May 13, 2025 • 48 mins
The last two weeks we talked about the 2024 FBI IC3 report and the related statistics in addition to how scams have evolved over the years.
In this episode we are going to dive into the top two scams with the most amount of losses in 2024 for older adults - investment and tech support scams. Listen in to learn more about these two scams and how to protect yourself.
Let’s Talk About Scams is broadcast live Tuesdays at 8AM PT on K4HD Radio - Hollywood Talk Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Let’s Talk About Scams TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Let’s Talk About Scams Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional / legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted sources and references; however, R.O.S.E. Resources / Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to a scam.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/let-s-talk-about-scams--6483699/support.
In this episode we are going to dive into the top two scams with the most amount of losses in 2024 for older adults - investment and tech support scams. Listen in to learn more about these two scams and how to protect yourself.
Let’s Talk About Scams is broadcast live Tuesdays at 8AM PT on K4HD Radio - Hollywood Talk Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Let’s Talk About Scams TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Let’s Talk About Scams Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional / legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted sources and references; however, R.O.S.E. Resources / Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to a scam.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/let-s-talk-about-scams--6483699/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling,
professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services
(00:23):
of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational
purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional
legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted
sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard the
(00:45):
elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
To a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the must
listen show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and
their loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday at am Pacific
time on K four HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose,
and her guests will provide valuable insights and practical tips
(01:10):
on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams. And
now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, welcome back, everybody. Thank you for joining me this morning.
I'm Joyce Petrowski, founder and board president of Rose Resources
Outreach to safeguard the elderly. You can find more resources
on our website at Roseadvocacy dot org. On the homepage
at the bottom, you can sign up for our email
and or mailed newsletter, and our social media links are
(01:39):
on there, so you can follow us on our variety
of different social media channels, and you can find all
the past live streams and shorts on our YouTube channel.
The link is on our homepage for that as well.
So a couple weeks ago, we talked about the new
FBI IC three annual report that came out specifically related
(02:03):
to the elder Fraud Report and how the number of
victims in the sixty plus age population and the number
the amount of losses have drastically increased. And then last
week my guest host Brian Watson talked about how scams
have evolved over the last you know, fifteen twenty years,
(02:26):
and so now today I want to talk about to
go back to the the annual report from the FBI's
Internet Crime Complaints Center for two thousand and twenty four.
It highlighted in the sixty plus age population. Two scams
in particular that represented close to half of the losses,
(02:50):
and that's the investment scams and the tech support scams.
So we're going to start with tech support fraud. And
I've got everything up on the screen here and you
can see this is from twenty twenty one that the
losses amounted to three hundred and forty seven million, which
represents one hundred and thirty seven percent increase from twenty
(03:14):
and twenty. And they say most victims, almost sixty percent
of them reported to be over sixty years of age,
and they experienced at least sixty eight percent of the losses. Now,
if you look at this table, look at where we
were in two and twenty, and this is for all
age populations, one hundred and forty six million. It's a
(03:36):
lot of money compared to twenty seventeen, which was fourteen million.
But look at twenty twenty one, it more than doubled.
As they said, it represented one hundred and thirty seven
percent increase. Again, all age populations up to almost three
hundred and forty eight million dollars, and the sixty plus
(03:56):
population is more than half of that dollar amount. So
then this next slide, we get into twenty twenty two,
and they've started the FBI started putting together the tech
and customer support along with government personations because they have
(04:17):
a tendency to kind of go together. You'll see as
we go through this, we're going to talk about how
scams have evolved over the years, and you'll see where
the scammers are incorporating government personation into their tech support scam.
So they started reporting them together. But you can see
here the tech and customer support there was, and again
(04:40):
this is all age populations over thirty two thousand reported
victims losing over eight hundred and six million dollars. It's
one hundred and thirty two percent increase. But if you
look at this and then look at this this graph
here for the let's see the over sixty population represented
(05:03):
sixty nine percent. That's this dark blue here. They lost
over seven hundred and twenty four million to these scams,
more than victims of all other age groups combined. And
victims over sixty have lost their life savings, their homes,
and all the way to even losing their lives. And
(05:26):
it's devastating, and there have been reported that some have
actually committed suicides. So this is not just devastating financially.
These scams have a devastating effect psychologically, socially, emotionally, they
have a lot more drastic effects. Financial is a huge impact,
(05:50):
but these other ones are just as big as well.
And look here, call centers overwhelmingly target the elderly with
devastating effects. Almost half the victims report to be over
sixty forty six percent and experienced sixty nine percent of
the losses, as we said, over seven hundred and twenty
four million. And this is interesting, and this is in
(06:13):
twenty twenty two. They said that based on the reports
that the scams primarily emanate from call centers in South Asia,
mainly India, and so the FBI in response to that,
the Department of Justice and the FBI have started collaborating
with law enforcement of India to try to combat these
(06:34):
cyber enabled financial crimes and these call center frauds. Now,
let's look at twenty twenty three. Now, remember the tech
and customer support eight hundred and six million. It went
up one hundred and thirty two percent. Look at where
we're at for twenty twenty three was nine hundred and
(06:56):
twenty four million. And you look over here at the trend,
it shows that it went up fifteen percent. Fifteen percent. Again,
that's all age populations, and you might look at that
and go, well, that's not really a big increase. Well,
fifteen percent might not be a big increase from the
previous year, but nine hundred and twenty four million dollars,
(07:19):
as we said on the previous screen, represents people's life savings.
They lose their homes and sometimes they even lose their lives.
So this is devastating. And again call centers overwhelmingly target
(07:40):
older adults. Almost half the complaints forty percent. Yes, it's
down a little bit from twenty twenty two, which was
I think forty six percent, but forty percent is still
a lot that needs to be zero. And they experience
fifty eight percent of the losses over seven hundred and
seventy million just to the sixty plus population, and if
(08:02):
we go back to twenty twenty two, it was over
seven hundred and twenty four million, So those numbers are
increasing and this people are losing their lives as a
result of this. Now, let's look at some I found
a handful of public service announcements that the FBI has
(08:25):
put out over the last looks like nine years. So
this first one came out on tech support scams on
June second, twenty sixteen. And when the FBI puts these
public service announcements out, it's because they're seeing an increase
in these types of scams, increase in the victims. Maybe
(08:46):
they're the scammers are changing up their techniques and they're
starting to see new techniques. And you're going to see
that as we go through these FBI public service announcements
over the next nine years that I have up on
this screen for tech support, you're going to see just
how these scams have evolved over the years, like what
(09:06):
Brian was talking about last week. So this one relates
to the subject claims to be an employee of a
major computer software or security company offering technical support to
the victim. Right, that's pretty much how they came out.
They could be pretending to be support for cable and
internet companies, maybe offering assistance with digital cable boxes and connections,
(09:30):
modems rous routers. The company. They're claiming the company has
received notifications of errors, viruses, security issues from the victims
internet connection and they're also claiming to work on behalf
of government agencies to resolve computer viruses and threats from
possible foreign countries or terrorist organizations. So how does this
(09:56):
scam work here? So the initial contact occurs by different methods.
So one telephone, can they call your landline, Yes, they
could call your landline. But nowadays almost everyone has smartphones,
which are your mobile computers that you carry around with you,
(10:17):
and yes they're a huge convenience to have, but they
also can pose threats if not protected appropriately. So it's
what they say here. The victims receive a cold call
from someone who claims that the victim's computer is sending
error messages and viruses were detected. They get a pop
(10:38):
up message, right, The victims receive I think we a
lot of us have seen those on screen pop up
messages claiming viruses are attacking the device and here's a
phone number to call and receive assistance. Sometimes they could
have a locked screen on the device. This is what's
called blue screen of Death or BSoD. Victims report receiving
(10:59):
a freezing locks frozen lock screen with a phone number
and instructions to contact a phony tech support company, and
some victims even reported being redirected to alternate websites. And
then the blue screen of death occurred, and that they
said they've noticed particularly noticed when the victim was assessing
(11:21):
social media or financial websites. And sometimes those pop up
messages or lock screens are accompanied by a recorded verbal message. Now,
wouldn't that be scary? Right? Your your computer screen locks,
and all of a sudden, this voice comes out saying
that you know you called this phone number for assistance.
(11:43):
You're already fearful that you're going to lose everything that's
on your device, and it could be sensitive documents on
your device. You know, it could be you know, you
might have had your bank account open, or it could
be putting a virus on there that's going to watch
every keystroke that you make, so then they have access
(12:04):
to whatever accounts you log into a lot of different things.
And so you're already in that emotional state of being scared,
and now this voice comes on there and it freaks
you out even more, and so it's going to want
to make you call that number without thinking, because you
just want this to stop and you want to get
(12:24):
your computer and you're in your data to be safe.
And then the DEVOCE so if the once you've engaged
and called that number. If the device is mobile a tablet, smartphone,
the subject often instructs, or it should say, the scammer
instructs the victim to connect the device to a computer
(12:46):
to be fixed, and then once the once the scammer
is remotely connected to the device. They claim to have
found multiple viruses malware scareware that can be removed for
a fee. There's always fees involved, and they'll get it
via a personal debit or credit card, an electronic check,
a wire transfer. They're going to want you to do
(13:07):
a prepaid card. Back in twenty sixteen, they saw a
few instances where the victim paid by personal check. I
think that's pretty much gone by the wayside because of
all the access we have to instantly transfer money. I
think those personal checks now are taken over with those
(13:28):
peer to peer apps. You know, why send a check
when you can have somebody just do Venmo or zell
or PayPal and have it sent directly to the scammer.
And they've noticed back then that there are some variations
and trends with this. They saw an increase of this
when this scam occurs where the scammer contacts the victim
(13:52):
offering a refund for tech support services previously rendered because
the company was closed. We still see that today. I
haven't really heard too much that they've used the company
as closed, But what I've heard more of is that
they're using the scenario of your O to refund on
(14:13):
a previous subscription. And so you know, that's where they
pretend to be those more well known, reputable companies, you know,
like Microsoft and McAfee and all of those ones that
have been around for a long time, and you very
well could have had a subscription with one of those companies.
I know a lady that this happened to it. They
(14:35):
just hit her at the right time because she did
have a subscription to the company. They were impersonating that
she had closed the previous year, and so she thought
it was legitimate and went through the whole channel, and
so you know, they what they do is they convince
the victim to let them have access to their device,
(14:58):
but then they log onto their bank account pros the refund,
and then the scammer has control of the victim's device
and the bank account, and so then the scammer appears
to have mistakenly refunded too much money to the victim's
account and requests that the victim will wire the difference
back to the impersonated company, which is really the scammer.
(15:22):
But really what happened was is that they saw where
the scammer was actually just transferring funds between the victim's
own accounts, like maybe going from a savings to a checking,
or a retirement account to a checking or how you know,
whatever accounts were involved there to make it appear as
if those funds were deposited, and then the victim wires
(15:45):
the money back, not finding out till later that those
funds actually came from one of their own accounts, So
and that refunding and wiring can happen multiple times in
which the victim then loses thousands of dollars. And then
the last part of it is they've also noticed where
(16:06):
the victims have reported that the scammers are becoming hostile, abusive,
foul language and threats when being challenged by the victims.
And I think we're seeing a lot more of that now.
I see a lot of things on social media where
people in fact, I just saw one yesterday from a
friend where he explained that someone called him saying that
(16:28):
someone has taken over as Microsoft. I think it was
his Microsoft account, and they needed him to do put
this code in his computer and he was like, well,
I don't really want to do that, and the person
on the other end said, go blank yourself. You can
just fill in what he would have said in the blank.
(16:50):
But so they are, and I think the becoming hostile,
abusive and foul language and issuing threats is becoming more
and more common these days. And as always with any complaint,
you really, whether you've lost money or you haven't, you
should report it because it gives law enforcement more information
(17:14):
on how to on how to or more information on
the actual scam, on who's involved, and it just it
adds pieces to the puzzle. And you can do that
right at this website here www. Dot ic three dot gov.
(17:36):
And if you want to look up any of the
FBI's public service announcements, you can get on this website
as well www. Dot ic three dot gov and look
under public information and you can just look at a
bunch of different public service announcements over the years that
they've put out on a wide variety of crimes in topics.
(17:58):
So we were in twenty sixteen, now twenty eighteen they
came out with one just labeled tech support fraud. So again,
these these complaints are increasing. It's from twenty eighteen or
twenty seventeen to sixteen to seventeen, it went up eighty
(18:21):
six percent, So that warrants another public service announcement to
come out to get this information out to the public.
Went up from complaints from victims in from seventy different
countries to eighty five different countries. So again, scammers are
posing a security customer technical support offering to resolve issues
(18:43):
as maybe a compromised email account, a bank account, a
virus on the computer, assists with a software license renewal
or refund. You know. They they they're impersonating representatives from
printer companies, cable company and now they've actually started with
these virtual currency exchangers as well. And now that what
(19:07):
we said earlier, this fraud's become more commonplace, they started
to pose as government officials even offering to recover losses
related to these tech support fraud schemes or to request
financial assistance with apprehending criminals. Just know that it's law
(19:28):
enforcement that is going to go after these criminals and
they do not need financial assistance from the general public
to do that, and they work with specific either government
companies or specific contracted companies outside of the government to
(19:49):
go after these accounts to try to recover losses. And
I emphasize try because recovering law us does not happen
a lot happening. It's happening a lot more these days
than it has in the past. But the law enforcement
already has these companies who they work with, and they're
(20:14):
not going to call the individual victim offering to for
money to help get their money back. They're doing it
through law enforcement. So the fraudickers, like we talked about
the telephone, now here's some new one. There's a pop
up message the lock screen. Search engine advertising, so individuals
(20:38):
in need of tech support may use online search engines
to find tech support companies. So the scammers will pay
to have their fraudulent tech support companies link show higher
in the search results, hoping the victims will choose one
of those top links in the search results. Those are
usually like if you're on Google, legitimate companies can pay
(21:03):
these Google ads to have their information show up first
or you know, in the top three up there, and
that's it's legitimate. Legitimate companies pay to have this done.
But as scams evolve, and as the scammers evolve, they
are also paying to have their sponsor and it'll usually
(21:25):
say sponsored ad show up at the top, so you're
more likely to click on that. So just when you
see something that says sponsored ad, and I know Rose
as an organization will do that as well, But just
then find the verified website for whatever company it is
(21:48):
without going through that sponsored ad, and then you will
be able to find any anything they're talking about, if
it is an actual legitimate sponsored ad, will be on
that company's verified website. So just know you don't have
to go in through that sponsored ad. You can always
go in through the company's verified website. But again, this
is the way scammers are evolving. They're using search engine
(22:11):
advertising for it. Now let's see what this says. The
pop ups and the lock screens. We talked about the
recorded verbal message, but now they frequently program into links
for advertisements. We talked about that. You know social media.
They're all over social media, and they can make a
(22:36):
web address for a popular website look really really similar, right.
They might just change you know, maybe let's say a
lowercase L to the number one, and are you going
to notice that difference. You might not because your naked
(22:58):
eye is looking for the actual company, and you might
not notice that that lowercase L is actually a one,
which could make all the difference. And so we always
recommend people write down every character to the right of
the at sign. Some people have even suggested writing it
down backwards. But if you're writing down every character and
(23:20):
you're looking at each individual character and not necessarily the
name of the company, you're going to be more apt
to get the right character and then notice that it's off.
They also now are using Back in eighteen they talked
about the phishing email those there is a big increase
in again getting an email just out of the blue
(23:42):
saying that there's an issue. Again, they're using it for
the fake refund scheme as well, and again variations on this.
Criminals poses government officials or law enforcements offering assistance and
recovering losses. But now they're posing as collection services, claiming
(24:03):
the victim didn't pay for prior tech support services and
they're threatened with legal action. So you get any calls
like that go directly to whatever company the supposed collection
the scammer that's posing as the collection company is claiming
to get their funds. Go directly to that company, not
(24:27):
the collection company, the actual company and find out if
you actually do all money virtual currency again, increasing they
pose as support for the virtual currency accounts, you know,
getting into those wallets. I believe they're called to be
able to then take over their virtual currency. Let's see
(24:56):
another thing that they were seeing is that the scammers
who took control of the victim's devices or accounts didn't
release control until a ransom was paid. But you can
bet that even if you did pay a ransom to
get your stuff back, the criminal already has all of
the information and if it's your bank account, they can
(25:19):
wipe it out and then you're going to get it
back with zeros, So just be careful with that. Let's
go down to twenty twenty two, so technical and customer
support fraud again, kind of the same issues. In twenty
twenty two, they're adding like utility companies cryptocurrency exchanges that
(25:43):
they're impersonating, and they're also now seeing an uptick in
the use of cryptocurrency ATMs, which is an emerging method
of payment. You find a lot of those, like in
gas stations, and shopping malls and things like that. And
I actually heard recently someone tell me they were in
a gas station and I don't know where it was at,
(26:05):
but the owner literally was ripping out the cryptocurrency ATM
and they started talking to him and he was like,
I have seen so many people come in here with
thousands of dollars in cash and they are just putting
it into this cryptocurrency ATM and they don't invest in cryptocurrency,
(26:25):
but yet they're using these and he goes, I can't
stand this anymore. I'm getting rid of this. So just
be wary of that. If you are investing in cryptocurrency,
please research who you're dealing with, what it is, and
make sure you understand it completely before you even start
to invest in it, the same as you would do
(26:46):
with any investment that you would want to get into.
Do your research and make sure you are using a
reputable person if you are using a third party or
reputable company to handle this information. So they're also impersonating
bank support. So I've heard of this in the last
few years where they're talking about saying, there's an issue
(27:07):
with your bank account. We've noticed fraud. You need to
transfer your money, and they tell you a lot of times.
They tell you to do it in not all at once,
but do it over multiple days in certain amounts to
is not alert people at the bank. And then they
might Also they're impersonating drivers employed by ride share or
(27:31):
transportation mobility companies, saying that there was an issue regarding
a ride or complaint or the driver's account, so the
driver's convinced to allow access to their accounts. So this
would be like with uber drivers or lyft drivers. So
if you're or you're a driver for a mobility company,
just know that they are impersonating them. As well. Travel industry,
(27:52):
you know, they're impersonating customer support of car rental, airline,
hotel industries, offering these great deals, right, these too good
to be true deals, and taking fake reservations. Let's get
down to twenty twenty later in twenty twenty two, excuse me,
(28:12):
so scammers using computer technical support impersonation scams to target
victims and conduct wire transfers. I think we've talked a
lot about this. So what they're saying here is scam.
The victims will get contacted through email, elaborate messages that
(28:34):
seem authentic, claiming to provide a form of technical service,
you know, such as those that you might find at
major electronics store chains that sell electronics, computers, and other
digital devices. The scammers claim to aid and securing a
refund through remote act access to the victim's computer, or
the email hints at a pending renewal of a subscription
(28:57):
that you have to do within the next twenty four
hours or you're you know, going to lose it. It
could be a computer protection plan or a warranty in
a sense of urgency to renew it or you're going
to lose it. The first thing to do there is
ask yourself, do you even have that service? Do you
(29:18):
even have that warranty or that protection plan? If you're
not sure, find the verified phone number of whatever company
they're impersonating and call them directly and ask the question.
And then if you do and you do want to
renew it, you can renew it through them and not
have to go through any links that are in that email.
(29:38):
That's your way to verify whether or not that email
is accurate. They can also contact you, you know, by
phone numbers, and then they scammers have been known to
leave voice messages they are starting you know they've been
they've been leaving voicemail messages and they want you to
call them at this number. And so yeah, you know,
(30:00):
it's not that expensive to get phone numbers, so just
be careful. You can always verify the phone number and
make sure it is an actual phone number of the
company that they're claiming to be from. You know, same
kind of thing. They're requesting a refund or receive an
explanation of the service renewal, and then they persuade the
(30:20):
victim to download remote Desktop Protocol software and then that
actually gives the scammers full access to their computers with
the refund. It works on the same way where they
can get into the person's bank account because they're already
into the computer, and they get the victim to open
(30:41):
up their bank account showing that they've deposited a refund.
But oh my gosh, I put too many zeros in there.
It's a mistake. I'm going to get fired. I need
you to send the money back right away. And so
this again is how they've evolved. It's not necessarily where
they're transferring money from your account from one of your
accounts to another account. They actually make it look like
(31:04):
they're putting a refund into your account, and they put
too many zeros to the left of the decimal point right,
and so then they're going to get fired. And so
they get you to run to the bank and take
cash out, and they tell you how to send it
or I need you to wire the money back to me,
and then you don't know until a day or two
later that oh my gosh, that money never hit my
(31:25):
account to begin with. So now I'm out. I'm out
of this month. I'm out of the money that I
sent to them. So you know, here's a sample interaction screen.
Welcome to blank. You just put a company's name in
refund server. Please enter your name, accept it. Please enter
(31:45):
your bank name, verifying, verified zip codes verifying. Then they
verified it the refund amount. Please wait, money wired, money cleared.
Please check your account balance. Thank you for banking with us.
They can make your screen show all of these things
to make it look like it is actually your bank,
showing that they've verified your information and that they've the
(32:09):
money's wired, they've verified that you've received it. So just
remember you resist the pressure to act quickly and always
verify before you can trust the contact and verify by
if you have the legitimate phone number for whatever company
(32:30):
it is, call them, find their verified website, go there
and get the phone number and call them, or log
onto your account if you do the online stuff with
these companies the way you normally would and check your
account out, but verify, talk to somebody, talk to your
trusted person and go through the steps as to what
(32:50):
Sometimes you saying it out loud, your brain kind of
flips out of that emotional state into your rational state,
and then you all of a sudden go, well, this
doesn't make any sense, so talk to somebody. There's a
lot of tech support announcements we're into twenty twenty three
or PSAs. Here's one Phantom hacker scams target senior citizens
(33:14):
and result in victims losing their life savings. So this
is where the phantom hacker scam uses tech support scam
so impersonating a tech support company, a financial institution, and
government personas to enhance the trust of the victim, and
(33:35):
the scammers have been known to just wipe out entire banks,
checking savings, retirement investment accounts. There's estimated losses of five
hundred and forty two million with this. So a scammer
poses as a techer customer support from a legitimate company,
right any of those ways we talked about. The victim
(33:56):
then engages with them. They get them to download a
software program allowing the scammer access to their computer. They
pretend to run a virus scan, claims the virus has
been at risk or at hacked, and then they ask
them to open their financial accounts, and then all of
a sudden, there's these you know, fraud going on on
their account and send lo and behold, here comes a
financial institution impostor. And then they start showing them that
(34:19):
there's fraud on their account and that a foreign hacker
has been involved in that. The victim must move their
money to a safe third party account, such as an
account with a Federal Reserve or another US government agency,
and they direct them how to do that, whether it's
through a wire transfer, cryptocurrency. And then phase three incomes
(34:44):
the US government impostor, so then they can be posing
as a US government employee at the Federal Reserve or
another government agency. And then if the victim becomes suspicious
of the government impostor, they may send an email or
a letter on what appears to be an official US
government letterhead to legitimize the scam, and they just continue
(35:08):
to emphasize your funds are unsafe, they must be moved
to this new alias account until the victim finally will
do it. So here's another graph here tech Support and
postor that there's an issue and that it affects your
bank account. Now you have a second one coming in
impersonating someone at the bank, and then a third one
coming in impersonating someone at as a government impostor to
(35:32):
get you to believe this make it all the more
legitimate and want you to move your money. So here
we are in twenty twenty four. They've upped their scammers
of up their game again. Now they're actually using couriers
to come get the cash, or they get you to
(35:52):
take your money and buy gold bars or some sort
of precious metal, and the courier comes and picks that
stuff up. And so you know, they do the same
thing as the phantom hacker scam. You know, they impersonate
tech Support, then they impersonate a bank official than a
government official. But now step two is they're using couriers.
(36:13):
So they'll send a courier to retrieve items at the
victims' homes, or they'll have them meet them in a
public location, so they may direct the victim to authenticate
the transaction with the courier using a pass code such
as a serial number of US dollar bill, and that
they'll safeguard the assets in a protected account until they
(36:35):
can get their bank account stuff fixed. Well, then you
never hear from them again. You go to your bank,
you find out this was all a scam, and you
are out all of that money. So I think you
can see from all these different public service announcements how
there's still a lot of the same tactics that they
(36:56):
use in these tech support scams, but how they've evolved
over the years and they're implementing it and making their schemes.
They're using more tactics in it that they're impersonating multiple
people and or they're adding that you're getting a refund
instead of having to pay for something, or that your
account right and is in jeopardy. You need to transfer
(37:17):
your money into this new account, or go out and
buy precious metals, or just take the cash out and
we're going to send a courier to come get it.
So the other one I want to talk about before
we run out of time. Is investment scams now investment scams,
they can be liquidity mining Victims are enticed to link
their cryptocurrency wallet to a fraudulent liquidity mining hack. Social media,
(37:42):
so this happens all the time. So if someone's and
this is different from your social media being cloned cloned,
is they have another social media account where they're using
your pictures and all of that to impersonate you. But
some people's accounts actually get hacked where they then don't
(38:03):
have any control of their account, and now the scammer
can start messaging their friends. They have access to their
friends list, even if they're private, because they've gotten into
the person's social media account, and so then they start
posing as you, wanting your friends to invest in these
great opportunities. Celebrity impersonations. This is happening all of the time.
(38:30):
If you just type in Google or whatever search bar
you use, celebrity impersonation scams, you are going to find
so many celebrities who have been impersonated, so many different
types of scams. But again, you know, they pretend to
be a celebrity. They are going to make a friendship
with you and get you entice you to want to
(38:51):
invest in some sort of investment, sometimes cryptocurrency. They are
even targeting real estate professionals. They act as a real
estate agent or a real estate agent offering to buy
a very expensive property for cash or crypto, and then
once engaged, the scammer will expose their control of fictitious accounts.
(39:13):
They'll have fictitious accounts with purported value of millions of
dollars to entice the real estate professional to engage in
their investment scheme. There's employment ones out there, fake positions
at investment firms. Again, verify before you do any investment.
Verify that the investment is legitimate, and that if you're
(39:34):
using a third party, that you are using a legitimate
third party, And verify with the verified website or the
verified phone number, and check things out before you do
any investment. Twenty twenty three. Let's look at the graph
here nineteen. You can see it's a lot of money.
(39:55):
It's probably well, I think the red is the red
is crypto investment, the green is investments. In general. They
were up to looks like just under maybe about two
hundred million dollars. And by the way this barograph reads,
you're going to look at it, say, oh, there's not
(40:16):
very many losses. Well, two hundred and fifty million dollars
is a lot, But look at how this grows. Didn't
grow much in twenty twenty. Look at how it jumped
in twenty twenty one. Now look how it over more
than doubled again in twenty twenty two, and then it
goes up again. We're in the billions of dollars now
with these investment scams. And if you look over to
the left, look at this, the thirty to thirty nine
(40:38):
year olds, the forty to forty nine year olds had
the most victims, and the over sixty had a lot
of victims as well as long as the thirty to
thirty nine year olds. If I had to guess, I
would guess that the over sixty probably lost more money
than the forty to forty nine and the thirty to
(40:58):
thirty nine did. But that's that's just a guess on
my part. So you can see how the investments cryptocurrency
investments companies falsely claiming to recover lost funds in cryptocurrency,
and then they're getting into this non fungible token. Developers
(41:19):
can't really tell you about non fungible token developers because
I don't really I haven't really learned anything about that,
but I'm sure there are legitimate ones out there that
if you wanted to learn more, you could find information
on the web. But let's look at some public service
announcements from the FBI. This is twenty twenty two. So
this is a Miami Field Office investment schemes involving cryptocurrency
(41:44):
called pig butchering. Pig butchering is a way that they've
evolved with their investment schemes. So this is where they
pose as highly successful traders, and they are first of
all when they make contact with you, usually on various
social media or dating applications, but you know, it could
(42:04):
come in a variety of different ways, and they're posing
as a potential friend or maybe a romantic partner. So
with this pig butchering, they're bringing romance kind of some
techniques in from the romance scam and doing that grooming
there to get you to believe what they're saying. And
they use fake websites and apps to show you that
(42:26):
they're making all of this money, and they'll use them
to show you how you can track your investments to
show you that you're making all this money to get
you to want to keep investing, and then when you
want to cash out, they're told they need to pay
income taxes or fees, causing you to lose more money.
And then you're unable to retrieve your investments as you
(42:49):
often lose contact with the scammers. They might close the
fraudulent website or they're just going to cease contact with
you either. So many of those victims reported being making
wire transfers to overseas accounts. They're using cryptocurrency ATMs. Let's
(43:11):
see again investments. You have to verify everything I did
when I was doing the podcast last year. I did
one of my podcasts with a gentleman who was in
a pig butchering scheme. But he did a lot of
research before he invested money and came across this pig
(43:34):
butchering scheme and realized that that's what she was doing
to him. And I will contact him and see if
I can't get him back on so we can talk
more about this, but the pig butchering scheme in particular.
But this was another PSA from twenty twenty three. They're
seeing a spike in crypto investment schemes. They approach the victims,
they build the trust. And the building the trust here
(43:57):
is the dangerous part because they're eploiding your trust and
that gets you to believe what they're saying and put
more money into these investments over time, just keep investing
in investing. Then they introduce the scheme and then they
steal your funds. So they are socially engineered and trust enabled,
right beginning with a confidence or romance scam excuse me,
(44:22):
and then involving into the crypto investment fraud. They use
fake identities, they build those relationships. Just be careful if
you're on dating apps, social media platforms, per networking sites,
encrypted messaging apps, you have to do your research and
you can't just believe what people are telling you. And
(44:42):
especially with the pig butchering and when they're trying to
befriend you and they go through this building trust here,
that's along the lines of the grooming and the romance scam,
and that can get very dangerous. I spoke to a
lady who she said it was as if they took over.
The criminal took over her brain, had her thinking everything
(45:06):
he wanted her to think, so that just adds a
whole other layer onto these schemes, and it could be
and it could be hard to break that trust that
the scammer has you in, so be very careful, always
do your research here. They've noticed in later in twenty
(45:28):
twenty three, they noticed an increase in falsely claiming to
recover loss funds and that is the end of those
public service announcements. So with any investment, just please please
please do your research. There's a lot of legitimate information online.
If there's a lot of investment brokers that have offices
(45:52):
in your neighborhood, your town, your city, If you're not
familiar with any of them, talk to your friends and
see who they use as an investment broker that they trust,
or maybe a family member has somebody that they trust,
and talk directly with them and verify things before you
actually spend any money in these investments. And you really
(46:15):
have to understand cryptocurrency before you get invested in it.
You really need to understand it. I would imagine some
investment brokers do deal in cryptocurrency. Again, ask for references
and verify everything before you decide to do these investments.
But I hope you were able to see today one
(46:38):
get some more information on these investment scams and tech
support scams. And for those of you that I know,
we talk a lot about how this affects the sixty
plus population, but if you have older loved ones that
you are talked to on a regular basis, and they
could be neighbors, they could be family members, friends, whatever,
(47:00):
or just start talking about this information. Just say hey,
you know, I was listening to Roses radio show and
I got on the FBI'SIC three dot gov website and
I found this public service announcement. Look what these criminals
are doing. And it's a non defensive, non threatening way
to just start having these conversations because the more we
(47:21):
talk about it, the more it helps everybody keep scam
awareness and protection at top of mind and to be
able to help people when they were contacted realize that
it's a scam before they get into that emotional state
or before the scammer has started a grooming process. And
(47:43):
then please always verify before you can trust anything. That's
all I have for today. Remember you can get on
our website at Roseadvocacy dot org. Sign up for our
emailed and mailed newsletters at the bottom of the homepage.
Social media links are there. Follow us on YouTube, subscribe
(48:04):
to our YouTube channel. You can find all the past
live radio streams and the shorts on there, plus the
older podcast that I did. You can find those episodes
on there as well. And see you next Tuesday. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Well, that's all the knowledge for this episode. Juni in
every Tuesday at eight am Pacific time on KFOURHD Radio
at KFOURHD dot com as Joyce explores a variety of knowledge,
so you have the power to make scam protection your
healthy habit, and until then, feel free to reach out
to Joyce and let's talk about scams.
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling,
professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services
(00:23):
of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational
purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional
legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted
sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard the
(00:45):
elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
To a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the must
listen show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and
their loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday at am Pacific
time on K four HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose,
and her guests will provide valuable insights and practical tips
(01:10):
on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams. And
now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, welcome back, everybody. Thank you for joining me this morning.
I'm Joyce Petrowski, founder and board president of Rose Resources
Outreach to safeguard the elderly. You can find more resources
on our website at Roseadvocacy dot org. On the homepage
at the bottom, you can sign up for our email
and or mailed newsletter, and our social media links are
(01:39):
on there, so you can follow us on our variety
of different social media channels, and you can find all
the past live streams and shorts on our YouTube channel.
The link is on our homepage for that as well.
So a couple weeks ago, we talked about the new
FBI IC three annual report that came out specifically related
(02:03):
to the elder Fraud Report and how the number of
victims in the sixty plus age population and the number
the amount of losses have drastically increased. And then last
week my guest host Brian Watson talked about how scams
have evolved over the last you know, fifteen twenty years,
(02:26):
and so now today I want to talk about to
go back to the the annual report from the FBI's
Internet Crime Complaints Center for two thousand and twenty four.
It highlighted in the sixty plus age population. Two scams
in particular that represented close to half of the losses,
(02:50):
and that's the investment scams and the tech support scams.
So we're going to start with tech support fraud. And
I've got everything up on the screen here and you
can see this is from twenty twenty one that the
losses amounted to three hundred and forty seven million, which
represents one hundred and thirty seven percent increase from twenty
(03:14):
and twenty. And they say most victims, almost sixty percent
of them reported to be over sixty years of age,
and they experienced at least sixty eight percent of the losses. Now,
if you look at this table, look at where we
were in two and twenty, and this is for all
age populations, one hundred and forty six million. It's a
(03:36):
lot of money compared to twenty seventeen, which was fourteen million.
But look at twenty twenty one, it more than doubled.
As they said, it represented one hundred and thirty seven
percent increase. Again, all age populations up to almost three
hundred and forty eight million dollars, and the sixty plus
(03:56):
population is more than half of that dollar amount. So
then this next slide, we get into twenty twenty two,
and they've started the FBI started putting together the tech
and customer support along with government personations because they have
(04:17):
a tendency to kind of go together. You'll see as
we go through this, we're going to talk about how
scams have evolved over the years, and you'll see where
the scammers are incorporating government personation into their tech support scam.
So they started reporting them together. But you can see
here the tech and customer support there was, and again
(04:40):
this is all age populations over thirty two thousand reported
victims losing over eight hundred and six million dollars. It's
one hundred and thirty two percent increase. But if you
look at this and then look at this this graph
here for the let's see the over sixty population represented
(05:03):
sixty nine percent. That's this dark blue here. They lost
over seven hundred and twenty four million to these scams,
more than victims of all other age groups combined. And
victims over sixty have lost their life savings, their homes,
and all the way to even losing their lives. And
(05:26):
it's devastating, and there have been reported that some have
actually committed suicides. So this is not just devastating financially.
These scams have a devastating effect psychologically, socially, emotionally, they
have a lot more drastic effects. Financial is a huge impact,
(05:50):
but these other ones are just as big as well.
And look here, call centers overwhelmingly target the elderly with
devastating effects. Almost half the victims report to be over
sixty forty six percent and experienced sixty nine percent of
the losses, as we said, over seven hundred and twenty
four million. And this is interesting, and this is in
(06:13):
twenty twenty two. They said that based on the reports
that the scams primarily emanate from call centers in South Asia,
mainly India, and so the FBI in response to that,
the Department of Justice and the FBI have started collaborating
with law enforcement of India to try to combat these
(06:34):
cyber enabled financial crimes and these call center frauds. Now,
let's look at twenty twenty three. Now, remember the tech
and customer support eight hundred and six million. It went
up one hundred and thirty two percent. Look at where
we're at for twenty twenty three was nine hundred and
(06:56):
twenty four million. And you look over here at the trend,
it shows that it went up fifteen percent. Fifteen percent. Again,
that's all age populations, and you might look at that
and go, well, that's not really a big increase. Well,
fifteen percent might not be a big increase from the
previous year, but nine hundred and twenty four million dollars,
(07:19):
as we said on the previous screen, represents people's life savings.
They lose their homes and sometimes they even lose their lives.
So this is devastating. And again call centers overwhelmingly target
(07:40):
older adults. Almost half the complaints forty percent. Yes, it's
down a little bit from twenty twenty two, which was
I think forty six percent, but forty percent is still
a lot that needs to be zero. And they experience
fifty eight percent of the losses over seven hundred and
seventy million just to the sixty plus population, and if
(08:02):
we go back to twenty twenty two, it was over
seven hundred and twenty four million, So those numbers are
increasing and this people are losing their lives as a
result of this. Now, let's look at some I found
a handful of public service announcements that the FBI has
(08:25):
put out over the last looks like nine years. So
this first one came out on tech support scams on
June second, twenty sixteen. And when the FBI puts these
public service announcements out, it's because they're seeing an increase
in these types of scams, increase in the victims. Maybe
(08:46):
they're the scammers are changing up their techniques and they're
starting to see new techniques. And you're going to see
that as we go through these FBI public service announcements
over the next nine years that I have up on
this screen for tech support, you're going to see just
how these scams have evolved over the years, like what
(09:06):
Brian was talking about last week. So this one relates
to the subject claims to be an employee of a
major computer software or security company offering technical support to
the victim. Right, that's pretty much how they came out.
They could be pretending to be support for cable and
internet companies, maybe offering assistance with digital cable boxes and connections,
(09:30):
modems rous routers. The company. They're claiming the company has
received notifications of errors, viruses, security issues from the victims
internet connection and they're also claiming to work on behalf
of government agencies to resolve computer viruses and threats from
possible foreign countries or terrorist organizations. So how does this
(09:56):
scam work here? So the initial contact occurs by different methods.
So one telephone, can they call your landline, Yes, they
could call your landline. But nowadays almost everyone has smartphones,
which are your mobile computers that you carry around with you,
(10:17):
and yes they're a huge convenience to have, but they
also can pose threats if not protected appropriately. So it's
what they say here. The victims receive a cold call
from someone who claims that the victim's computer is sending
error messages and viruses were detected. They get a pop
(10:38):
up message, right, The victims receive I think we a
lot of us have seen those on screen pop up
messages claiming viruses are attacking the device and here's a
phone number to call and receive assistance. Sometimes they could
have a locked screen on the device. This is what's
called blue screen of Death or BSoD. Victims report receiving
(10:59):
a freezing locks frozen lock screen with a phone number
and instructions to contact a phony tech support company, and
some victims even reported being redirected to alternate websites. And
then the blue screen of death occurred, and that they
said they've noticed particularly noticed when the victim was assessing
(11:21):
social media or financial websites. And sometimes those pop up
messages or lock screens are accompanied by a recorded verbal message. Now,
wouldn't that be scary? Right? Your your computer screen locks,
and all of a sudden, this voice comes out saying
that you know you called this phone number for assistance.
(11:43):
You're already fearful that you're going to lose everything that's
on your device, and it could be sensitive documents on
your device. You know, it could be you know, you
might have had your bank account open, or it could
be putting a virus on there that's going to watch
every keystroke that you make, so then they have access
(12:04):
to whatever accounts you log into a lot of different things.
And so you're already in that emotional state of being scared,
and now this voice comes on there and it freaks
you out even more, and so it's going to want
to make you call that number without thinking, because you
just want this to stop and you want to get
(12:24):
your computer and you're in your data to be safe.
And then the DEVOCE so if the once you've engaged
and called that number. If the device is mobile a tablet, smartphone,
the subject often instructs, or it should say, the scammer
instructs the victim to connect the device to a computer
(12:46):
to be fixed, and then once the once the scammer
is remotely connected to the device. They claim to have
found multiple viruses malware scareware that can be removed for
a fee. There's always fees involved, and they'll get it
via a personal debit or credit card, an electronic check,
a wire transfer. They're going to want you to do
(13:07):
a prepaid card. Back in twenty sixteen, they saw a
few instances where the victim paid by personal check. I
think that's pretty much gone by the wayside because of
all the access we have to instantly transfer money. I
think those personal checks now are taken over with those
(13:28):
peer to peer apps. You know, why send a check
when you can have somebody just do Venmo or zell
or PayPal and have it sent directly to the scammer.
And they've noticed back then that there are some variations
and trends with this. They saw an increase of this
when this scam occurs where the scammer contacts the victim
(13:52):
offering a refund for tech support services previously rendered because
the company was closed. We still see that today. I
haven't really heard too much that they've used the company
as closed, But what I've heard more of is that
they're using the scenario of your O to refund on
(14:13):
a previous subscription. And so you know, that's where they
pretend to be those more well known, reputable companies, you know,
like Microsoft and McAfee and all of those ones that
have been around for a long time, and you very
well could have had a subscription with one of those companies.
I know a lady that this happened to it. They
(14:35):
just hit her at the right time because she did
have a subscription to the company. They were impersonating that
she had closed the previous year, and so she thought
it was legitimate and went through the whole channel, and
so you know, they what they do is they convince
the victim to let them have access to their device,
(14:58):
but then they log onto their bank account pros the refund,
and then the scammer has control of the victim's device
and the bank account, and so then the scammer appears
to have mistakenly refunded too much money to the victim's
account and requests that the victim will wire the difference
back to the impersonated company, which is really the scammer.
(15:22):
But really what happened was is that they saw where
the scammer was actually just transferring funds between the victim's
own accounts, like maybe going from a savings to a checking,
or a retirement account to a checking or how you know,
whatever accounts were involved there to make it appear as
if those funds were deposited, and then the victim wires
(15:45):
the money back, not finding out till later that those
funds actually came from one of their own accounts, So
and that refunding and wiring can happen multiple times in
which the victim then loses thousands of dollars. And then
the last part of it is they've also noticed where
(16:06):
the victims have reported that the scammers are becoming hostile, abusive,
foul language and threats when being challenged by the victims.
And I think we're seeing a lot more of that now.
I see a lot of things on social media where
people in fact, I just saw one yesterday from a
friend where he explained that someone called him saying that
(16:28):
someone has taken over as Microsoft. I think it was
his Microsoft account, and they needed him to do put
this code in his computer and he was like, well,
I don't really want to do that, and the person
on the other end said, go blank yourself. You can
just fill in what he would have said in the blank.
(16:50):
But so they are, and I think the becoming hostile,
abusive and foul language and issuing threats is becoming more
and more common these days. And as always with any complaint,
you really, whether you've lost money or you haven't, you
should report it because it gives law enforcement more information
(17:14):
on how to on how to or more information on
the actual scam, on who's involved, and it just it
adds pieces to the puzzle. And you can do that
right at this website here www. Dot ic three dot gov.
(17:36):
And if you want to look up any of the
FBI's public service announcements, you can get on this website
as well www. Dot ic three dot gov and look
under public information and you can just look at a
bunch of different public service announcements over the years that
they've put out on a wide variety of crimes in topics.
(17:58):
So we were in twenty sixteen, now twenty eighteen they
came out with one just labeled tech support fraud. So again,
these these complaints are increasing. It's from twenty eighteen or
twenty seventeen to sixteen to seventeen, it went up eighty
(18:21):
six percent, So that warrants another public service announcement to
come out to get this information out to the public.
Went up from complaints from victims in from seventy different
countries to eighty five different countries. So again, scammers are
posing a security customer technical support offering to resolve issues
(18:43):
as maybe a compromised email account, a bank account, a
virus on the computer, assists with a software license renewal
or refund. You know. They they they're impersonating representatives from
printer companies, cable company and now they've actually started with
these virtual currency exchangers as well. And now that what
(19:07):
we said earlier, this fraud's become more commonplace, they started
to pose as government officials even offering to recover losses
related to these tech support fraud schemes or to request
financial assistance with apprehending criminals. Just know that it's law
(19:28):
enforcement that is going to go after these criminals and
they do not need financial assistance from the general public
to do that, and they work with specific either government
companies or specific contracted companies outside of the government to
(19:49):
go after these accounts to try to recover losses. And
I emphasize try because recovering law us does not happen
a lot happening. It's happening a lot more these days
than it has in the past. But the law enforcement
already has these companies who they work with, and they're
(20:14):
not going to call the individual victim offering to for
money to help get their money back. They're doing it
through law enforcement. So the fraudickers, like we talked about
the telephone, now here's some new one. There's a pop
up message the lock screen. Search engine advertising, so individuals
(20:38):
in need of tech support may use online search engines
to find tech support companies. So the scammers will pay
to have their fraudulent tech support companies link show higher
in the search results, hoping the victims will choose one
of those top links in the search results. Those are
usually like if you're on Google, legitimate companies can pay
(21:03):
these Google ads to have their information show up first
or you know, in the top three up there, and
that's it's legitimate. Legitimate companies pay to have this done.
But as scams evolve, and as the scammers evolve, they
are also paying to have their sponsor and it'll usually
(21:25):
say sponsored ad show up at the top, so you're
more likely to click on that. So just when you
see something that says sponsored ad, and I know Rose
as an organization will do that as well, But just
then find the verified website for whatever company it is
(21:48):
without going through that sponsored ad, and then you will
be able to find any anything they're talking about, if
it is an actual legitimate sponsored ad, will be on
that company's verified website. So just know you don't have
to go in through that sponsored ad. You can always
go in through the company's verified website. But again, this
is the way scammers are evolving. They're using search engine
(22:11):
advertising for it. Now let's see what this says. The
pop ups and the lock screens. We talked about the
recorded verbal message, but now they frequently program into links
for advertisements. We talked about that. You know social media.
They're all over social media, and they can make a
(22:36):
web address for a popular website look really really similar, right.
They might just change you know, maybe let's say a
lowercase L to the number one, and are you going
to notice that difference. You might not because your naked
(22:58):
eye is looking for the actual company, and you might
not notice that that lowercase L is actually a one,
which could make all the difference. And so we always
recommend people write down every character to the right of
the at sign. Some people have even suggested writing it
down backwards. But if you're writing down every character and
(23:20):
you're looking at each individual character and not necessarily the
name of the company, you're going to be more apt
to get the right character and then notice that it's off.
They also now are using Back in eighteen they talked
about the phishing email those there is a big increase
in again getting an email just out of the blue
(23:42):
saying that there's an issue. Again, they're using it for
the fake refund scheme as well, and again variations on this.
Criminals poses government officials or law enforcements offering assistance and
recovering losses. But now they're posing as collection services, claiming
(24:03):
the victim didn't pay for prior tech support services and
they're threatened with legal action. So you get any calls
like that go directly to whatever company the supposed collection
the scammer that's posing as the collection company is claiming
to get their funds. Go directly to that company, not
(24:27):
the collection company, the actual company and find out if
you actually do all money virtual currency again, increasing they
pose as support for the virtual currency accounts, you know,
getting into those wallets. I believe they're called to be
able to then take over their virtual currency. Let's see
(24:56):
another thing that they were seeing is that the scammers
who took control of the victim's devices or accounts didn't
release control until a ransom was paid. But you can
bet that even if you did pay a ransom to
get your stuff back, the criminal already has all of
the information and if it's your bank account, they can
(25:19):
wipe it out and then you're going to get it
back with zeros, So just be careful with that. Let's
go down to twenty twenty two, so technical and customer
support fraud again, kind of the same issues. In twenty
twenty two, they're adding like utility companies cryptocurrency exchanges that
(25:43):
they're impersonating, and they're also now seeing an uptick in
the use of cryptocurrency ATMs, which is an emerging method
of payment. You find a lot of those, like in
gas stations, and shopping malls and things like that. And
I actually heard recently someone tell me they were in
a gas station and I don't know where it was at,
(26:05):
but the owner literally was ripping out the cryptocurrency ATM
and they started talking to him and he was like,
I have seen so many people come in here with
thousands of dollars in cash and they are just putting
it into this cryptocurrency ATM and they don't invest in cryptocurrency,
(26:25):
but yet they're using these and he goes, I can't
stand this anymore. I'm getting rid of this. So just
be wary of that. If you are investing in cryptocurrency,
please research who you're dealing with, what it is, and
make sure you understand it completely before you even start
to invest in it, the same as you would do
(26:46):
with any investment that you would want to get into.
Do your research and make sure you are using a
reputable person if you are using a third party or
reputable company to handle this information. So they're also impersonating
bank support. So I've heard of this in the last
few years where they're talking about saying, there's an issue
(27:07):
with your bank account. We've noticed fraud. You need to
transfer your money, and they tell you a lot of times.
They tell you to do it in not all at once,
but do it over multiple days in certain amounts to
is not alert people at the bank. And then they
might Also they're impersonating drivers employed by ride share or
(27:31):
transportation mobility companies, saying that there was an issue regarding
a ride or complaint or the driver's account, so the
driver's convinced to allow access to their accounts. So this
would be like with uber drivers or lyft drivers. So
if you're or you're a driver for a mobility company,
just know that they are impersonating them. As well. Travel industry,
(27:52):
you know, they're impersonating customer support of car rental, airline,
hotel industries, offering these great deals, right, these too good
to be true deals, and taking fake reservations. Let's get
down to twenty twenty later in twenty twenty two, excuse me,
(28:12):
so scammers using computer technical support impersonation scams to target
victims and conduct wire transfers. I think we've talked a
lot about this. So what they're saying here is scam.
The victims will get contacted through email, elaborate messages that
(28:34):
seem authentic, claiming to provide a form of technical service,
you know, such as those that you might find at
major electronics store chains that sell electronics, computers, and other
digital devices. The scammers claim to aid and securing a
refund through remote act access to the victim's computer, or
the email hints at a pending renewal of a subscription
(28:57):
that you have to do within the next twenty four
hours or you're you know, going to lose it. It
could be a computer protection plan or a warranty in
a sense of urgency to renew it or you're going
to lose it. The first thing to do there is
ask yourself, do you even have that service? Do you
(29:18):
even have that warranty or that protection plan? If you're
not sure, find the verified phone number of whatever company
they're impersonating and call them directly and ask the question.
And then if you do and you do want to
renew it, you can renew it through them and not
have to go through any links that are in that email.
(29:38):
That's your way to verify whether or not that email
is accurate. They can also contact you, you know, by
phone numbers, and then they scammers have been known to
leave voice messages they are starting you know they've been
they've been leaving voicemail messages and they want you to
call them at this number. And so yeah, you know,
(30:00):
it's not that expensive to get phone numbers, so just
be careful. You can always verify the phone number and
make sure it is an actual phone number of the
company that they're claiming to be from. You know, same
kind of thing. They're requesting a refund or receive an
explanation of the service renewal, and then they persuade the
(30:20):
victim to download remote Desktop Protocol software and then that
actually gives the scammers full access to their computers with
the refund. It works on the same way where they
can get into the person's bank account because they're already
into the computer, and they get the victim to open
(30:41):
up their bank account showing that they've deposited a refund.
But oh my gosh, I put too many zeros in there.
It's a mistake. I'm going to get fired. I need
you to send the money back right away. And so
this again is how they've evolved. It's not necessarily where
they're transferring money from your account from one of your
accounts to another account. They actually make it look like
(31:04):
they're putting a refund into your account, and they put
too many zeros to the left of the decimal point right,
and so then they're going to get fired. And so
they get you to run to the bank and take
cash out, and they tell you how to send it
or I need you to wire the money back to me,
and then you don't know until a day or two
later that oh my gosh, that money never hit my
(31:25):
account to begin with. So now I'm out. I'm out
of this month. I'm out of the money that I
sent to them. So you know, here's a sample interaction screen.
Welcome to blank. You just put a company's name in
refund server. Please enter your name, accept it. Please enter
(31:45):
your bank name, verifying, verified zip codes verifying. Then they
verified it the refund amount. Please wait, money wired, money cleared.
Please check your account balance. Thank you for banking with us.
They can make your screen show all of these things
to make it look like it is actually your bank,
showing that they've verified your information and that they've the
(32:09):
money's wired, they've verified that you've received it. So just
remember you resist the pressure to act quickly and always
verify before you can trust the contact and verify by
if you have the legitimate phone number for whatever company
(32:30):
it is, call them, find their verified website, go there
and get the phone number and call them, or log
onto your account if you do the online stuff with
these companies the way you normally would and check your
account out, but verify, talk to somebody, talk to your
trusted person and go through the steps as to what
(32:50):
Sometimes you saying it out loud, your brain kind of
flips out of that emotional state into your rational state,
and then you all of a sudden go, well, this
doesn't make any sense, so talk to somebody. There's a
lot of tech support announcements we're into twenty twenty three
or PSAs. Here's one Phantom hacker scams target senior citizens
(33:14):
and result in victims losing their life savings. So this
is where the phantom hacker scam uses tech support scam
so impersonating a tech support company, a financial institution, and
government personas to enhance the trust of the victim, and
(33:35):
the scammers have been known to just wipe out entire banks,
checking savings, retirement investment accounts. There's estimated losses of five
hundred and forty two million with this. So a scammer
poses as a techer customer support from a legitimate company,
right any of those ways we talked about. The victim
(33:56):
then engages with them. They get them to download a
software program allowing the scammer access to their computer. They
pretend to run a virus scan, claims the virus has
been at risk or at hacked, and then they ask
them to open their financial accounts, and then all of
a sudden, there's these you know, fraud going on on
their account and send lo and behold, here comes a
financial institution impostor. And then they start showing them that
(34:19):
there's fraud on their account and that a foreign hacker
has been involved in that. The victim must move their
money to a safe third party account, such as an
account with a Federal Reserve or another US government agency,
and they direct them how to do that, whether it's
through a wire transfer, cryptocurrency. And then phase three incomes
(34:44):
the US government impostor, so then they can be posing
as a US government employee at the Federal Reserve or
another government agency. And then if the victim becomes suspicious
of the government impostor, they may send an email or
a letter on what appears to be an official US
government letterhead to legitimize the scam, and they just continue
(35:08):
to emphasize your funds are unsafe, they must be moved
to this new alias account until the victim finally will
do it. So here's another graph here tech Support and
postor that there's an issue and that it affects your
bank account. Now you have a second one coming in
impersonating someone at the bank, and then a third one
coming in impersonating someone at as a government impostor to
(35:32):
get you to believe this make it all the more
legitimate and want you to move your money. So here
we are in twenty twenty four. They've upped their scammers
of up their game again. Now they're actually using couriers
to come get the cash, or they get you to
(35:52):
take your money and buy gold bars or some sort
of precious metal, and the courier comes and picks that
stuff up. And so you know, they do the same
thing as the phantom hacker scam. You know, they impersonate
tech Support, then they impersonate a bank official than a
government official. But now step two is they're using couriers.
(36:13):
So they'll send a courier to retrieve items at the
victims' homes, or they'll have them meet them in a
public location, so they may direct the victim to authenticate
the transaction with the courier using a pass code such
as a serial number of US dollar bill, and that
they'll safeguard the assets in a protected account until they
(36:35):
can get their bank account stuff fixed. Well, then you
never hear from them again. You go to your bank,
you find out this was all a scam, and you
are out all of that money. So I think you
can see from all these different public service announcements how
there's still a lot of the same tactics that they
(36:56):
use in these tech support scams, but how they've evolved
over the years and they're implementing it and making their schemes.
They're using more tactics in it that they're impersonating multiple
people and or they're adding that you're getting a refund
instead of having to pay for something, or that your
account right and is in jeopardy. You need to transfer
(37:17):
your money into this new account, or go out and
buy precious metals, or just take the cash out and
we're going to send a courier to come get it.
So the other one I want to talk about before
we run out of time. Is investment scams now investment scams,
they can be liquidity mining Victims are enticed to link
their cryptocurrency wallet to a fraudulent liquidity mining hack. Social media,
(37:42):
so this happens all the time. So if someone's and
this is different from your social media being cloned cloned,
is they have another social media account where they're using
your pictures and all of that to impersonate you. But
some people's accounts actually get hacked where they then don't
(38:03):
have any control of their account, and now the scammer
can start messaging their friends. They have access to their
friends list, even if they're private, because they've gotten into
the person's social media account, and so then they start
posing as you, wanting your friends to invest in these
great opportunities. Celebrity impersonations. This is happening all of the time.
(38:30):
If you just type in Google or whatever search bar
you use, celebrity impersonation scams, you are going to find
so many celebrities who have been impersonated, so many different
types of scams. But again, you know, they pretend to
be a celebrity. They are going to make a friendship
with you and get you entice you to want to
(38:51):
invest in some sort of investment, sometimes cryptocurrency. They are
even targeting real estate professionals. They act as a real
estate agent or a real estate agent offering to buy
a very expensive property for cash or crypto, and then
once engaged, the scammer will expose their control of fictitious accounts.
(39:13):
They'll have fictitious accounts with purported value of millions of
dollars to entice the real estate professional to engage in
their investment scheme. There's employment ones out there, fake positions
at investment firms. Again, verify before you do any investment.
Verify that the investment is legitimate, and that if you're
(39:34):
using a third party, that you are using a legitimate
third party, And verify with the verified website or the
verified phone number, and check things out before you do
any investment. Twenty twenty three. Let's look at the graph
here nineteen. You can see it's a lot of money.
(39:55):
It's probably well, I think the red is the red
is crypto investment, the green is investments. In general. They
were up to looks like just under maybe about two
hundred million dollars. And by the way this barograph reads,
you're going to look at it, say, oh, there's not
(40:16):
very many losses. Well, two hundred and fifty million dollars
is a lot, But look at how this grows. Didn't
grow much in twenty twenty. Look at how it jumped
in twenty twenty one. Now look how it over more
than doubled again in twenty twenty two, and then it
goes up again. We're in the billions of dollars now
with these investment scams. And if you look over to
the left, look at this, the thirty to thirty nine
(40:38):
year olds, the forty to forty nine year olds had
the most victims, and the over sixty had a lot
of victims as well as long as the thirty to
thirty nine year olds. If I had to guess, I
would guess that the over sixty probably lost more money
than the forty to forty nine and the thirty to
(40:58):
thirty nine did. But that's that's just a guess on
my part. So you can see how the investments cryptocurrency
investments companies falsely claiming to recover lost funds in cryptocurrency,
and then they're getting into this non fungible token. Developers
(41:19):
can't really tell you about non fungible token developers because
I don't really I haven't really learned anything about that,
but I'm sure there are legitimate ones out there that
if you wanted to learn more, you could find information
on the web. But let's look at some public service
announcements from the FBI. This is twenty twenty two. So
this is a Miami Field Office investment schemes involving cryptocurrency
(41:44):
called pig butchering. Pig butchering is a way that they've
evolved with their investment schemes. So this is where they
pose as highly successful traders, and they are first of
all when they make contact with you, usually on various
social media or dating applications, but you know, it could
(42:04):
come in a variety of different ways, and they're posing
as a potential friend or maybe a romantic partner. So
with this pig butchering, they're bringing romance kind of some
techniques in from the romance scam and doing that grooming
there to get you to believe what they're saying. And
they use fake websites and apps to show you that
(42:26):
they're making all of this money, and they'll use them
to show you how you can track your investments to
show you that you're making all this money to get
you to want to keep investing, and then when you
want to cash out, they're told they need to pay
income taxes or fees, causing you to lose more money.
And then you're unable to retrieve your investments as you
(42:49):
often lose contact with the scammers. They might close the
fraudulent website or they're just going to cease contact with
you either. So many of those victims reported being making
wire transfers to overseas accounts. They're using cryptocurrency ATMs. Let's
(43:11):
see again investments. You have to verify everything I did
when I was doing the podcast last year. I did
one of my podcasts with a gentleman who was in
a pig butchering scheme. But he did a lot of
research before he invested money and came across this pig
(43:34):
butchering scheme and realized that that's what she was doing
to him. And I will contact him and see if
I can't get him back on so we can talk
more about this, but the pig butchering scheme in particular.
But this was another PSA from twenty twenty three. They're
seeing a spike in crypto investment schemes. They approach the victims,
they build the trust. And the building the trust here
(43:57):
is the dangerous part because they're eploiding your trust and
that gets you to believe what they're saying and put
more money into these investments over time, just keep investing
in investing. Then they introduce the scheme and then they
steal your funds. So they are socially engineered and trust enabled,
right beginning with a confidence or romance scam excuse me,
(44:22):
and then involving into the crypto investment fraud. They use
fake identities, they build those relationships. Just be careful if
you're on dating apps, social media platforms, per networking sites,
encrypted messaging apps, you have to do your research and
you can't just believe what people are telling you. And
(44:42):
especially with the pig butchering and when they're trying to
befriend you and they go through this building trust here,
that's along the lines of the grooming and the romance scam,
and that can get very dangerous. I spoke to a
lady who she said it was as if they took over.
The criminal took over her brain, had her thinking everything
(45:06):
he wanted her to think, so that just adds a
whole other layer onto these schemes, and it could be
and it could be hard to break that trust that
the scammer has you in, so be very careful, always
do your research here. They've noticed in later in twenty
(45:28):
twenty three, they noticed an increase in falsely claiming to
recover loss funds and that is the end of those
public service announcements. So with any investment, just please please
please do your research. There's a lot of legitimate information online.
If there's a lot of investment brokers that have offices
(45:52):
in your neighborhood, your town, your city, If you're not
familiar with any of them, talk to your friends and
see who they use as an investment broker that they trust,
or maybe a family member has somebody that they trust,
and talk directly with them and verify things before you
actually spend any money in these investments. And you really
(46:15):
have to understand cryptocurrency before you get invested in it.
You really need to understand it. I would imagine some
investment brokers do deal in cryptocurrency. Again, ask for references
and verify everything before you decide to do these investments.
But I hope you were able to see today one
(46:38):
get some more information on these investment scams and tech
support scams. And for those of you that I know,
we talk a lot about how this affects the sixty
plus population, but if you have older loved ones that
you are talked to on a regular basis, and they
could be neighbors, they could be family members, friends, whatever,
(47:00):
or just start talking about this information. Just say hey,
you know, I was listening to Roses radio show and
I got on the FBI'SIC three dot gov website and
I found this public service announcement. Look what these criminals
are doing. And it's a non defensive, non threatening way
to just start having these conversations because the more we
(47:21):
talk about it, the more it helps everybody keep scam
awareness and protection at top of mind and to be
able to help people when they were contacted realize that
it's a scam before they get into that emotional state
or before the scammer has started a grooming process. And
(47:43):
then please always verify before you can trust anything. That's
all I have for today. Remember you can get on
our website at Roseadvocacy dot org. Sign up for our
emailed and mailed newsletters at the bottom of the homepage.
Social media links are there. Follow us on YouTube, subscribe
(48:04):
to our YouTube channel. You can find all the past
live radio streams and the shorts on there, plus the
older podcast that I did. You can find those episodes
on there as well. And see you next Tuesday. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Well, that's all the knowledge for this episode. Juni in
every Tuesday at eight am Pacific time on KFOURHD Radio
at KFOURHD dot com as Joyce explores a variety of knowledge,
so you have the power to make scam protection your
healthy habit, and until then, feel free to reach out
to Joyce and let's talk about scams.
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