Hacked, Scammed, and Impersonated Online. Here's How to Protect Yourself

24:36The final season of FX is the bear. The restaurant is flooded. Everything's either going to be okay. Or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned. We have each other. FX is the bear. The final season. All episodes now streaming on Disney+. There was close to retirement, lost everything in this long pig butchering scam where somebody friended her and was talking for months and months and gaining trust. So this can happen on a dating app. It can happen on LinkedIn. Basically, somebody who's connecting with you, having lots and lots of conversations before any of this ever start. Yeah. Yeah. People don't meet either in person.

25:22Like there's a few for romance scams specifically. there are a few things to look out for. One is like, if it's like too good to be true. The other is if they never want to meet with you. And then if they obviously if they start asking for money, like those are huge red flags. And if you know someone that's like involved, like I would definitely take their phone or like ask them for them to send pictures of the person they're talking to and like reverse image search these people to try to find their actual profiles. Because you know what's crazy is like most of these scammers use like famous, like well-known people.

25:51Like there's some people that think they're talking to like, I don't know, some name of celebrity, Chris Hemsworth, Bobby Cooper, whatever, which obviously I would love for them to be talking to them. That's great. Or like Elon Musk. They've they've owned, you know, investment advice from Elon. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. And so what I would do is it for some reason, I don't know why these gamers do this, but let's hope that they keep doing it. They take like pretty well-known people and they'll just like make profiles of them and like older people, maybe not celebrities, but like, you know, Instagram famous people.

26:20And if you just go through like a reverse image search online, you could probably find their account pretty easily and like try to contact them separately to show that it's like a mismatch. If they're not trying to impersonate. Yeah. But what if they send you like the wrong photo? What do you mean? Like if they're... Wait, say it again. Okay. So if you're trying to, like, if you know, like if you... I had a friend that had, her mom was just recently started a date again. And she was on the apps. And she was talking to this guy a lot for like a month. And he started asking for money. And she was like, her mom, she's very close to her mom, her mom told her and she's like, No, no, no.

26:54My friend told me about this, like, can I have a picture of him? And so she gave all the pictures on the dating apps to me and to her. And we just like quickly did like an AI or like a Google reverse image search. So what you do is like you upload a photo of them, and it will show you where they found that image or similar images. And usually it just goes to like an Instagram profile or a Facebook page. And then you go to that profile and you specifically message that person like, are you talking to blank? I see. And they're like, I don't know who that is. But this is how really smart, even financially literate people do fall for this.

27:30Yes. I mean, my girlfriend's mother who lost millions of dollars in this pig butchering scam was a doctor, was about to retire, like had her entire nest egg already set up. So so it's not just like praying on people who. No, it's praying on everyone. Literally everyone like you are not. And the people are like, I'm never going to get scammed. Like it's already going to like whatever. It's not that big of a deal. I'm like, no, like just start being more mindful. Dude, if your parents like and they know everything from you fell for giving twenty dollars to Spectrum. Yeah. Nobody's safe. Yeah, I know.

28:05He was so he was so sad after I was like, Dad, you're showing your age. He's like, stop it. Like, it's OK. So once the the pig gets fattened, I hate I do. Yeah. This analogy. It sucks. I just call it a long con long con. So once you're starting to trust the person on the other side, you know, then somehow they bring up an investing thing. Yeah. Or like, oh, hey, I just you know, I think that you could, you know, double your money just like I did or something like that. No pressure or something like that. Then what ends up happening? They do this mirroring technique to for investment accounts. What is what does that look like?

28:48So then what they usually do is like if you invest a little bit, then they give you back double or whatever they're saying. Like, so let's say, for example, they're like, oh, you're going to double your money in a month. And then, you know, you're like, oh, I'm just going to put in a little bit. So I'll put in like, let's just see if this like works. right? I'll put in$1 ,000. They'll send you back$2 ,000 the next month just to gain your trust. And then it's like, that's when things start going off the rails. Because like, wow, you just made an extra grand. I'm going to double my money or I'm going to put more in.

29:16I trust this person. Let's just go all in. And then you'll slowly do it over time. And they'll continue to make excuses as to why you can't pull it out over time. But they're like, oh, but you should make more money. Like right now, you can't pull it out because of this is happening or X, Y, Z, but like they'll start convincing you, oh, but you really should put more in because right now is the best time to, I don't know, like they're just going to start continuing to try to pull more and more money. And what they usually do is like use that to scam other people. So like the more money that you're putting in, then they're like doubling the other person's first investment and getting more.

29:50It's a huge Ponzi scheme. So they also, in some cases, will ask for like a verification tax or an AML clearance fee, apparently. So they'll charge you to take more of your money. Yeah. Yeah. They do this a lot with fake employment, too. Like they're like, oh, you're employed. But by the way, like we actually need you to pay us money so we can get your account verified and then we'll pay you back the money that you gave us on your first paycheck. And I'm like, you're getting like hired, but they're asking you to pay money. Like that's a huge red flag. Same with like the AML like trust. Like if you actually have an institution, you shouldn't be paying someone to like verify who you are.

30:30So no legitimate exchange on planet Earth is going to charge you to verify yourself. No, never. And so with this mirror dashboards that they set up for investment accounts, are those real apps or just the dashboards that are showing like up into the right fake profits? I'm well, I think it kind of depends on like which one. I'm sure there's like a million different ones out there. With AI, you can make an app very, very fast. You can make a dashboard with whatever you want it to say really fast. So I don't think they're real in terms of like, is there is it actually tracking an account with money in it?

31:08No. But I think they're probably giving you like, you know, a little dashboard that they made on AI that they probably said, hey, make this dashboard and every day have it, you know, increase by$500 on the chart, XYZ. I think it's very easy to make an AI generated kind of platform to convince people that their investments are going up. And then once they get a certain amount of money, they just, well, you'll never hear from them. You'll never hear from them again. And is there any recourse? You can report it. The issue is if you report, so ic3.gov is like a great place to report it. it's like the FBI can get involved.

31:45And I highly, highly, highly, highly recommend, even if it's like, you know, months later to still report it because it's usually a kind of similar scamming groups that are doing it. So the more information the FBI has, the more they can build a case on these groups and try to find out who they are and hopefully prevent them in the future. Sometimes they say if you get it within like 24 hours, like my dad noticed like right after he sent the$20 and he like immediately called his bank and was like, okay, got to cancel my credit card, all that stuff. The FBI does say like, sometimes they're able within a certain amount of time to help you get it back, but I would still report it.

32:20So there's really nothing that you can do, but I would still report it and try to like, get the money back. And also, I know people are so embarrassed of this. They really need to start sharing what's happened to them because it's allowing for other people to get scammed with the same situation. Because like, if you're embarrassed, you don't say anything, you never like out of sight, out of mind, like, It sucks. It's terrible. And you are. Yeah, it's most people are just embarrassed. But if you don't share, other people are going to get scammed the same way. Yeah. Smart people are like, I will never happen to me.

32:51And it does. There's so much shame and so much guilt around that. Yeah. I was on a radio show yesterday and someone finally admitted we were talking about scams for like two hours and someone finally admitted like I did that. I had to like call Apple and get my computer like because she like clicked on like a sketchy link. And I'm like, girl, why didn't you say that from the beginning? She's like, I'm just so ashamed. I was like, no, this is a problem. I'm like, you shouldn't be ashamed. Like everyone is falling for scams, whether you recognize it at the beginning or not. And you have to share this because like your share could help like literally your immediate family members, your friends, like you could be protecting so many people because people need to start realizing it happens to everyone.

33:26It's not like a, oh, it's in the future. That's never gonna happen to me or they don't like no one cares about me. A lot of people are like, no one cares about me. Why would they choose me? If you're an easy target, they're gonna choose you. I always say, would a burglar rather burglarize a house that's unlocked or locked? Like if you're going to just leave it unlocked because you're like, oh, why would they choose me? I would choose you if I were a burglar. I know if you share your story, it helps pretty much everyone in your like circle. And you should not be ashamed or embarrassed. You should actually not be proud, but like you should feel proud that you're making the right choice of sharing because you're you should feel proud that you're protecting other people.

33:58So they start recognizing and opening their eyes that this could happen to them. OK, so I'll come clean. OK. I fell for a scam. It was years ago, but I got texted a verification code and I was just moving so fast. And I got another text that was like, send me the verification code for something. And I was like, oh, here, here, somebody needs this verification code. And they got into everything. Like my entire digital life, they got into my Gmail. And then from there, they got into like my backup. Gmail is like your authenticator for a lot of things. Like your email is your authenticator for a lot of things.

34:30It was one of the scariest moments of my life. I felt like there was a robber in my digital house and I could not get back in. Last year, I don't actually think I've talked about this, but I lost my home in the LA fires. Oh, I'm so sorry. Thank you. So many people got frauded or targeted around that because a lot of us were giving out our personal information to FEMA and SBA. Because they've helped so much, right? There's another special place in hell for people who are targeting like victims of natural disasters. And so I'd been hearing from the community that a lot of people were being targeted.

35:08And I got an alert from LifeLock. Shout out LifeLock. I saw that they were like, your information is being used on this bank to open up an account. And I was like, what the hell? Yeah. And I tried to call them. They wouldn't give me any information. Then they got into my Experian because I didn't lock that. You can lock different credit bureaus through LifeLock, but that was the one that you have to do through snail mail. Yeah. And I never got around to that. Yeah. And then you can just call them, by the way. The Experian? Yeah. No, I tried. I was on the hold for hours and hours. And I will say this, like I have great privilege that we have an amazing platform about money.

35:58And so we sent a note to the head of marketing at Experian and like magically somebody called me. And I fully get that that is not everybody's experience by any stretch of the imagination. But hopefully using that as a moment to show that it can happen to literally anybody. Yeah, I think I've I've gotten scammed, but not like a click thing. I actually trusted a friend and my friend told me that this guy was legit. And we invested. It was during COVID. We had invested in gloves and masks. It was supposed to be a shipment coming over from China because we were all running out of gloves and masks.

36:33Turns out this guy was a scammer. But I later went through my friend. So even if you're... People don't realize the chain reaction that it has. Because if you're like, oh, this is like... If your account was breached and they're messaging from you And then like, it's like a friend of a friend. They're like, oh, wait, like we're going through you. Like it's super legit. Like just give us your money and we'll do it for you. And like we all got like he obviously my friend got scammed too. But there was like a group of five of us that like put money into like buy this like pallet of stuff coming over.

37:06And we all like we just lost our money. But we I reported to the FBI. Never got the money back. But RIP. Just do your due diligence on anything that you're putting any money into is really the moral of the story. And it's really great. So even an ad sales partner of ours got scammed for close to a hundred grand, I think, because somebody went through a long con of spoofing the other media company that was supposed to pay them. And they made a very, very similar email address. That happens a lot for companies. Explain what to do and what to look for because it was so intricate. Like they could tell everybody's name and it looked the same as every other email that came from this specific company.

37:53But one letter or something was off. So a lot of times like, yeah, so a lot of times people will make like a similar email and like one or two letters will be off. They'll send like a similar invoice. Like so they let's just say they got into an email from a company, right? Like a big company that like is sending invoices to, let's say, your company. then if they're into that they can see everything that's going in and out of that email and instead of like using that email they're going to go out of it make a similar one send you new invoice being like hey this is a new email also like here's the invoice from last year or like last month and they'll change like one or two digits on it and then that money will now start going to the new account and it will just be wired constantly whenever they send in a new invoice every month and a lot of people just like don't know especially if it's under the radar like after like under a certain amount, like every company has different thresholds.

38:41But if it's under a certain the certain threshold, like you won't even know until like hundreds, thousands of dollars are gone. How do they have so much background on that specific company? Yeah, I think either they've hacked into someone's email because someone reused their password, which happens literally like every time I get on any podcast or I'm in a group setting, I would say 90 % of the people still like, yeah, you use the same password or like I have the same variation or like I added a one, but yeah, it's the same password. By the way, passwords, hackers can literally take the same password that's like breach and do like 10 ,000 variations in a couple minutes.

39:17Meaning like, let's just say we're going to go back to bobsled. If bobsled has been your password since freshman year of high school, and then you started bobsled one, bobsled one, two, three, bobsled one, two, three, exclamation point, and you're just like doing different variations. But bobsled was the password that was breached. You're like, oh no, but that was an old password. I don't need it anymore. Well, if you still use that same bobsled part of the password, they can run variations of it and get into your account too. So I think what usually happens is they get into people's accounts at the company and just are monitoring.

39:48A lot of times people don't realize there's probably someone in your account already if you've been reusing and doing stuff and they're just sitting and trying to figure out what they can do with it. So they're scanning, they're trying to understand everything about this invoice process, who they're emailing every time how they use it. I mean, now you can use AI to scan the inbox to make very similar messages, similar invoices, and just have it start sending to the wrong thing. But this is a huge problem for businesses, small businesses in particular. What can you do? Because the partner that we worked with that this happened to, the bank could not help at all.

40:22No, because you're sending it to a legit account. Yeah. So what you do as a small business, if anyone asks you to change like payments, you call them, you contact them, get on the phone. So you do not want to use the signature in the email, like where it says like your name and your phone number. Go and call them directly to like the number that you originally had and say like, Hey, I just got this email looks the same. They're asking me to change the invoice number. I just wanted to confirm like that's you. And then what I would also do, I'd like double confirm on a separate email. Like if you have another email for them, if you have like a WhatsApp, even if you, I don't know if you have social media for them, I would just confirm as many ways as possible to the original person that you had the contract with.

41:01That's really the only way you can do it. It's so annoying. It's very annoying. You just have to be more mindful and vigilant that things are going to happen. There are bad things out there. There are bad people out there. Just kind of cover your bases. I mean, lately, I've been getting requests to do verification calls, too. And I'm just like, oh, this is annoying. But I know it's important. Yeah. But I'll just call the billing department or I'll call whatever. Or, you know, when you're sending a wire, they're like, did you verbally talk to this person? Like, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the thing is like that's like Banks way of trying to help this situation.

41:30I know. But it's like when your dentist is like, are you flossing? And you're like, yeah. Doesn't it look like it? I mean, here's the thing. I will come for, you know, Dave Ramsey for many, many reasons about why you should be a debit devotee versus using a credit card. But in this case, it is so important to have that. I will never use debit. I do not understand why anyone uses debit. Maybe you can enlighten me, but there's like no reason. Like you're not getting points. You're not getting any credit. You're there's nothing there. You get nothing. And you if you use debit, you don't get your money back.

42:07If there was a scam, it's just weird. I don't I've never used a debit. I mean, use it responsibly. Obviously, it's much easier to, you know, get out of control and have compound interest kick your ass if you're using. But but I pay my credit cards in full every month. Totally. And and that is awesome. And that's the goal. Yeah. Maybe that's why I keep forgetting. Like sometimes I'm like, yeah, doesn't everyone? And I'm like, oh, no one. No one pays it in full. No. And, you know, and I think that that protection, though, is really important and it should be a bigger part of the conversation. The other one that's coming from banks is that their fraud department, right, calls you and they tell you that you need to move your money into a safe account to protect some suspicious activity.

42:50Yeah, that happens a lot. So there's a lot of people that are getting report like reporting that their banks are calling saying and they come with like like receipts basically like, oh, did you spend five hundred dollars at this store? And also like, here's the first, you know, eight of your social security number. Can you confirm the last? They actually like know a lot about you because a lot of what you about you is like on public information. I do not know how they find out. To be honest, I don't know how they find out what your last purchase was. So that makes it seem legit. It's not just a call that looks like it's coming from your bank.

43:22They always tell you like, oh, you last purchased this. And you're like, yeah, actually, I did. And then they'll confirm some number, but they won't ever have the full number. They'll ask you to give the full number. And you're like, why are you calling to confirm with me? I remember when I got a call like that, maybe three years ago, I was like, this is weird. Like, why are you calling to confirm my number? You're the one calling me, telling me that something's wrong. Like, you don't have to confirm. Like, you know, this is my number. For me, when that happened, I literally just was like, okay, I'll call you back.

43:51And I hung up and I called the number on the back of my credit card. First of all, I know this is crazy. I really do not answer the phone, even from banks. Even if it says it's coming from my bank. If I get a call saying it's coming from my bank, I will literally go to my credit card and go in the back of my bank card, I'll call them and say, hey, I think I got a call from you, but I wanted to just make sure that it was from you. And I'll ask. And if it's from them, they're like, oh yeah, we needed to call you. You need to confirm X, Y, Z. Great. If not, then I'm like, oh, then it was a scam. I didn't miss anything.

44:22So I literally never answer phone calls I don't know, even if it says it's coming from the bank. But then when you hang up with Amex, you're like, damn it, but then I have to call back and I'm going to be put on hold and I'm going to be transferred to five different departments. that or I'm going to get suckered into a scam. So the bank calls you and says, somebody's trying to get into your account, verify your entire credit card number. Yeah, either like credit card number or social security number. But usually they have most of your social security and they do usually have most of your credit card number.

44:51But don't they ask you to verify that anyway? Yeah, they ask you to verify it anyways. Like in legit calls. Yeah. Like when you're actually being frauded. But do they call you and ask that? I don't think so. they don't ask you for your social security they don't call you and ask it's only when you call them i see so like if they're calling you they already know that they're calling you because that's the number that they have on file you know what i mean like every time they've called me they're not like hey is this caitlin confirm everything i'm like they're like hey caitlin like you have to do whatever i guess when i get like a i'm not giving up i am selling the building The final season of FX is the bear.

45:34The restaurant is flooded. Everything's either going to be okay. Or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned. We have each other. FX is the bear. The final season. All episodes now streaming on Disney+. Wire verification. Then I have to give them some information. And now I feel like that might be suspicious too. Yeah. But the wire verification, they call you and it's like, you're literally like live, like doing that right then and there. It's not like two days later. I see. I see. Okay. So the, this, the scam now, the latest one is you made a couple of purchases. Your account is at risk. Right.

46:20Take all of your money and put it now in some special safe account so that the bad people of which they are the bad people will not get to it. Right. And it's them. Right. Shocker. So how do you protect yourself against that? Again, if they're calling, first of all, I don't answer. But I know that's not like a lot of people want to answer their phone. That's fine. If they're calling and they say that, I would hang up the phone and call the number on the back of the card and confirm just like, hey, I got this really weird call. Said it was coming from you. I don't know if it was even coming from you.

46:50They're saying I have to move my money. Is this true? There's a new one that says, we'll send you a code to verify that it's you. Yeah, because they want your authenticator code to get into your account. But I feel like this happens. Like I call Gusto, which is our payments platform. And they're like, OK, we'll send you a code to verify that it's you. Yeah, but you're on the phone with them. But you're on the phone with the bad people, too. Yeah, but Gusto didn't call you to verify that you're you when you do that. You called Gusto. I see. Yeah. OK, so always be the initiator. Yes. No matter what.

47:24Yes. Okay, so should we role play? Oh, yeah, sure. But here's the thing. Like, ring, ring, ring. Caitlin's not answering my phone. Voicemail. Role play is over. We love a good role play at Money Rehab. I can answer and pretend to be like a normal person. You want me to answer and pretend to be a normal person? So, okay. Ring, ring, ring. Hello, I shouldn't be answering, but I'm answering anyways. Caitlin, this is your bank. We've just received some suspicious activity that is concerning us. We're thinking that your account could be targeted for fraud. We need to quickly act to protect your money.

48:00What bank are you calling from? I'm calling from your bank. Which branch? And I can even verify the national branch. And I can even verify the last two purchases. Did you spend$25.39 on Uber Eats recently? I did. But I'm actually going to call my bank now just to confirm that it's real. Time is of the essence, Caitlin. I'll call right now. I have your card number and you're the last four of your social. I have my card number, too. I'll call my bank back. OK, well, I hope that your money is.

48:34Yeah. And also, like most banks, if I if it's ever real, like if I call them and they say something weird, I'm like, this is weird. Can I call you back? They're like, yeah, sure. Like they actually appreciate you calling them back. Whereas like scammers are going to be like, no, no, no. Stay on the phone. We have to do this now. So basically just don't answer unknown numbers. Yeah. Even if it's from your bank. Yeah. If it looks like it's from your bank. Because then if it's if it's calling from me, I literally immediately go to the back of my card and I call the bank and I say, I just got a missed call from you.

49:05I don't ever answer calls. I don't know. I just want to confirm like everything is OK. Then they tell me yes or no. They catch you in the middle of the day. And like, who has time for that? You're like, I'm in the middle of a Zoom call. I do see like if Amex is calling or somebody like I see Schwab, I'm like, oh, is everything OK with my account? Good. I got to go buy. I just feel like I'm I don't know. I have a big target on my back. So like I don't want to ever get in a position where I feel like I got it like react. And like I don't think people realize like scammers are so, so, so good at like hijacking your brain to like doing something like reactive.

49:41Like that's the whole point of a scam. It has nothing to do with whether you're smart or not. has everything to do with like, did they catch you at the right place at the right time? And are you going to react? And I don't trust myself. I'm like sleep deprived half the time. I'm like flying around the world. Probably you're sleep deprived with your baby. Like, there is no way I would like, in my right mind, be able to like, combat a really good scam. So I'd rather just not pick up the phone. It's like, I don't buy unhealthy groceries, because I know I'm going to eat at all when I get home. Like, if I buy a family sized bag of chips even if it's on sale I will eat the entire bag of chips in one sitting by myself so I have to buy smaller bags yeah it's almond butter tub for me yeah I get it yeah like protect yourself from yourself yeah in your weakest moment yeah you do have a big target on your back so do you fun fact yeah I mean I'm sure there's a lot of people out there being like oh if I could just get the cyber girl yeah I know I'm like yeah probably don't dare them I feel like that's no Oh, I love the hackers.

50:42They're so smart. They're great. Leave me alone. That's right. Always thank your AI. Thank you guys so much for giving me a job. All right. Let's do real or scam. You get a$500 Zelle from a stranger and a message. So sorry, sent that by accident. Please send it back, but keep$50 for your trouble. So this is a very much a scam. This is like happening a lot. It's like a Venmo scam. So what people do is they log into people's Venmos or they use a stolen credit card and they send you money. But since the credit card is stolen, eventually when that person finds out, they'll get the money back, but you will never get the money back that you Venmoed the person back.

51:23Does that make sense? Because it's your own money that you're giving. Whereas the person that sent you money, it's coming from a stolen credit card. So it's going to get canceled. It's going to get canceled. So you'll get money into your account for a little bit, but it will go away eventually. What's crazy is that during COVID, I was renting some random place and, you know, it was weird times. And the person asked me to Venmo the deposit. And I said I actually did send it by accident to the wrong number. And the person did send me the money back. Oh, it was actually quite lovely. That's great.

51:55I mean, maybe if you're like, call them or I don't know, like contact them. Like, I really did mess up. Like, please feel free to call me. But that's crazy. I've never heard that. Otherwise, they're just using fraudulent cards. hot money in some way. Yeah, it's like hot stolen money that they're using to send you money. And then when you send your own money back, you're out of the 50. You're out of the 50 bucks because that money is hot money. It's getting taken back from you anyways. Okay. How about earn$30 per task just liking videos from home, small refundable deposit to unlock the higher paying tier?

52:31Well, the fact that there's a deposit is immediately a red flag. So it's a scam. but this is like this classic task job scam that's going out yeah because people are like oh yeah cool i can like videos and make quick easy money so let's let's go through this there's no such thing as quick easy money can we can we establish that on we're trying every literally we do that we try to do it every day there is no such thing as fast easy money boring slow steady money. Yeah. Everybody like the red flag. If it's fast, easy money, the easiest, quickest way to make money to double your money is to fold it in half.

53:08It's like this old dad joke. I love that financing though. The dad finance joke that I have is my grandpa's. And he always said like with the stock markets, he's like, you know, it's like a waltz. Some days you're stepping forward. Some days you're stepping backwards, but eventually you make it around the dance floor. So that's my, my grandpa joke. But yeah, fast, easy money. No such. There's literally no such thing unless you like somehow win the lottery. And even then it's like your chances are 0.001%. Although there's what you can win like a million dollars and a billion dollars in the lottery right now.

53:37Fun fact. I don't know. We should do it. Maybe after this. Easy money. That's the thing. Like even us, even us talking about it, there is some lure to like, but maybe just maybe. Just my one chance I could do it. No. And also you should never have to give money to earn money. Okay. What about a quick voice note that sounds exactly like your boss or your company's finance person? Grab five$500 gift cards for a client. I'll reimburse you today. No. Gift card scams is huge, weirdly. But what if it's from your boss? It's not from your boss. It looks like it's from your boss. What I would do is like if you have like a Teams or a Slack, I would message them on there and be like, hey, did you just ask me to buy gift cards?

54:23But that's a huge red flag. All right. From Facebook Marketplace, send a Zelle deposit to hold an apartment before somebody else grabs it. No, but I know a lot of people actually do that. It's kind of hard because like that could, in my head, everything's a scam, but that could be legit. I would always say like, don't send any money to people that you've ever met in person. Number one, that's like a good rule. And if you've seen the place, I don't know, it just depends. But I would say that's a scam. right yes it is i mean i know it's a scam but the thing is like living in la and stuff like i know that i know that friends have done that for sure yeah and it's been legit and it's legit yeah so that's why i'm like i know that that for the purpose of this game is a scam but like i know that some people have done that zell we should mention just has no buyer protection right so that's always and venmo does venmo have buyer protection i don't think they should yeah can you tell them?

55:20I'll try. I'll do my best. Okay. Congrats. You're approved. Confirm your social security number and bank login to release your funds. Yeah, it's a no. It's a no for me, dog. No real lender needs your bank login or your full social security number to release money. All right. How about this one? You get like free MSG, free message, colon, chase fraud alert. Did you use your card ending in one, two, three, four for$312.99 at Walmart.com? Reply yes or no. Actually, that's correct. Yes. I was like, I get this all the time. And I'm like, bitch, this is my credit card. I have the money. Let me buy it.

55:58Yes. Yes. So legit bank fraud alerts will only ask you to reply yes or no to a specific charge. They never text you a link or send you a code or anything. Unless you requested the code to like log in. Okay. How about Apple? Your Apple account was just used to sign into a new device near Denver, Colorado. If this is you, you can ignore the message. That's legit. And then I would log into my Apple account and like remove and then re-update my password. So which of these is fooling people most right now? Oh, no. I mean, all of them. Literally, I like every time you said something, I'm like, oh, that's like a legit thing.

56:36I think the Venmo scam, a lot of people are falling for because it like makes sense. Like people are getting money into their account and asking to send it out. at least like when I make videos like that one goes the most viral. To be honest, all these are like really legit, like legit scams that are happening 24 seven, like all the time. Right now, someone's getting scammed from a fake bank or Zelle or Venmo or whatever it is. And again, it's starting to be more vigilant and understanding the signs of a scam, which is like urgency and not allowing you to talk to people and, you know, sending money.

57:14And honestly, at the end of the day, it's that gut feeling. It's like you secretly know something's off, but you're like in a rush or it's convenient or whatever. And then you're just like, oh, just do it. Just don't. Like whenever I say that, like hear that gut feeling, I always like take a step back. There's a nonprofit called Take Nine. And it's basically like they've proven that if you take nine seconds before doing, clicking, whatever, that taking yourself out of that equation for nine seconds really helps you start allowing and seeing what's real and what's not and what's right and wrong.

57:43So I always say like, take a step back, maybe take nine seconds. And if you're still like, this seriously looks legit. Sometimes I screenshot it and I'll send it to like a friend. I'm like, I don't know if I'm just tired or out of my mind. Like even you. Yeah. I mean, I haven't done it for a while, but I tell my parents that all the time. I'm like, if something seems off, just text it to me. I will respond. You'll be okay. Like nothing's ever going to be urgent. So, yeah, I always have like a get a buddy that you can send stuff to be like, hey, is this weird or is it just me? OK, take nine seconds.

58:13Get a accountability buddy. Yeah. Urgency. Here's the other. I mean, set up a family safe word. Yes. That's not a fruit. The thing that worries me is this, you know, because two factor authentication. There's now SIM swapping, right? So scammers are hijacking your phone number and then suddenly the text message codes that are protecting you and your bank and your brokerage go to them. You can actually lock down your SIM with your, if you have like whatever carrier you have, you can call them and say, I want to lock this down. So no one will be able to move it. And then unless you unlock it, it's kind of like freezing your credit, right?

58:49Unless you unlock it, it won't be able to SIM swap you. So I would lock down your SIM so they don't. And then also with two-factor authentication, first of all, I want to say bravo to everyone that has it turned on. Hopefully everyone does. But if you do have the option, what I always suggest people to do is use an authenticator app because then they can't SIM swap you. It's not going to your text message or it's not going to your phone. It's going to an app that's on your local device. So with SIM swapping, it doesn't matter because you have to have your physical device as an authenticator app.

59:20Okay. Asking for a friend. Let's say you run a business and you love two-factor authentication, but all of the codes come to you. Yeah, I do the same thing. I have to send it out. So what's the answer? Because that's not sustainable. Is it a Google Voice thing or is it authenticator app for the entire team? Because I just feel like it's a whole other job for me to send codes to people on my team that need the code. So usually for accounts, if there's a way that you can add like a team member to it, So they have a different login and they have their own login, their own authenticator. That's what I do.

59:54I think there was, I don't remember which app it was that like I'm unable to do that. And I literally just have to send the code, but it like lasts for like a week for them to be logged into. I know it's not ideal. There needs to be like a better solution, I feel like for. Well, they do have like team accounts. Like if you're like, okay, I'm adding team members. They are more expensive. Which is not fair. It's really not. I just had to like pay a subscription for something this morning. I'm like, oh, thanks. So but the enterprise version of it, while it's more expensive, it's probably more secure if everybody can have their own authentication process.

1:00:33Yeah. What about LifeLock and all of the companies that are charging you to monitor? So I have like pretty much every monitoring company has like pretty much all the deletion service companies. I'm like more of the merrier at this point. Which ones do you like? which ones are not worth it? I think they're all the same. A lot of them like the deletion service companies. I use Incogni personally, but there's a lot of deletion service companies. I use Delete Me. Yeah, Delete Me. But there's a lot that like white label the same product and then they just slap their name on it. Delete Me and Incogni are not them, but there's a few other companies that like started completely different and then they were B2C and they're like, oh, we realized that the deletion services are making more money.

1:01:14So we're going to white label a product and put our name on it and then sell that too. So besides DeleteMe and Incogni and like maybe two other ones, most of the ones that are selling deletion services are just like the same product with a different name. And honestly, they're all pretty great. I use Incogni only because it's international and I lived in London for two years. And like I partner with them because I just love working with them. So I love that. I love Incogni's deletion service. I think like Like Norton LifeLock is great. My thing is like I freeze my credit. Like I don't know how else, like what else they're really doing besides like monitoring accounts.

1:01:50But like I never get any notifications from them because you can't start. So I want to, let me just talk about freezing credit for a second because I think a lot of people get confused with what it is. You can still use your credit cards. You still have a normal life. You just can't open up a credit card or account when your credit is frozen. So if you're trying to get a mortgage, if you're trying to get a new credit card, you can't do it when your credit is frozen but that prevents identity theft and so for me i'm like i've opened the credit cards i need open right now i'm locking these down for the next couple of years because i'm not in like i'm not going to create any new accounts anytime soon so and if you do need to apply for a mortgage and you unfreeze yeah and then you refreeze yeah it's very it doesn't take that long although yeah i think experience is like i think i had the same issue was very experience get it together it was very annoying but for me i'm like i don't really get any crazy alerts because I don't there's nothing I can't have anyone take my identity or like try to because identity theft is all about creating accounts in your name pretending to be you they can't create any accounts my name because my credit's frozen okay you know what big kick I'm on right now oh what let's hear it I think we should team up on this actually okay it's like my big passion project right now you know whose credit I also froze whose your kids my grandma's yeah so I always tell people to freeze your like grandparents credit because there should never like the issue with kids and grandparents is that you're never checking the credit.

1:03:13Right. Yeah. You're like, I have a one year old like she's not doing anything. But that's like a scammer's wet dream. It is for sure their biggest wet dream ever. They are very excited because you will never know that they've created accounts in their name. And like by the time they hit 18 and you want to actually open it or maybe like 15 want to open credit cards for them, though, their credit will be completely shot. But it's clean right now. Like a baby, a child's is a clean report. Yeah. Like just a beautiful social security number. Yeah. Fresh baby social security number that smells like a baby.

1:03:48And that smells like catnip to a scammer. Yeah. So that's so good that you locked it down. I also tell like elderly for your elderly parents, like you're the ones most like my mom, like they're the ones that are in charge of like the money the credit cards for their parents like they should not be opening up any credit cards in their name at this point so I always and then also with the two-factor authentication I actually have it I've always tell people like for your grandparents like have it go to your your mom or dad or confusing when you say that but like have it go to someone else because why would your like grandparents be getting into like accounts and stuff like I think for my for my parents they pay for all their parents like credit cards and everything else like my grandparents shouldn't have any access to any of the money that they have anymore because we're just they're in their own little protective bubble um so i would just like move authenticator apps over to you personally if you're like in charge of like your elderly parent and freeze their credit but also do that for your kids too it's so smart yeah you're a step ahead thank you i'm trying but i really like want to get this message out yeah there's so much fraud that happens to kids and people don't detect it because they're not checking yeah because you would have no reason Yeah.

1:04:58Yeah. And what's a good budget for all of these apps that help you monitor? I think it's like your risk tolerance, right? Like if you're like, it doesn't matter. I would I personally because I'm like, I would much rather be protected than not. I personally, I think Incogniz like 160 a year or something. So like, that's my budget. All the other stuff, I think. I don't know. How much is Norton LifeLock? You know, I feel like it's around 300. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think it's also different. It tells me every day that something's on the dark web. By the way, Caitlin, where is the dark web? Okay. So the dark web, it's kind of like the cloud, right?

1:05:39So the dark web is literally just the browser. It's just like a different browser that no one has. It's literally just like a website browser thing. It's not anything crazy. I don't go on it. I'm scared. And what happens in there? It's like an unlocked browser. I don't know bad guys get up to no good they like trade stuff and they like basically they'd say oh we have you know this whole data set we're going to sell it for this or we have this but it's a lot of like think of it like an an ebay but like with bad things being sold and bought most of it is like your information but so much of it is already on the dark web so like when you get these alerts that it's on the dark web when is it really bad that you have to do something about it and when And is it just like, duh, everything's on the dark web?

1:06:25There's so much on the dark web right now, like you said. For me personally, like whenever I hear about a data breach, I specifically go to that account. I change that password. Hopefully it's a unique password. And then I also, if you don't have multi-factor onto that account, definitely do it. And if you reuse that password on other accounts, change those passwords too. Freeze your credit. That's really all you can do. Is there any recourse against these companies? Like all these data breaches? Well, there is. I mean, they have to like pay a fine. So a lot of depending on what information was breached, there's either a fine involved or they have to like help.

1:06:58They have to pay for you monitoring credit. And usually you get an email, but I don't know if I think it's either an email or like a usually a physical letter in the mail with whatever address that you gave them. And you'll get a physical letter from them saying like, hey, there was a data breach. This is the data that that like was leaked on this day. We are going to let you or we'll give you a year of free credit monitoring but there's not like a class action sometimes there is okay yeah i mean like i think equifax experian or something one of the two had to i think it was experience i don't know had like big data breaches i mean there's a lot of big data breaches and there are huge class action lawsuits and you can like sign up for them and get money but is there class action fraud no i hope not i don't think so is there maybe there will be now that you say it like that let's not put that into the world we're not putting it out in the universe so caitlin as you know, we end all of our episodes by asking our guests for a final tip that listeners can take straight to the bank.

1:07:53We talked about so much. Thank you for enlightening us around specifically how to protect your money. What's something that we might have missed? Okay. We talked about so many good things, so I'm not going to repeat it. But the one thing that we missed is to update your software. So like old bank apps or whatever, like you want to make sure that they're constantly up to date. A lot of people don't realize that like when updates come out, they're like fixing bugs in the software, which means that hackers are already able to get in. So you just want to make sure that your software is always set to auto update.

1:08:25And like your operating system. Yeah, operating system and your apps. So you can like go on your phone right now and set to auto update. And then when you download the app, you can set it to auto update too. Yeah. But we went through so many good things. Now I'm scared. No, you have enough to empower you. You feel better about it. You froze your credit. You froze your daughter's credit. You're good. Just hang. Don't don't answer random phone calls. Hang up if a bank calls and call them on their number. Have you have strong passwords. Have a family safe word. Text me. Are we the buddies now? OK.

1:08:57Yeah. I don't think you have my real number, but I can give it to you if you want.