
anything that you can't do on your own.
You can check your county online.
I'd say in ninety nine
percent of the counties in the country,
you can check your.
It's not really checking
your deed because it really, you know,
you're checking the chain of title.
Yeah.
See if anybody's done
anything on your title and
(30:10):
you can check that.
know you put on your
calendar to check annually
or quarterly and just to
make sure there's nothing
after your purchase or no
mortgages on it or so sorry
I just say if you paid for
the insurance they're just
doing it for you and it's
in an automated fashion and
they're not preventing it
(30:31):
they're informing you that
somebody did it yeah right
and you can check yourself for nothing
So we've talked about this
notion about freezing your credit,
this ability so that if
someone tries to take out a
loan as if they're you,
(30:52):
they would be unable to do
that because you need a
credit report to be able to do that.
And this is something that
can be a possibility,
but it's definitely an inconvenience.
So you have to be deliberate
about being able to turn it
on and turn it off.
when you do that approach to
freezing credit.
We're in a world now, Jeff,
(31:12):
where we now have to think
about multi-factor inconvenience.
I mean, authentication.
You know, it's like,
not only do you have to have a password,
now the password has to be, you know,
changed every so often.
And it has to be not, you know,
four letters or numbers, but, you know,
eight letters or numbers.
No, it's got to be twelve, eight, or,
(31:32):
you know, all these, like,
longer and longer characters and
And now you got to have two
things come in.
One's going to hit you with
a text and the others, you know,
you put in your password or whatever.
Right.
It's right.
It gets to a point where, I mean,
it's pretty darn
frustrating to have to have this,
but it's for protection so
(31:52):
that you don't have these
kind of frustrations where
someone's running off with
your money in one form or
another or your your credit,
your identity, et cetera, et cetera.
Right.
If you're, if you're financial situation,
I mean, you're, you're like stable,
meaning you're not opening new cards.
You're not opening new bank accounts.
You're not out shopping for
(32:14):
insurance quotes because
sometimes they're related
to your credit score.
So if you're just kind of, I have my stuff,
I'm in this, I have my bank accounts.
I have these credit lines that I have.
I have this insurance.
I'm, I'm all happy with it.
I'm an advocate.
to freeze your credit reports.
It's a peace of mind thing.
But you're right.
You do have to be aware if
(32:35):
you go to buy a new car and
you think you might want to
explore a loan on it or if
you're shopping around for
new auto insurance,
you're going to have to
unfreeze it before you do
that or you won't be able
to get the vendor,
the car dealer or the
insurance company won't be
able to get a credit score
or a credit report when they ask for one.
(32:57):
So I do it.
My credit is frozen because I don't.
I think it's prudent.
It's challenging.
And then so you think those
Services where you get protection,
air quotes,
is maybe more just reporting than it is.
(33:21):
I do.
I do.
And I'm not, you know,
if people feel comfortable
with it and they think it's
worth the money.
to not have to do it themselves.
Maybe that's value.
That's fine.
People pay for coffee to
have it made for them.
And some people make it at home.
So it's not a value judgment.
I'm just saying,
don't think you're getting
(33:42):
this super protection.
It can still happen.
But you'd be alerted to it
in that scenario.
As we wind down,
there might be other things
you wanted to cover, Jeff.
But one thing I wanted to remind everyone,
if you want to hear more
about scams and schemes,
in June,
on the June tenth episode of
Something More with Chris Boyd,
(34:03):
we spoke with Bob Powell
about this very topic and
there'll probably be some
more tidbits you might
benefit from that as well.
Was there anything else you
wanted to cover, Jeff?
No, we could go on indefinitely,
but I guess I'll end my
comment on where I started
it is even if you are
(34:23):
reasonably confident that
whatever you're looking at is real,
just pause.
You know,
and think about how did I receive
this information?
And there's nothing wrong
with telling someone, I hear you,
I'm going to deal with this.
Give me your number and hang up or let the,
you know, if it's in person.
(34:45):
Good counsel, Jeff.
Step back.
Don't get caught up in this.
intended haste.
That's right.
Because it might catch you off guard.
Whereas if you can slow it down,
you have a moment to catch your breath.
Maybe you'll have the opportunity to say,
let me check on this.
(35:06):
Let me make sure this is the legit.
And if you don't have to
call the sheriff's office,
if that makes you nervous,
you can call a friend and say,
this just happened.
Does this make sense to you?
You can call
If you have a financial advisor,
I'd love you to call us, you know,
our clients.
Yeah.
(35:26):
Some of these things you can
even just Google.
That's right.
And there'll be all kinds of
insights about, you know,
some of these scams that are repeated.
Yeah.
You'll be able to identify
just with a quick search sometimes.
Yeah.
You can put anything that's
happening and put the word
scam after it and it will
highlight everything.
(35:46):
you know, the likely related subjects.
So just pause, talk to somebody,
even if it's little Johnny,
potentially in handcuffs behind,
behind the prison cells, you know,
five more minutes,
isn't going to change this, you know,
just, just pause,
talk to somebody and you
(36:08):
could be saving yourself a
lot of headache and a lot of money.
Because it can happen to you.
It can happen to all of us.
None of us are beyond
falling for something.
It's a huge fraudulent industry.
And there's a lot of money
that's transacted by virtue
of people unwittingly
falling prey to these kind of tactics.
(36:29):
So as much as we all think, well,
it doesn't happen to me.
It can happen to anybody.
It can.
It can.
All right.
Well, uh, good thoughts.
Uh, let's, I mean, tough, tough topic here,
Jeff.
I mean, there's a little scary stuff,
right?
But we, you know, knowledge is power.
Want to make sure that
you're in a better position.
(36:50):
If you see these things,
if they come up across your
email or your phone call or whatever,
you're in a better position
to be prepared.
Yep.
So, uh, with that, everybody,
thanks for being with us.
Um, until next time,
keep striving for something more.
Thank you for listening to
Something More with Chris Boyd.
Call us for help,
(37:10):
whether it's for financial
planning or portfolio management,
insurance concerns,
or those quality of life
issues that make the money
matters matter.
Whatever's on your mind,
visit us at
somethingmorewithchrisboyd.com
or call us toll free at eight, six, six,
seven, seven, one, eight, nine, zero, one,
or send us your questions
(37:30):
to amr-info at wealthenhancement.com.
you're listening to
something more with chris
boyd financial talk show
wealth enhancement advisory
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christopher boyd provide
investment advice on an
individual basis to clients
only proper advice depends
on a complete analysis of
all facts and circumstances
the information given on
this program is general
financial comments and
cannot be relied upon as
(37:51):
pertaining to your specific
situation wealth
enhancement group cannot
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