February 12, 2024 • 30 mins
Everyone's identity is online, whether the user accesses or not. From banks to the federal government, social media and medical records, it's all there online. While entities work to protect one's information, it's not an exact science. Today's guest is Megan Cox from the Federal Trade Commission, talking about the dangers and the resources to deal with it.
In the second segment, Alyson Poling from the Greater Cincinnati American Heart Association shares the resources to live longer and protect your heart.
In the second segment, Alyson Poling from the Greater Cincinnati American Heart Association shares the resources to live longer and protect your heart.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This week on iHeart Sense, whetheryou use the Internet or not, you
could still be the victim of identitytheft, getting any communications that you aren't
expecting, whether it's through text oremail. If you're worried, listen to
your gut. So why is that? Because companies from your power company to
your bank, the government, andif you have it, social media all
(00:22):
store that information on their servers andthat could be hacked. The Federal Trade
Commission fights identity theft. My guesttoday is Megan Cox. She'll explain where
the threats are and has some helpfuladvice to help protect you, your family
and your money. And later,February is all about the heart and not
just counting Valentine's Day. The AmericanHeart Association has been working for one hundred
(00:45):
years this year to research heart diseaseand its related illnesses and educate people about
the number one killer of women inthe US. There's a huge gap and
what we know about men and whatwe know about women. My guest is
Alison Poul, the executive director andvice president of the Greater Cincinnati American Heart
Association. Now on iHeart Sinsey withSandy Collins, This is iHeart Sinsey a
(01:11):
show for the community to find resourcesyou need to solve the many issues we
face here and we share stories thatembolden and uplift tri staters. My first
guest today Megan Cox of the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission. Okay,
Megan, so tell me about whatthe FTC does to deal with identity theft.
(01:32):
Sure. The FTCs are nation's consumerprotection agency and so part of that
we collect reports of identity theft.So at identity theft dot gov, consumers
can go if they've had an issuewith consumer identity theft and answer some questions,
share their experiences, and as partof that they can get a step
by step instructions on how to recover. But also that report isn't available to
(01:53):
thousands of law enforcement agencies nationwide tohelp us understand what scam are trending and
how to better protect consumers so wecan more target our enforcement actions against scams
that people are seeing in the marketplace. Yeah. Would you say, Megan,
that which is a bigger problem.Is it like hackers that get into
(02:14):
systems and steal thousands of records oris it those targeted scams that come to
your email and steal from you directlysteal your identity or your money. It's
hard to say directly how these thievesand prodsters get our information. So some
folks that are able to get information, some thieves from data breaches, then
(02:34):
use it to target our emails andour text messages with the information they know
that they were able to buy onthe black market or that they were able
to hack and get themselves. Soif your information was exposed in a data
breach, you should be extra vigilant. Monitor your credit reports to make sure
there are no new accounts listed thatyou didn't authorize, and keep track of
your bills, and if you dosee something suspicious, we do suggest you
(02:57):
go to identity theft dot gov.Should also be skeptical if you're getting any
communications that you aren't expecting, whetherit's through text or email, If you
are suspicious of something, if you'reworried, listen to your gut and check
with the company before you do anything. If this text or email is purportedly
coming from your bank or a utilityor something like that, so that you
(03:19):
know you can contact the company frominformation for a good number or a good
website that you know is accurate andnot click on any extra links or any
images that are sent to you thatare unsolicited. In particular, I've been
hearing warnings about AI now and howyou're able to take someone's recorded voice and
(03:39):
then change it and create a messagethat sounds like it's from your boss or
from your friend, and then callyou up with it and pretend that it's
you. And I heard and itsounds very believable. I heard of a
story here just in the last coupleof months. A security company itself had
a mid level manager get a phonecall from the boss and he heard the
(04:02):
voice and he said, listen,I'm traveling, I've got to run,
I've got to get get to theairplane. I'm going to text you.
I need you to send me somemoney. And the guy says okay,
And so he ends up sending moneyto this to this texture, and then
thought about it after he did it, and thought, wait a minute,
And so then he called his bossback, and his boss had never done
(04:24):
it, and they were talking abouthow, you know, how ironic that
is this The company actually watches forthis, and they got pulled in.
So we know that the people whoare you know, even the most aware
of it, can still become caughtup in something that's getting more and more
sophisticated. What are you seeing nowas the big trends in scamming this year?
(04:47):
Identity theft still tops the list onepoint one million reports in twenty twenty
two and in the latest quarter wehave the data is still coming in on
twenty twenty three, but it wasstill very common. So and the most
common forms of identity theft under thatcomplaint are when somebody opens a new credit
card account in your name, sothey have your personal information and get a
(05:10):
new credit account, so that wouldshow up on your credit report. So
that's number one, and number twois when somebody gets a business or personal
loan in your name. Are thebig complaints that we're seeing, and they
will run up the bill and thenwalk away and then leave you with trying
to prove that you didn't do itright. Yes, so if you don't
find out till after the fact andit's on your credit report, then it
(05:33):
can be burdensome to go through thatprocess to dispute the wrong information that's on
your account and get it removed.I had this happen well before the World
Wide Web in the late eighties somebodychanged the address on a credit card for
me. I think it was Sears, and I stopped getting the bills and
just kind of forgot about it.I was young and didn't even think about
(05:55):
it. I wasn't getting the bills. So finally the company called me asking
for a payment, and we checkand here that someone had changed my address
and was getting my card at theirlocation, and so we shut the account
down. But I never learned whathappened. I didn't see any damage from
what happened. I didn't get anybills. So any idea, Megan,
help me figure this out? Whatwould they possibly have gained from that?
(06:19):
Was it an identity theft where theystole the information but you're not sure they
got anything out of it? Yeah? Charging to it? Yeah? Oh
interesting? Yeah, so they changedso they were mailing my bill to North
Carolina. It's not like they openedup a new account and we're using that
(06:39):
and sending it to me. Theyactually just was taking my bill. I
thought, well, don't they justpad for me? But but anyway,
so that's just always been weird.I used that for proof of residency.
I mean, if they I wouldbe worried about other forms of identity theft
where if they were able to showa bill to somebody to otherwise your identity
and you would move, or formedical coverage or some other thing. Yeah,
(07:02):
I never did. For glad nothingcame about me. Me too,
Me too. So romance scams,I'm hearing about this. We're getting a
lot of emails into the newsroom fromcompanies that are in the industry warning about
romance scams. Do you have anyinsight on that. Yes, that has
been something we've heard about for severalyears now, where somebody gains your trust
(07:24):
through communicating over online platforms, perhapssharing photos, and just build trust and
intimacy and then try to hook youinto sending them money. In many cases
where there's a scam at part ofthis because they create some sort of urgency
you or they're saying they're going tocome travel to see you, or you
(07:44):
should come travel to them, orthey'll be able to come see you and
live happily with you and spend moretime together if only they can do X
y Z in their hometown before they'reable to come to you. So we
very much encourage everybody to be veryscam of these claims. If there's asking
for large amounts of money because alot of people have lost their life savings
(08:07):
in helping somebody they think is nearand dear to them, but in reality
was a fraudster and they get theirheart broke. Yes, yeah, So
how do you protect yourself from identitytheft or is it even possible? Well,
there's some steps to take. Weencourage everybody to check your credit report
regularly for those new account frauds,so you could spot if new credit cards
(08:28):
are opened in your name or ifthere are new accounts. We encourage everybody
to keep records with personal or financialinformation in safe place underlocking key if possible,
and don't share your information with anyonewho gets in touch with you to
ask for it. So, whetherit's your social Security number, your banking
information, the IRS, your bank, your employer, they either should have
(08:50):
the information they need there and ifyou should hang up and reach out to
them if they need something further fromyou, and be skeptical of who initiate
that contact over the phone. Youknow, the IRS and the Social Security
Administration would likely reach you in themail, and so protect your information online
as well, so you know somethings we need hard copies in the mail
(09:13):
and you need to rely upon that. And it's tempting to think that things
could be resolved over the computer orphone sometimes, but it is best to
be skeptical of that. Contact thecompany, affirmatively from trusted sources, and
protect your information online by using strongpasswords, multi factor authentication where you can,
and keeping that information private. Oneof the things that's driving me crazy,
(09:37):
Megan, is you'll go to thedoctor, or you'll go to the
hospital or go somewhere, and thenthey send you a text later and ask
you to fill out a survey abouthow well you were treated or how you
or your experience was. Your packageis being delivered, but we have the
wrong address, you know, clickhere. I mean, you're getting a
lot of these scams that want youto respond to Is there any way that
(10:01):
you can recommend people. Should theyjust ignore those kinds of things overall completely,
or do you have any suggestion ifyou want to bake a positive report,
I would affirmatively ask the doctor whereto go to give that kind of
feedback. Otherwise I would encourage peopleto be very skeptical of text messages if
it was a source you haven't seenbefore or a service you don't recognize the
(10:24):
web address for the URL. Iwould encourage you to not click on any
links like that and rather reach outto the doctor's office. If there's a
package you're expecting, navigate to thepostal service that you think is delivering it
and try to track that affirmatively inthat way and not click on any links
unless it's something that you've specifically askedfor. Is that something that we should
(10:48):
share with you? If we getthose little scam texts says, hey,
your package is waiting here, whichyou're not waiting for a package. Your
package is waiting here just to haveto update your address. Should we just
turn around and report that to somebodyto the FTC. Yes, we accept
complaints at Consumer Sentinel, which isour online database for reporting consumer complaints.
(11:11):
And if it's been part of anidentity theft that you've experienced, we would
appreciate hearing about that through Identity theftdot gov. If you've clicked on the
link and you can understand what yourrisks are from navigating that website to helpfully
have a recovery plan in place,if there are other steps you should take.
Parents that have children and children don'thave credit histories yet how does one
(11:35):
protect their child's social Security number orcheck to make sure that you know they
haven't been stolen from and they don'teven know it because they're six and they're
in kindergarten or whatever. Right,Yes, children can have credit freezes put
in place. So if you reachout to the Big three that's Experience,
(11:56):
TransUnion, and Equifax, those arethe big three credit reporting agencies, and
you should be able to communicate withthem to put a credit freeze in place
for your child's file so that creditshould not be extended in their name.
Because while children can't contract for credit, they do have social Security numbers and
that can be valuable information to identitythieves because they are unused and so the
(12:18):
credit files kind of blank in thatway. And so rather than allowing access
to a blank file, if youkind of put a freeze in place,
that should protect your children's credit reportfrom being used by fraudsters. What else?
Is there anything else that I haven'tbrought up that you feel is important
to share? To keep up withthe latest scams, consumers can sign up
(12:41):
for alerts at FTC dot gov slashConsumer Alerts and you'll get messages delivered to
your email inbox so you can knowabout and share about the latest exams to
help you and your loved ones hopefullyavoid it. And Identity theft dot gov
or robode identity dot gov is theSpanish language resource for folks if they want
(13:01):
to report identity theft or understand thenext steps they should take to recover from
identity theft. And that could bea scam email link, tax identity theft,
medical identity theft. If you're aminor and your child does If you
go to place a child credit freezeand you find out your child has had
credit taken out in their name,you can understand and the recovery plan better
(13:24):
from going to that resource and understandwhat next steps you should take to try
to get that cleaned up. Megan, thanks so much for your time.
I appreciate it. Thank you,it's nice speaking with you. Coming up
next, cardiovascular disease kills more peoplein this country than all the cancers combined.
Don't you want to live as longas you can? That's coming up
on iHeart Sinse. This is fiftyfive KRC and iHeartRadio station. Get ready
(13:50):
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(14:11):
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Make the Big Game great with iHeartRadioFree. Never sounded so good. America's
veterans are on the tour of theirlives at dav or, on a mission
to help veterans of all generations getthe benefits they've earned. Help us support
more victories for veterans. Go todav dot org. Welcome back. This
(14:37):
is iHeart Cincy, the tri statepublic affairs program produced for Cincinnati. Here
in Cincinnati, I'm your host,Sandy Collins. My next guest is Alison
Pohling. She is the executive directorand vice president of the Greater Cincinnati American
Heart Association. Well, Allison,it is American Heart Month. Welcome to
iHeart Cincy. Still number one onekiller of women cardiovascular disease, Alison,
(15:03):
why is that any idea? Yes? Yeah, well lots of ideas.
Yes. Women still die over andabove the total amount of men who are
dying of cardiovascular diseases and stroke,so it is one of every three women.
And to put this into scale,you know heart disease and the people
(15:24):
think of cancer as a large killer. If you were to combine all forms
of cancer, heart disease would stillbe killing more specifically women. And honestly,
the why is very nuanced, butthere's light at the end of the
tunnel. We do know research willhelp us understand more. And so when
(15:46):
it comes to our history of research, men fortunately have been studied for quite
a long time, well well overa century, but women have only been
studied as their own subset of thehuman race since nineteen ninety three, and
so we're just at about thirty yearsand we need to catch up. There's
(16:11):
a huge gap and what we knowabout men and what we know about women.
And with women, you think oflife cycle. You think of you
know, having children and then postchildren and then or if you don't decide
to have children, then you thinkof menopause. We have a lot of
life cycles and our bodies are justvery different and so research will help,
(16:34):
and specifically research on all types ofwomen. I'll wrap it up by saying
only three percent of what we knownow has been done on black and Brown
women. So just a lot ofcatching up to do, and we're very
heavily focused on that the gap inresearch, and this is a passion project
for you as well. You saidyou have a personal reason why you're so
(16:55):
committed to educating the public about heartdisease. I do, yes. So
I love my job. I loveleading our American Heart Association in Greater Cincinnati.
But I am myself a mom ofthree and my first pregnancy, I
was having twins and I had preclamsia, which is a fancier way to say
(17:18):
you're really sick and you have pregnancyinduced hypertension or very high blood pressure that's
typically uncontrolled, and we know womenget this. We also know if you
have a complicated pregnancy or a complicatedbirth, you are at a very high
chance of developing heart disease or astroke later. But again we don't know
(17:40):
why. And so for me personally, I want to know why. I
want to know what else I couldbe doing in addition to lifestyle change and
trying to be the healthiest version ofmyself. So yes, very personal.
Well I'm sorry you went through that, but I'm glad that you have the
passion that you have for the HeartAssociation here in Cincinnati. Yeah, me
too, and honestly just normalizing theconversation. Even a couple of years ago,
(18:04):
until I had that happen to meand then found out the big correlation
to heart disease, I wasn't reallytalking about it. And now when we
have our go Red for Women gatherings, so many other women are pulling out
those personal stories and I think that'seven a step in the right direction,
is normalizing the conversation. And itcan be scary to talk about your own
(18:29):
health and background, but knowledge ispower. I'm wondering if there's not a
lot of like just acceptance of well, something's going to get you. And
it just makes sense that your heartwould give out, So why are we,
you know, why all the focusin that. And that's you know,
obviously not the right thing to think, but to me, it just
(18:51):
seems kind of obvious, almost like, well, yeah, your heart's going
to give out eventually, so howcan we really make a difference. And
so I'm sure you've got the answerfor that, I hope. Oh yeah,
And I love that you brought thatup, because yeah, that might
be what someone's thinking. It's don'tyou want to live as long as you
can. So what we do knowis that where you live, so social
(19:15):
determinants of health, literally where you'refrom, what you have access to,
what gender you were born, reallypredisposes to higher forms of cardiovascular disease and
stroke. And so, yeah,you're going to die, right, death
and taxes, and we know that'sfor sure, but it's robbing folks of
a lot of healthy years. Andso I mean, do you want to
(19:40):
live to fifty? And in ourarea the average age of sixty three,
and a few zip codes over itcan be eighty five because they had access
to certain things. So I wouldsay, yeah, I do, especially
being a mom that I actually wouldlove twenty plus more years of being around.
(20:00):
So that's how I would answer that. I just saw a report just
a couple of days ago about aseventeen year old high school senior up in
Ashland County, Ohio, which isnortheast of Mansfield. And she was on
the homecoming court and perfectly healthy,they thought, and she collapsed during the
homecoming festivities and died in October.And just this week they have announced that
(20:25):
she had myocarditis which was undiagnosed,and she literally at seventeen just dropped dead
right there. This is such atragic story, first of all, but
it's so shocking that at her age. It's so shocking, you know that
it was so public. When doyoung women and girls really need to start
(20:48):
thinking about these hard issues. Yeah, so I'm hearing two questions. So
the first is as young as youcan. So we are we as in
the Heart Association, are in schoolsat young ages working on jump rope for
heart and hoops for heart and eatingthe rainbow. We do a tremendous amount
(21:11):
of work against vaping in tobacco.So at a very young age, we
want you thinking about your healthy heartand healthy brain. The other reason why
it's so important. I do notpersonally know that story, but what I
assume happened is called a sutting cardiacarrest, So a quick education. Many
(21:32):
many people use the term heart attack. A heart attack is when there's a
blockage. Sutting cardiac arrest is whenthe heart actually quits beating, so that
electrical part of the heart isn't working. The two can go hand in hand.
You can have one then have theother, or one can cause the
other. But what's really scary andwhy we gotta know about this at a
(21:52):
young age is setting cardiac arrest thetype that your heart stops, the type
that DeMar Hamlin had NFL player herein Cincinnati that we all saw. You
have to be shocked back into rhythm. Someone has to do CPR. You
are already technically dead, so theyneed to bring you back. And I
liken this to learning at a veryyoung age learning to stop, drop and
(22:17):
roll, knowing what to do ina fire. You pull the emergency,
you call for the fire fighters.I knew that as a very young child,
and Yay, fires are not killingmassive amounts of people anymore. We
were able to fix that. Thesame actually is true with setting cardiac arrest.
It is the number one out ofhospital killer three hundred and fifty thousand
(22:40):
a year. And what's exciting andhorrible. We know how to help someone
live through it, but people don'tknow how to do it. So that's
another huge personal passion of mine isthat at a very young age, in
the future, students will know,just like they do with stop, drop
and roll, to call nine oneone, push hard and fast in the
(23:02):
center of the chest and go andget that AED and we'll save lives and
then in twenty years someone will betalking about this and sudden cardiac arrest won't
be that number one killer. Thatis kind of exciting to think about,
you said. The DeMar Hamlet effecthere in Cincinnati has just been overwhelming Damar's
incident. And again it was thateducation of what is a sudden cardiac arrist?
(23:26):
Why is it different than a heartattack? Oh gosh, well,
I hope people around me with knowCPR. The quick answer is they don't.
And the other quick answer is theycould. There's no reason why we
need to be a nation of bystanderswondering what to do. We're calling it
being a nation of life savers,people that are ready to spring into action.
(23:48):
And again it's it's truly those threesimple steps. It's calling nine to
one one right away. It's thenpushing hard and fast in the center of
the chest, and then it's goingto source that AED. And where we're
at right now is the herd associationsfiguring out, if you will, of
where is everybody when it comes tothe policy for AED and CPR, and
(24:12):
it's the wild wild West. Thereis no big set policies in schools.
They're all different every rec league isdifferent. Some are truly ready to go
on gain days, but nothing duringpractice. And most of the time you're
practicing right. College campuses like placeswhere massive amounts of people are do not
(24:33):
typically have that cardiac emergency response plan, and so that is what we are
feverishly working towards as this huge awarenesshas come. So you're saying, if
you work in a business, it'sprobably good to check with your management and
find out if your company has anysort of resources or program, especially these
(24:55):
huge employers like GE and Boeing andP and G. You know, we've
got thousands and thousands of people.Uh, that's you. That's your call
to duty, folks, to uhto check out and find out what your
policy is. I know we have, you know, just a small group
here at iHeart Cincinnati, and uh, I don't know what our you know,
if if we have an AED aroundor what to do, I would
(25:17):
just be on the phone and panicking. But UH, now that I've spoken
to you, Allison, I'm goingto be more prepared. Yes, yes,
please act please, And I lovethat you made that connection. That
is one hundred percent the call toaction. Whether it's where you work,
a lot of times I hear,oh, well we have a safety committee.
Well, is that safety committee personjust gonna be there when you have
(25:41):
your event? No, they won't. This is important for everybody to know,
and there is no requirement for thatperson who's passionate and speaks up and
take action. There's You do nothave to be a healthcare provider. You
don't have to have all the answers. You do need to inquire and then
be passionate enough to see it through. Thank you so much for making that
(26:03):
the call to action. It's exactlyright. Well, I appreciate that.
So where do you start if youdecide you want to start to worrying about
your your heart health For you thegeneral public, knowing your numbers if you're
doing nothing else, nothing else onyour radar would be what I would suggest.
And what I mean by that yournumbers is knowing how much do you
(26:26):
ay, what is your blood pressure, what is your cholesterol? Those baseline
numbers of where are you starting from? We call them Life's essential eight.
You could google this extremely quickly andit pops right up. But we know
about eighty percent of the time whereheart disease is coming from, and a
(26:47):
lot of them are tied to thosenumbers, those risk factor numbers, and
if those numbers are not where theyneed to be, working on correcting them.
I mean that would be first andforemost. And we all know it's
small, right, it's small steps. There's no major life change needed.
Walking two to three times a week, which is what we suggest you know
about the amount of time a moviewould be on for the whole week.
(27:11):
That is enough to help your heartbe more healthy and your brain be more
healthy. So knowing your numbers foryourself and then externally speaking, I would
say, can you share this withsomeone? Can you if it's a woman,
can you share that message with herthat she is at a very you
know, increased risk and we don'tknow enough when it comes to research,
(27:33):
So really take care of yourself.Ask questions we'll catch up on research,
or ask about CPR and AED atyour kids' youth league, soccer, at
your place of business, in yourneighborhood. So those would be the two
calls to action for personal and forexternal facing. That's great advice. You
have the heartball coming up in themiddle of the month here on the seventeenth,
(27:57):
tell me all about the glamour andthe glitz at the Convention Center.
Yes, so the Heart Association madeup of everybody. You know, it's
not who works here, it's allour volunteers and our researchers and our doctors
and everyone who makes up the AHA. We are turning one hundred this year,
so it is our centennial year startedin nineteen twenty four, so we
(28:21):
will be doing kind of a throwbacktheme, celebrating what has happened and what's
to come. You know, notall organizations like this make it, and
so we're really thrilled to be oneof the few that is that old.
And we know we'll need to workdifferently as we move forward. So if
you are interested to come to Harpballon February seventeenth, I have just a
(28:44):
very few, very few amount oftables and tickets, but you can contact
HA still. And then later inMarch we will have our event for the
masses, and that's the Heart MiniMarathon and Heart Walk, and that's March
seventeenth, and you can unlimit itin that anyone can sign up for the
walks and the runs, and that'sto really call to action for everybody to
(29:07):
get moving. So yeah, it'sa busy quarter for us. Sure sounds
it well, listen, Allison,I really appreciate you taking time out of
your very busy day, especially duringHeart month, to talk to us about
that. Give us the website.Is it heart dot org yep. Heart
dot org would get you eventually toCincinnati or Greater Cincinnati and we can help
(29:29):
you from there. Sounds good,Allison. Thank you so much. If
you need anything, let me know. It was my pleasure to talk to
you. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, and thanks to you
for listening. If you want tohear this show again, or any of
the other shows about issues in theTri State highlighting awesome people who give back
to this community, just get theiHeartRadio app. It's free in your app
store, search for podcasts and findmy name, Sandy Collins. Until next
(29:53):
week. iHeart Cincy is a productionof iHeartMedia, Cincinnati,
This week on iHeart Sense, whetheryou use the Internet or not, you
could still be the victim of identitytheft, getting any communications that you aren't
expecting, whether it's through text oremail. If you're worried, listen to
your gut. So why is that? Because companies from your power company to
your bank, the government, andif you have it, social media all
(00:22):
store that information on their servers andthat could be hacked. The Federal Trade
Commission fights identity theft. My guesttoday is Megan Cox. She'll explain where
the threats are and has some helpfuladvice to help protect you, your family
and your money. And later,February is all about the heart and not
just counting Valentine's Day. The AmericanHeart Association has been working for one hundred
(00:45):
years this year to research heart diseaseand its related illnesses and educate people about
the number one killer of women inthe US. There's a huge gap and
what we know about men and whatwe know about women. My guest is
Alison Poul, the executive director andvice president of the Greater Cincinnati American Heart
Association. Now on iHeart Sinsey withSandy Collins, This is iHeart Sinsey a
(01:11):
show for the community to find resourcesyou need to solve the many issues we
face here and we share stories thatembolden and uplift tri staters. My first
guest today Megan Cox of the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission. Okay,
Megan, so tell me about whatthe FTC does to deal with identity theft.
(01:32):
Sure. The FTCs are nation's consumerprotection agency and so part of that
we collect reports of identity theft.So at identity theft dot gov, consumers
can go if they've had an issuewith consumer identity theft and answer some questions,
share their experiences, and as partof that they can get a step
by step instructions on how to recover. But also that report isn't available to
(01:53):
thousands of law enforcement agencies nationwide tohelp us understand what scam are trending and
how to better protect consumers so wecan more target our enforcement actions against scams
that people are seeing in the marketplace. Yeah. Would you say, Megan,
that which is a bigger problem.Is it like hackers that get into
(02:14):
systems and steal thousands of records oris it those targeted scams that come to
your email and steal from you directlysteal your identity or your money. It's
hard to say directly how these thievesand prodsters get our information. So some
folks that are able to get information, some thieves from data breaches, then
(02:34):
use it to target our emails andour text messages with the information they know
that they were able to buy onthe black market or that they were able
to hack and get themselves. Soif your information was exposed in a data
breach, you should be extra vigilant. Monitor your credit reports to make sure
there are no new accounts listed thatyou didn't authorize, and keep track of
your bills, and if you dosee something suspicious, we do suggest you
(02:57):
go to identity theft dot gov.Should also be skeptical if you're getting any
communications that you aren't expecting, whetherit's through text or email, If you
are suspicious of something, if you'reworried, listen to your gut and check
with the company before you do anything. If this text or email is purportedly
coming from your bank or a utilityor something like that, so that you
(03:19):
know you can contact the company frominformation for a good number or a good
website that you know is accurate andnot click on any extra links or any
images that are sent to you thatare unsolicited. In particular, I've been
hearing warnings about AI now and howyou're able to take someone's recorded voice and
(03:39):
then change it and create a messagethat sounds like it's from your boss or
from your friend, and then callyou up with it and pretend that it's
you. And I heard and itsounds very believable. I heard of a
story here just in the last coupleof months. A security company itself had
a mid level manager get a phonecall from the boss and he heard the
(04:02):
voice and he said, listen,I'm traveling, I've got to run,
I've got to get get to theairplane. I'm going to text you.
I need you to send me somemoney. And the guy says okay,
And so he ends up sending moneyto this to this texture, and then
thought about it after he did it, and thought, wait a minute,
And so then he called his bossback, and his boss had never done
(04:24):
it, and they were talking abouthow, you know, how ironic that
is this The company actually watches forthis, and they got pulled in.
So we know that the people whoare you know, even the most aware
of it, can still become caughtup in something that's getting more and more
sophisticated. What are you seeing nowas the big trends in scamming this year?
(04:47):
Identity theft still tops the list onepoint one million reports in twenty twenty
two and in the latest quarter wehave the data is still coming in on
twenty twenty three, but it wasstill very common. So and the most
common forms of identity theft under thatcomplaint are when somebody opens a new credit
card account in your name, sothey have your personal information and get a
(05:10):
new credit account, so that wouldshow up on your credit report. So
that's number one, and number twois when somebody gets a business or personal
loan in your name. Are thebig complaints that we're seeing, and they
will run up the bill and thenwalk away and then leave you with trying
to prove that you didn't do itright. Yes, so if you don't
find out till after the fact andit's on your credit report, then it
(05:33):
can be burdensome to go through thatprocess to dispute the wrong information that's on
your account and get it removed.I had this happen well before the World
Wide Web in the late eighties somebodychanged the address on a credit card for
me. I think it was Sears, and I stopped getting the bills and
just kind of forgot about it.I was young and didn't even think about
(05:55):
it. I wasn't getting the bills. So finally the company called me asking
for a payment, and we checkand here that someone had changed my address
and was getting my card at theirlocation, and so we shut the account
down. But I never learned whathappened. I didn't see any damage from
what happened. I didn't get anybills. So any idea, Megan,
help me figure this out? Whatwould they possibly have gained from that?
(06:19):
Was it an identity theft where theystole the information but you're not sure they
got anything out of it? Yeah? Charging to it? Yeah? Oh
interesting? Yeah, so they changedso they were mailing my bill to North
Carolina. It's not like they openedup a new account and we're using that
(06:39):
and sending it to me. Theyactually just was taking my bill. I
thought, well, don't they justpad for me? But but anyway,
so that's just always been weird.I used that for proof of residency.
I mean, if they I wouldbe worried about other forms of identity theft
where if they were able to showa bill to somebody to otherwise your identity
and you would move, or formedical coverage or some other thing. Yeah,
(07:02):
I never did. For glad nothingcame about me. Me too,
Me too. So romance scams,I'm hearing about this. We're getting a
lot of emails into the newsroom fromcompanies that are in the industry warning about
romance scams. Do you have anyinsight on that. Yes, that has
been something we've heard about for severalyears now, where somebody gains your trust
(07:24):
through communicating over online platforms, perhapssharing photos, and just build trust and
intimacy and then try to hook youinto sending them money. In many cases
where there's a scam at part ofthis because they create some sort of urgency
you or they're saying they're going tocome travel to see you, or you
(07:44):
should come travel to them, orthey'll be able to come see you and
live happily with you and spend moretime together if only they can do X
y Z in their hometown before they'reable to come to you. So we
very much encourage everybody to be veryscam of these claims. If there's asking
for large amounts of money because alot of people have lost their life savings
(08:07):
in helping somebody they think is nearand dear to them, but in reality
was a fraudster and they get theirheart broke. Yes, yeah, So
how do you protect yourself from identitytheft or is it even possible? Well,
there's some steps to take. Weencourage everybody to check your credit report
regularly for those new account frauds,so you could spot if new credit cards
(08:28):
are opened in your name or ifthere are new accounts. We encourage everybody
to keep records with personal or financialinformation in safe place underlocking key if possible,
and don't share your information with anyonewho gets in touch with you to
ask for it. So, whetherit's your social Security number, your banking
information, the IRS, your bank, your employer, they either should have
(08:50):
the information they need there and ifyou should hang up and reach out to
them if they need something further fromyou, and be skeptical of who initiate
that contact over the phone. Youknow, the IRS and the Social Security
Administration would likely reach you in themail, and so protect your information online
as well, so you know somethings we need hard copies in the mail
(09:13):
and you need to rely upon that. And it's tempting to think that things
could be resolved over the computer orphone sometimes, but it is best to
be skeptical of that. Contact thecompany, affirmatively from trusted sources, and
protect your information online by using strongpasswords, multi factor authentication where you can,
and keeping that information private. Oneof the things that's driving me crazy,
(09:37):
Megan, is you'll go to thedoctor, or you'll go to the
hospital or go somewhere, and thenthey send you a text later and ask
you to fill out a survey abouthow well you were treated or how you
or your experience was. Your packageis being delivered, but we have the
wrong address, you know, clickhere. I mean, you're getting a
lot of these scams that want youto respond to Is there any way that
(10:01):
you can recommend people. Should theyjust ignore those kinds of things overall completely,
or do you have any suggestion ifyou want to bake a positive report,
I would affirmatively ask the doctor whereto go to give that kind of
feedback. Otherwise I would encourage peopleto be very skeptical of text messages if
it was a source you haven't seenbefore or a service you don't recognize the
(10:24):
web address for the URL. Iwould encourage you to not click on any
links like that and rather reach outto the doctor's office. If there's a
package you're expecting, navigate to thepostal service that you think is delivering it
and try to track that affirmatively inthat way and not click on any links
unless it's something that you've specifically askedfor. Is that something that we should
(10:48):
share with you? If we getthose little scam texts says, hey,
your package is waiting here, whichyou're not waiting for a package. Your
package is waiting here just to haveto update your address. Should we just
turn around and report that to somebodyto the FTC. Yes, we accept
complaints at Consumer Sentinel, which isour online database for reporting consumer complaints.
(11:11):
And if it's been part of anidentity theft that you've experienced, we would
appreciate hearing about that through Identity theftdot gov. If you've clicked on the
link and you can understand what yourrisks are from navigating that website to helpfully
have a recovery plan in place,if there are other steps you should take.
Parents that have children and children don'thave credit histories yet how does one
(11:35):
protect their child's social Security number orcheck to make sure that you know they
haven't been stolen from and they don'teven know it because they're six and they're
in kindergarten or whatever. Right,Yes, children can have credit freezes put
in place. So if you reachout to the Big three that's Experience,
(11:56):
TransUnion, and Equifax, those arethe big three credit reporting agencies, and
you should be able to communicate withthem to put a credit freeze in place
for your child's file so that creditshould not be extended in their name.
Because while children can't contract for credit, they do have social Security numbers and
that can be valuable information to identitythieves because they are unused and so the
(12:18):
credit files kind of blank in thatway. And so rather than allowing access
to a blank file, if youkind of put a freeze in place,
that should protect your children's credit reportfrom being used by fraudsters. What else?
Is there anything else that I haven'tbrought up that you feel is important
to share? To keep up withthe latest scams, consumers can sign up
(12:41):
for alerts at FTC dot gov slashConsumer Alerts and you'll get messages delivered to
your email inbox so you can knowabout and share about the latest exams to
help you and your loved ones hopefullyavoid it. And Identity theft dot gov
or robode identity dot gov is theSpanish language resource for folks if they want
(13:01):
to report identity theft or understand thenext steps they should take to recover from
identity theft. And that could bea scam email link, tax identity theft,
medical identity theft. If you're aminor and your child does If you
go to place a child credit freezeand you find out your child has had
credit taken out in their name,you can understand and the recovery plan better
(13:24):
from going to that resource and understandwhat next steps you should take to try
to get that cleaned up. Megan, thanks so much for your time.
I appreciate it. Thank you,it's nice speaking with you. Coming up
next, cardiovascular disease kills more peoplein this country than all the cancers combined.
Don't you want to live as longas you can? That's coming up
on iHeart Sinse. This is fiftyfive KRC and iHeartRadio station. Get ready
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more victories for veterans. Go todav dot org. Welcome back. This
(14:37):
is iHeart Cincy, the tri statepublic affairs program produced for Cincinnati. Here
in Cincinnati, I'm your host,Sandy Collins. My next guest is Alison
Pohling. She is the executive directorand vice president of the Greater Cincinnati American
Heart Association. Well, Allison,it is American Heart Month. Welcome to
iHeart Cincy. Still number one onekiller of women cardiovascular disease, Alison,
(15:03):
why is that any idea? Yes? Yeah, well lots of ideas.
Yes. Women still die over andabove the total amount of men who are
dying of cardiovascular diseases and stroke,so it is one of every three women.
And to put this into scale,you know heart disease and the people
(15:24):
think of cancer as a large killer. If you were to combine all forms
of cancer, heart disease would stillbe killing more specifically women. And honestly,
the why is very nuanced, butthere's light at the end of the
tunnel. We do know research willhelp us understand more. And so when
(15:46):
it comes to our history of research, men fortunately have been studied for quite
a long time, well well overa century, but women have only been
studied as their own subset of thehuman race since nineteen ninety three, and
so we're just at about thirty yearsand we need to catch up. There's
(16:11):
a huge gap and what we knowabout men and what we know about women.
And with women, you think oflife cycle. You think of you
know, having children and then postchildren and then or if you don't decide
to have children, then you thinkof menopause. We have a lot of
life cycles and our bodies are justvery different and so research will help,
(16:34):
and specifically research on all types ofwomen. I'll wrap it up by saying
only three percent of what we knownow has been done on black and Brown
women. So just a lot ofcatching up to do, and we're very
heavily focused on that the gap inresearch, and this is a passion project
for you as well. You saidyou have a personal reason why you're so
(16:55):
committed to educating the public about heartdisease. I do, yes. So
I love my job. I loveleading our American Heart Association in Greater Cincinnati.
But I am myself a mom ofthree and my first pregnancy, I
was having twins and I had preclamsia, which is a fancier way to say
(17:18):
you're really sick and you have pregnancyinduced hypertension or very high blood pressure that's
typically uncontrolled, and we know womenget this. We also know if you
have a complicated pregnancy or a complicatedbirth, you are at a very high
chance of developing heart disease or astroke later. But again we don't know
(17:40):
why. And so for me personally, I want to know why. I
want to know what else I couldbe doing in addition to lifestyle change and
trying to be the healthiest version ofmyself. So yes, very personal.
Well I'm sorry you went through that, but I'm glad that you have the
passion that you have for the HeartAssociation here in Cincinnati. Yeah, me
too, and honestly just normalizing theconversation. Even a couple of years ago,
(18:04):
until I had that happen to meand then found out the big correlation
to heart disease, I wasn't reallytalking about it. And now when we
have our go Red for Women gatherings, so many other women are pulling out
those personal stories and I think that'seven a step in the right direction,
is normalizing the conversation. And itcan be scary to talk about your own
(18:29):
health and background, but knowledge ispower. I'm wondering if there's not a
lot of like just acceptance of well, something's going to get you. And
it just makes sense that your heartwould give out, So why are we,
you know, why all the focusin that. And that's you know,
obviously not the right thing to think, but to me, it just
(18:51):
seems kind of obvious, almost like, well, yeah, your heart's going
to give out eventually, so howcan we really make a difference. And
so I'm sure you've got the answerfor that, I hope. Oh yeah,
And I love that you brought thatup, because yeah, that might
be what someone's thinking. It's don'tyou want to live as long as you
can. So what we do knowis that where you live, so social
(19:15):
determinants of health, literally where you'refrom, what you have access to,
what gender you were born, reallypredisposes to higher forms of cardiovascular disease and
stroke. And so, yeah,you're going to die, right, death
and taxes, and we know that'sfor sure, but it's robbing folks of
a lot of healthy years. Andso I mean, do you want to
(19:40):
live to fifty? And in ourarea the average age of sixty three,
and a few zip codes over itcan be eighty five because they had access
to certain things. So I wouldsay, yeah, I do, especially
being a mom that I actually wouldlove twenty plus more years of being around.
(20:00):
So that's how I would answer that. I just saw a report just
a couple of days ago about aseventeen year old high school senior up in
Ashland County, Ohio, which isnortheast of Mansfield. And she was on
the homecoming court and perfectly healthy,they thought, and she collapsed during the
homecoming festivities and died in October.And just this week they have announced that
(20:25):
she had myocarditis which was undiagnosed,and she literally at seventeen just dropped dead
right there. This is such atragic story, first of all, but
it's so shocking that at her age. It's so shocking, you know that
it was so public. When doyoung women and girls really need to start
(20:48):
thinking about these hard issues. Yeah, so I'm hearing two questions. So
the first is as young as youcan. So we are we as in
the Heart Association, are in schoolsat young ages working on jump rope for
heart and hoops for heart and eatingthe rainbow. We do a tremendous amount
(21:11):
of work against vaping in tobacco.So at a very young age, we
want you thinking about your healthy heartand healthy brain. The other reason why
it's so important. I do notpersonally know that story, but what I
assume happened is called a sutting cardiacarrest, So a quick education. Many
(21:32):
many people use the term heart attack. A heart attack is when there's a
blockage. Sutting cardiac arrest is whenthe heart actually quits beating, so that
electrical part of the heart isn't working. The two can go hand in hand.
You can have one then have theother, or one can cause the
other. But what's really scary andwhy we gotta know about this at a
(21:52):
young age is setting cardiac arrest thetype that your heart stops, the type
that DeMar Hamlin had NFL player herein Cincinnati that we all saw. You
have to be shocked back into rhythm. Someone has to do CPR. You
are already technically dead, so theyneed to bring you back. And I
liken this to learning at a veryyoung age learning to stop, drop and
(22:17):
roll, knowing what to do ina fire. You pull the emergency,
you call for the fire fighters.I knew that as a very young child,
and Yay, fires are not killingmassive amounts of people anymore. We
were able to fix that. Thesame actually is true with setting cardiac arrest.
It is the number one out ofhospital killer three hundred and fifty thousand
(22:40):
a year. And what's exciting andhorrible. We know how to help someone
live through it, but people don'tknow how to do it. So that's
another huge personal passion of mine isthat at a very young age, in
the future, students will know,just like they do with stop, drop
and roll, to call nine oneone, push hard and fast in the
(23:02):
center of the chest and go andget that AED and we'll save lives and
then in twenty years someone will betalking about this and sudden cardiac arrest won't
be that number one killer. Thatis kind of exciting to think about,
you said. The DeMar Hamlet effecthere in Cincinnati has just been overwhelming Damar's
incident. And again it was thateducation of what is a sudden cardiac arrist?
(23:26):
Why is it different than a heartattack? Oh gosh, well,
I hope people around me with knowCPR. The quick answer is they don't.
And the other quick answer is theycould. There's no reason why we
need to be a nation of bystanderswondering what to do. We're calling it
being a nation of life savers,people that are ready to spring into action.
(23:48):
And again it's it's truly those threesimple steps. It's calling nine to
one one right away. It's thenpushing hard and fast in the center of
the chest, and then it's goingto source that AED. And where we're
at right now is the herd associationsfiguring out, if you will, of
where is everybody when it comes tothe policy for AED and CPR, and
(24:12):
it's the wild wild West. Thereis no big set policies in schools.
They're all different every rec league isdifferent. Some are truly ready to go
on gain days, but nothing duringpractice. And most of the time you're
practicing right. College campuses like placeswhere massive amounts of people are do not
(24:33):
typically have that cardiac emergency response plan, and so that is what we are
feverishly working towards as this huge awarenesshas come. So you're saying, if
you work in a business, it'sprobably good to check with your management and
find out if your company has anysort of resources or program, especially these
(24:55):
huge employers like GE and Boeing andP and G. You know, we've
got thousands and thousands of people.Uh, that's you. That's your call
to duty, folks, to uhto check out and find out what your
policy is. I know we have, you know, just a small group
here at iHeart Cincinnati, and uh, I don't know what our you know,
if if we have an AED aroundor what to do, I would
(25:17):
just be on the phone and panicking. But UH, now that I've spoken
to you, Allison, I'm goingto be more prepared. Yes, yes,
please act please, And I lovethat you made that connection. That
is one hundred percent the call toaction. Whether it's where you work,
a lot of times I hear,oh, well we have a safety committee.
Well, is that safety committee personjust gonna be there when you have
(25:41):
your event? No, they won't. This is important for everybody to know,
and there is no requirement for thatperson who's passionate and speaks up and
take action. There's You do nothave to be a healthcare provider. You
don't have to have all the answers. You do need to inquire and then
be passionate enough to see it through. Thank you so much for making that
(26:03):
the call to action. It's exactlyright. Well, I appreciate that.
So where do you start if youdecide you want to start to worrying about
your your heart health For you thegeneral public, knowing your numbers if you're
doing nothing else, nothing else onyour radar would be what I would suggest.
And what I mean by that yournumbers is knowing how much do you
(26:26):
ay, what is your blood pressure, what is your cholesterol? Those baseline
numbers of where are you starting from? We call them Life's essential eight.
You could google this extremely quickly andit pops right up. But we know
about eighty percent of the time whereheart disease is coming from, and a
(26:47):
lot of them are tied to thosenumbers, those risk factor numbers, and
if those numbers are not where theyneed to be, working on correcting them.
I mean that would be first andforemost. And we all know it's
small, right, it's small steps. There's no major life change needed.
Walking two to three times a week, which is what we suggest you know
about the amount of time a moviewould be on for the whole week.
(27:11):
That is enough to help your heartbe more healthy and your brain be more
healthy. So knowing your numbers foryourself and then externally speaking, I would
say, can you share this withsomeone? Can you if it's a woman,
can you share that message with herthat she is at a very you
know, increased risk and we don'tknow enough when it comes to research,
(27:33):
So really take care of yourself.Ask questions we'll catch up on research,
or ask about CPR and AED atyour kids' youth league, soccer, at
your place of business, in yourneighborhood. So those would be the two
calls to action for personal and forexternal facing. That's great advice. You
have the heartball coming up in themiddle of the month here on the seventeenth,
(27:57):
tell me all about the glamour andthe glitz at the Convention Center.
Yes, so the Heart Association madeup of everybody. You know, it's
not who works here, it's allour volunteers and our researchers and our doctors
and everyone who makes up the AHA. We are turning one hundred this year,
so it is our centennial year startedin nineteen twenty four, so we
(28:21):
will be doing kind of a throwbacktheme, celebrating what has happened and what's
to come. You know, notall organizations like this make it, and
so we're really thrilled to be oneof the few that is that old.
And we know we'll need to workdifferently as we move forward. So if
you are interested to come to Harpballon February seventeenth, I have just a
(28:44):
very few, very few amount oftables and tickets, but you can contact
HA still. And then later inMarch we will have our event for the
masses, and that's the Heart MiniMarathon and Heart Walk, and that's March
seventeenth, and you can unlimit itin that anyone can sign up for the
walks and the runs, and that'sto really call to action for everybody to
(29:07):
get moving. So yeah, it'sa busy quarter for us. Sure sounds
it well, listen, Allison,I really appreciate you taking time out of
your very busy day, especially duringHeart month, to talk to us about
that. Give us the website.Is it heart dot org yep. Heart
dot org would get you eventually toCincinnati or Greater Cincinnati and we can help
(29:29):
you from there. Sounds good,Allison. Thank you so much. If
you need anything, let me know. It was my pleasure to talk to
you. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, and thanks to you
for listening. If you want tohear this show again, or any of
the other shows about issues in theTri State highlighting awesome people who give back
to this community, just get theiHeartRadio app. It's free in your app
store, search for podcasts and findmy name, Sandy Collins. Until next
(29:53):
week. iHeart Cincy is a productionof iHeartMedia, Cincinnati,
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