The Art of Manliness - #545： How Not to Get Scammed, Conned, or Duped

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast when you think

00:00:11.180 about people getting scammed you probably think of the elderly getting conned out of money over

00:00:15.160 the phone but my guest today says that millennials are actually more likely to get scammed than senior

00:00:19.920 citizens and in fact anybody of any age can get conned he should know he's a former con man himself

00:00:25.400 his name is frank abagnale in his early life which he forged checks and assumed various identities

00:00:29.800 including that of an airline pilot and doctor was made famous by the movie catch me if you can

00:00:35.000 after he served time for his crimes he dedicated the next 40 years of his life to helping the

00:00:39.360 government and business fight fraud his most recent book scam me if you can simple strategies to

00:00:43.940 outsmart today's ripoff artists aims to educate regular citizens about the most common scams out

00:00:48.580 there and how to avoid them today on the show frank gives us the inside dirt on a bunch of different

00:00:52.380 modern cons from romance scams to investment fraud to scams involving rental properties he reveals

00:00:57.920 the insidious ways that scammers have gotten more sophisticated with their cons the red flags to look

00:01:01.940 for when you're approached with one and how to avoid getting duped and he explains why he's never

00:01:06.880 used a debit card after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is scam frank joins me now via skype

00:01:13.500 frank abagnale welcome to the show great glad to be here thank you so you just come out the book

00:01:27.240 called scam me if you can simple strategies to outsmart today's ripoff artist you began your young

00:01:33.060 life as a con artist is made famous by the movie catch me if you can for those who aren't familiar

00:01:38.080 with your story how did you get started running these big frauds when you were just a teenager

00:01:42.520 i ran away from a broken home i ended up in court and the judge asked me to choose between which

00:01:48.760 parent i wanted to live with i didn't think that was a choice that a 16 year old boy could make so i

00:01:54.580 ran away unfortunately a lot of kids ran away in the 1960s but got into hate ashbury the hippie scene

00:02:00.540 the drug scene and i ended up on the streets in new york city 16 years old and i quickly realized

00:02:06.120 i had to get creative if i was going to survive and so i knew that nobody wanted to deal with a

00:02:12.280 16 year old and the only advantage i had is i looked a little older i had a little gray hair

00:02:16.960 people always told me i looked much older so i basically altered my date of birth on my driver's

00:02:23.060 license back then they didn't have a photo on it was an ibm card i was actually born in april of 1948

00:02:29.080 but i was able to drop the four and convert it to a three and that made me 10 years older and started

00:02:35.060 acting like a 26 year old and i did have a checking account because i had done some work in my dad's

00:02:40.940 store and he put money in an account for me so i started writing checks and i found it very easy

00:02:45.840 to go in and talk people into cashing a check for me and there was money in the account they were good

00:02:50.720 but when the money ran out i found it's just as easy going in and writing those checks even there

00:02:56.020 there wasn't any money behind it and that started me off knowing that people were chasing me as a

00:03:02.040 runaway they were chasing me for writing bad checks and then i realized i had to stay one step

00:03:08.080 ahead of those people and that started my career off of crime and uh doing all the things i did

00:03:14.140 between 16 and 21 right that was you know imitating you're a pilot doctor all those things how did you

00:03:21.320 turn into a consultant so now what you do is you you help companies in the government avoid help avoid

00:03:27.580 getting scammed how did that happen well what happened was that i was arrested at 21 by the french

00:03:32.960 police i was convicted of forgery in france and sent to french prison when my sentence was over i was

00:03:39.040 immediately extradited from the french prison to sweden where i was convicted of forgery and sent

00:03:44.180 to a swedish pantry penitentiary in malmo sweden and when my term was up there u.s federal authorities

00:03:50.460 took custody of me returned me to the united states and a u.s federal judge sentenced me to 12 years in

00:03:56.640 federal prison i served about four of those 12 years at a federal prison in petersburg virginia

00:04:02.720 and when i was 26 years old the government offered to take me to out of prison under the condition

00:04:08.080 that i go to work with an agency of the federal government i agreed and it was for the time of my

00:04:13.700 sentence or until my parole had expired i have been at the fbi now for 43 years for more than four

00:04:20.520 decades so i started out teaching at the fbi academy and working with the fbi and i soon realized that

00:04:27.320 i had a lot of knowledge that was not just good for training fbi agents but was good for going out

00:04:33.340 and teaching banks and corporations how to protect their money and their their assets and so all my

00:04:39.420 career i've had the opportunity to work with more than 50 of the fortune 500 companies and i've had the

00:04:45.360 ability to go out and develop technology that went into paper and plastic and today do a lot with

00:04:51.020 software technology i've had to change as crime has changed a lot from 40 years ago and i've had

00:04:57.520 to change with crime and figure out how crime works now versus versus then this book scam me if you can

00:05:04.260 is one of the five books i've written the other books have all dealt with commercial crime forgery

00:05:10.380 embezzlement things of that nature this is the first time i wrote a book concerning consumers and

00:05:16.100 scams committed against all types of consumers and so it's been a little bit different but been

00:05:21.560 been great so you mentioned you've had to change your how you approach things your business or what

00:05:26.600 you're looking at i mean you primarily took part in when you were doing fraud it was in the 1960s

00:05:32.340 what's changed since then and like what's changed in maybe the past 10 years nothing's really different

00:05:38.120 in the scams themselves they're all basically the same the same way we con people and scam people

00:05:43.920 the only difference is technology has made it so much easier back when i did social engineering and of

00:05:50.680 course i didn't realize i was social engineering anybody but back then i only had a phone today there

00:05:56.680 are many forms of communications and of course the ability to scam someone from thousands of miles away

00:06:03.700 so you don't have the concern of being caught apprehended and prosecuted of course you never see

00:06:09.600 your victim your victim never sees you so there's no emotion involved there's no compassion involved

00:06:15.120 for the victim so unfortunately it's very scary because people will steal your money and steal

00:06:20.160 everything you have versus 50 years ago when you had to deal with someone one-on-one and maybe your

00:06:25.440 relationship with that person so there was a little bit of compassion a little bit of emotion

00:06:30.460 that's kind of gone out the door and what's the state of consumer fraud in america has it been

00:06:36.060 like on the uptick like dramatically or has it been like a slow increase what's what does that look like

00:06:40.680 it's it's absolutely on the uptake and uh billions and billions of dollars committed in scams every day

00:06:47.440 not just against seniors but i did in doing the research for this book one of the things that amazed me was

00:06:53.740 that millennials are actually scammed more often than seniors but seniors lose more money and so as i remain

00:07:02.540 remind people all the time anybody can be scammed i know i can be scammed anybody can be scammed and

00:07:09.120 the main thing is to basically try to educate yourself so that you understand how some of these

00:07:14.640 things work and anytime you're going to part with your money or part with personal information about

00:07:19.680 yourself you need to know who you're giving that information to before you depart with any of that

00:07:25.080 money yeah that's interesting point because you do typically when you think of victims of fraud you

00:07:28.800 think of elderly people who you know they get the phone call saying they own irs bill but i thought

00:07:33.280 it was interesting that millennials are actually scammed more than elderly people yeah especially

00:07:37.180 on computer scams where they're sitting at their screen and a pop-up comes up says this is microsoft

00:07:42.180 we believe you have malware on your computer call this 1-800 number and they call and say you need to pay

00:07:48.240 39.95 give us your credit card over the phone i think that young people really don't really think

00:07:54.800 these things out and they don't really have a deceptive mind so they think that this is legitimate

00:08:00.720 and it's okay to do this it's okay to give away this information they don't really understand how

00:08:06.260 someone would misuse that information or bring them harm through the information they give them

00:08:11.040 so before we dig into specific ways scam artists rip people off and what you can do to protect

00:08:16.080 yourself from them you begin the book talking about sort of a high level strategy that all scam artists

00:08:20.760 use no matter their specific tactic or strategy and the first part of this sort of high level

00:08:26.460 you know fraud that thinking that people use is getting the target under the ether what do you mean by

00:08:32.920 that you get people to truly believe that you are who you say you are you know we've seen these

00:08:38.420 romance scams more than double over the last few years you you meet someone online you start to

00:08:45.340 befriend them online and then next thing you know you're talking to them on the telephone and you

00:08:50.780 start a relationship with them and you might be a little bit lonely and now you've met this very nice

00:08:55.620 person they're very kind to you you have similar things that you like to talk about together and this may

00:09:01.400 go on for a year 12 months or more and eventually you might say to that person so look at robert if you

00:09:09.340 only live a couple of states away why don't you come over and see me well i would but i have to have

00:09:15.320 this operation and it's thirty thousand dollars and i don't have the money and if i don't have the

00:09:21.140 operation i don't know that i'm really going to make it well you know i i could loan you the money

00:09:26.000 it's getting people to start to really believe you are who you say you are to get you believe what

00:09:31.180 they're saying is true and once you get there you basically are able to scam those people

00:09:37.660 unfortunately because they believe that what you're telling them is the truth they believe

00:09:41.640 you are who you say you are and that's how the most all scams work i mean there's specific tactics

00:09:47.680 that scam artists use to build that trust up yeah you know we've had the lady here in uh in manhattan

00:09:53.280 that basically said she was an heiress from europe she didn't have a dime to her name but she came to

00:09:59.440 new york she started to realize she needed to meet very important wealthy people so she kind of met

00:10:05.380 them they kind of liked her she said she was an heiress that she had all of this money so then

00:10:11.400 that friend said oh well let me invite you to a party i'm having you'll meet some really nice people

00:10:16.100 there and then she went to that party as she met people she was attractive she had a nice personality

00:10:21.540 people had no reason not to believe her those people got to befriend her they introduced her to

00:10:26.940 other people she became well known as kind of a socialite in new york people all believed her to be

00:10:33.000 very wealthy and these are all about building these scams building these pyramids it takes a lot of

00:10:38.480 time a lot of investment on behalf of the individual and eventually she started to tell people that she

00:10:44.840 knew that she was going to invest in certain things and they said well i'd maybe like to invest with you

00:10:49.880 with that some people she turned down just on purpose to make them want to do it more and eventually

00:10:56.060 she took people for a lot of money in her case she never finished the had an end game she never

00:11:01.880 realized how to get out of it once she got totally in it so eventually she got caught but all these

00:11:07.800 scams and pyramid scams and all that pretty much work basically the same way it's all about building

00:11:13.520 trust with people it's not an overnight thing it takes a long time it takes a lot of effort it takes

00:11:19.200 a lot of time to build relationships with people but in the end people are out to get a lot of money

00:11:25.780 from it what that story illustrates well is something you recognize yourself as a con artist which was

00:11:31.160 that if you look and act the part people just accept that you are who you say you are so when

00:11:36.260 you dress like and act like a pilot or a doctor people accepted that so if you act like you belong

00:11:41.800 somewhere people figure you do another part of this kind of high level strategy that con artists use

00:11:47.560 is using a sense of urgency to get people to do what they want what does that look like well here's

00:11:53.120 the thing in doing this research for this book what was important to me was to look at every single

00:11:58.260 type of scam no matter whether it was bitcoin scams cryptocurrency scams wall street scams scams

00:12:04.140 against seniors grams against millennials and in doing so what amazed me is that i realized that

00:12:10.560 no matter what the scam was no matter how sophisticated or how amateur it was at some point

00:12:16.900 two red flags were going to show up either one or the other and the first red flag is that i'm going to

00:12:22.540 ask you for money and i need you to do it immediately you give me a credit card over

00:12:27.480 the phone give me your bank account number so i can draft on your bank go down to walmart get me a

00:12:33.040 green dot card bring the card back and call me right back with the card number on the back

00:12:37.520 everything had to be immediately and that's the first red flag and the second red flag is that

00:12:43.680 somewhere along the line like in the romance scam or in any scam they're going to ask you for

00:12:49.420 information what's your social security number what's your date of birth where do you bank

00:12:53.340 personal information and i tell people look you can be involved in a romance online with someone

00:13:00.020 and that's great it goes on for nine months 18 months everything's great but at some point when

00:13:05.440 that person starts asking you for money or they start asking you personal information you never met

00:13:11.780 that person you don't know who that person really is that's that red flag that's where you need to stop

00:13:18.280 and make sure before you ever part with any of your money or information you know who you're

00:13:23.120 dealing with and if you learn these red flags because in every scam they have to come up

00:13:27.560 that will alert you that this is probably a scam right those red flags are important because what i

00:13:33.020 think is interesting about sort of these high level tactics that con artists use you know building

00:13:37.320 trust using scarcity and urgency like these are skills that can be used for legitimate purposes

00:13:41.600 right like i mean that's what sales people do absolutely i used to tell people when they say

00:13:46.840 you know you are a great con man or confidence man i tell them you know all of the abilities i had are

00:13:53.560 the same abilities that a great salesman has a great public relations guy has a great marketing person

00:13:59.720 has they're only using their skills and the right side of the law and they're never crossing over that

00:14:05.280 line of legality and what's legal and what's not whereas a con man is looking for a shortcut to a

00:14:11.460 an end and basically will is willing to bend the law or break the law to do so but that's the only

00:14:16.620 difference in those personalities so let's talk about specific scams that you talk about in the

00:14:21.960 book a few of them one is identity theft and i think we've all heard read those stories about elderly

00:14:26.520 people getting their their identity stolen and racking up these bills that they had to fight for

00:14:31.360 years and years but one i thought was interesting for young people who have kids like your child who's

00:14:37.120 like three years old can have their identity stolen and how does how does that happen actually because

00:14:43.320 unfortunately now every child has a social security number from the day they're born back in my day

00:14:49.620 when growing up you didn't receive your social security number till you first got a job so you were

00:14:54.540 at least 16 17 years old and you were issued a social security card number no one knew that number

00:15:01.080 except your employer yourself and the federal government now when a baby comes out of the

00:15:06.900 hospital infant they're assigned a social security number and for scam artists they'd much rather have

00:15:12.400 the social security number of a six-year-old boy than a 60-year-old man who might be very wealthy

00:15:17.720 because the six-year-old boy has no credit and for the next probably 10 12 years is not going to

00:15:24.460 seek any credit so i can actually become the six-year-old boy for a long time before anybody ever

00:15:30.300 knows i stole their identity and god forbid i get the social security number of an infant coming out of

00:15:36.060 the hospital i can use that identity for 18 20 years sell it resell it over and over before anyone ever

00:15:43.120 knows i stole that child's identity so children's identity theft is a big issue many people don't think

00:15:49.420 about that they think only about wealthy people or older people or established people having their identity

00:15:55.740 stolen when it's really a lot of times children's identities they would prefer to steal the other

00:16:02.960 thing to remember stealing identities today has become so simple because we live in a way way too

00:16:09.320 much information world so i'm not on social media of any kind but if if you're on facebook and you tell

00:16:16.520 somebody when you were born and your date of birth that's 98 of stealing your identity so you make it so easy

00:16:24.680 for people so i always tell people you never want to state where you were born and your date of birth

00:16:29.420 otherwise you might as well say come steal my identity so what can parents do to help their kids

00:16:35.380 avoid identity theft they need to teach your children about giving information away saying too much if

00:16:41.360 they're going to be on the social media they shouldn't be telling people personal information about

00:16:47.320 them certainly not saying where they were born or their date of birth being careful what kind of

00:16:52.600 picture they post on their social media if you're using a passport style photo or graduation photo or

00:16:59.360 even a driver's license style photo through facial recognition tools they can take a picture of you that

00:17:05.500 brings them to your facebook page they can take that picture from your facebook page and use it and

00:17:11.280 on some other form of identification and a lot of romance scams what we find is there's a picture of a young

00:17:18.560 marine on facebook and he's highly decorated great looking guy he's in full uniform he looks magnificent

00:17:25.460 it's a straight-on portrait of that person they will then take that photograph send out thousands

00:17:31.460 of emails to women saying this is me here's a picture of me and i'd like to get to meet you and they really

00:17:38.320 think that they're involved with that person in the photograph when really it's probably maybe an 80 year old

00:17:44.160 guy on the other end who's doing that and eventually of course they say i'm over afghanistan i don't have access

00:17:50.300 to money could you get me a debit card or go to walmart buy a green dot card and read me the numbers so i could have

00:17:56.960 some access to money to buy some things over here there are so many scams built around things like that so you have

00:18:04.640 to be very careful and of course i always tell young people you have to be careful what you say and what you post on

00:18:10.960 things like facebook so if you have a picture of you nude on the beach with a bunch of drug paraphernalia

00:18:16.080 all over your body and wine bottles and whiskey bottles one day when you go apply for a job we know

00:18:22.060 that 70 percent of fortune 500 companies look at your facebook page and do you want them to see that

00:18:28.240 picture if you say something about someone's sexual orientation or someone's race when you're 12 years

00:18:33.960 old because you don't know any better do you want your employer your school of admissions to read that

00:18:39.120 or see that later because the fact is you can erase it you can delete it you can close your account

00:18:44.180 but it's retrievable so i always tell young people before you post before you make a statement you

00:18:49.960 might regret you need to ask yourself do you want someone to read this five years from now 10 years

00:18:56.200 from now you got to be a little smarter and a little wiser today than you did 20 30 years ago

00:19:01.860 we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show so um

00:19:08.240 another common consumer facing fraud that you're seeing an increase of is investment frauds what

00:19:14.540 are the typical type of investment frauds you see in your in your work it's people that you encounter

00:19:19.940 that talk you into investing money when you really don't know a lot about that individual's background

00:19:25.800 anybody could defraud you but usually if you're going to make an investment with someone you want to

00:19:31.120 make sure that you've checked out their references the people that they have dealt with for many years and

00:19:36.500 what they have to say about them what that person's track record is and making those investments are they

00:19:42.440 tied to a legitimate company a big brokerage house or a financial institution or someone that's an established

00:19:49.620 company that you know the person has had background checks people who know who they are i'd be very leery of

00:19:55.480 just meeting someone or someone i didn't know a lot about and maybe they impress me because i think they have a lot of

00:20:02.500 money and they make me believe they're very good at what they do and and putting putting money with

00:20:08.320 them because again you have to take a little time before you part with your money or information and

00:20:13.920 make sure you know who you're giving it to and that today with all the resources we have out there

00:20:19.620 with the internet and things of that nature it's not difficult to make some calls and check things out

00:20:25.220 before you ever actually go give anybody any of your money well the tricky thing is that sometimes

00:20:30.660 fraudsters who are trying to run an investment fraud they understand that people aren't going to trust

00:20:35.420 me right away so they'll use the friends of these people they're trying to target to get sort of to

00:20:41.160 build up that trust i mean that's kind of what bernie madoff did with his affinity fraud and what most

00:20:45.280 scam artists do so they start out to build a relationship with people who have influence and

00:20:50.620 every one of these scams that we see basically even the big big scams like the people who said they

00:20:56.300 invented the blood test that just have to prick your finger and you don't have to have your blood taken

00:21:00.260 anymore got involved with people in the military generals they got people very prestigious people

00:21:05.880 involved so that they were really selling the scam unknowingly for them and they're building that

00:21:12.340 credibility through people they know or people they have a relationship with but again you have to be

00:21:18.000 a little bit more careful i just can't make an investment because someone told me that this guy's good or

00:21:24.740 this guy i've made investments with i've always got a return on my money i still want to go a little

00:21:29.940 deeper than that i want to know how long this person's been around what's their reputation you

00:21:34.900 got to take the time to do a little bit of research and take a little time to investigate before you

00:21:39.600 depart with your your money so i think people have heard that advice like if someone's

00:21:44.720 promising you like 125 returns like that's probably a scam but like there's one there's some investment

00:21:51.320 frauds a little more sophisticated and they're harder to detect and one you talk about is churning

00:21:55.420 what is that this is basically where people get other people so for example i might say to you

00:22:02.780 hey you want to invest fifty thousand dollars with me i'm going to i think i'll be able to double your

00:22:08.380 money in about six months and for whatever reason you trust me you give me the fifty thousand and

00:22:13.560 certainly six months later i turn to you and say hey here's your fifty thousand plus the fifty thousand

00:22:19.060 more that i told you you'd get well then you're going to tell some other friend yeah i invested

00:22:25.180 with frank and i gave him fifty thousand dollars and then six months later i made fifty thousand dollars

00:22:30.900 it was great i'm using the influence of those people you are my tool basically to convince other

00:22:37.960 people that i'm legitimate and i might do that with several people and that's kind of what

00:22:42.760 madoff did as well as he he did turn people's money around he made 33 percent and on a lot of

00:22:49.120 people's money uh these were very influential people and when someone said to another guy well

00:22:54.580 look if you need your money from bernie how hard is it to get it but i call him at 10 o'clock in the

00:22:59.920 morning i tell him i need a million dollars i'm closing on a house in the afternoon and by two o'clock

00:23:04.580 the money's in my bank account no questions asked those are the people that he uses to sell the

00:23:09.980 people that he's really going to end up taking and another one that's sort of very subtle is

00:23:15.060 like say you invest with a fund manager what they do is they make a lot of transactions that they

00:23:20.680 don't need to make because every transaction they make they're making money off of you they collect

00:23:26.960 fees and and yes and they're just doing it to collect uh collect those fees you know technology

00:23:32.900 has helped so much so you know i talk in the book about the grandparent scam there are so many

00:23:38.280 people who fall for the grandparent scam and what happens is the phone rings in the evening

00:23:43.580 you look on the phone and it says it's the police department of course you can manipulate caller id to

00:23:49.200 say anything you wanted to say u.s treasury irs medicare so first you believe immediately that it is the

00:23:56.420 police department so you pick up the phone they say we arrested your grandson he was dwi we have taken

00:24:03.020 him into custody he was in this type of vehicle and you say to yourself oh yeah that's his car

00:24:08.040 and he had a passenger in the car it's uh this young lady and you go yeah that's his girlfriend

00:24:13.300 and we were going to call his parents and tell you the parents name and you go yeah that's right but

00:24:19.120 he asked us not to call his parents he asked us to call you and he needs to post bail in the next

00:24:23.820 two hours he'll have to spend the weekend in jail oh well i don't want that to happen what do i have

00:24:28.560 to do to post bail well you can give me a credit card over the phone and we can post a 500 bail okay

00:24:34.520 i'll be happy to do that these scam artists have come a lot more sophisticated over the last few

00:24:39.800 years they go to social media the grandson already has pictures of his car up on facebook he has

00:24:46.000 pictures of him and his girlfriend and her name he has pictures of his family and their name that

00:24:51.520 builds so much credibility into whether it's a phishing email or whether it's just that phone call

00:24:56.520 that you really truly believe this must be the police but again at this point is that red flag

00:25:02.740 where even if you said to the police department you know what i live just a block from the police

00:25:08.060 department so let me just come down there right now and i'll bring you the money i know so you can't do

00:25:13.280 that you have to pay over the phone you have to use your credit card has to be now that's the time

00:25:19.640 that you need to hang up look up the police department's phone number call the police department tell them

00:25:25.280 about the call you received of which they're going to tell you that that's a scam and to ignore it

00:25:29.480 but that's where you have to be smart enough to do that before you give out that information or give

00:25:34.180 out that money well yeah that's you know you talk about different government scams that people use

00:25:39.340 the government as to get the money and oftentimes what they use like a red flag is if if you have a

00:25:44.380 government agency asking you for information or money over the phone it's probably a scam the red flag

00:25:49.880 first of all their government agencies are not going to call you i explain to people all the time

00:25:54.840 for example medicare when you turn 65 and you sign up you have to fill up all these forms and of course

00:26:00.860 you've put in your address and your phone numbers and all that as soon as they put that into their

00:26:06.200 system the first thing that medicare deletes is your phone numbers they don't have your phone number

00:26:10.660 because they have no reason to call you and they're not going to call you so the minute someone calls

00:26:15.580 and says they're from the irs or they're from medicare you know that's a scam now be careful

00:26:22.200 because all scam artists work a scam for a while and then when they realize the scam's got a lot of

00:26:26.960 attention a lot of people know it's a scam they kind of switch gears a little bit so now they're

00:26:32.400 apt to send you a letter which looks very official comes on what supposedly is an irs letterhead

00:26:38.420 the envelope on the outside says postage and fees paid by united states government return address

00:26:44.680 is the u.s treasury and you open it up and says we need to speak to you immediately if we don't hear

00:26:51.180 from you in this many days we'll have to file a lien on your bank account please call the 800 number

00:26:56.240 below and ask for agent so and so and you 800 number is a boiler room in miami they answer a young

00:27:03.420 lady very nicely internal revenue service how could i help you i received this letter there should be a

00:27:09.400 reference number up in the corner yes i have it what's the number yes sir that's agent johnson let

00:27:15.300 me turn you over to him and they collect calls to another table where the other scam artist picks it

00:27:20.960 up goes agent johnson and it's the same scam only they're making a little more believable yesterday on

00:27:27.220 the front page of the wall street journal there was a new scam going around where they're calling

00:27:32.420 people with student loans and saying we can negotiate your student loan down we can negotiate

00:27:38.320 your payment down your interest down but it's twelve hundred and fifty dollars for our services

00:27:43.520 well first of all those are just scams if you would actually give them the money you'll probably never

00:27:49.000 hear from them again and even if they were in fact a semi-legitimate company everything they're saying

00:27:55.000 that they can do you could do yourself you don't need them to do it you could call and renegotiate you

00:28:00.420 could get your interest rate down you could do those things on your own so that's just another

00:28:05.280 scam every time there's something going on there's like student loans or new medicare cards or anything

00:28:11.540 like that then the scam artists are out there particularly some scam around that new thing that's

00:28:16.320 out there so what's the red flag if you get that fake letter from the irs like how do you know it's a

00:28:20.460 fake again you don't really know it's a fake so you again you need to call but you need to go look

00:28:26.540 up the number of the irs and actually call the irs office and explain to them that i received this

00:28:32.580 letter they are going to ask you what the reference number is up in the right hand corner because that's

00:28:37.280 how the irs and many government agencies work and they're going to say to you sir that's a fictitious

00:28:42.300 number that doesn't belong to us and there is no agent johnson at that phone number that you read to

00:28:48.580 me that they gave you on the letterhead that is just a scam and don't don't answer or respond to

00:28:54.780 any information that they've requested from you you have to just take you know that whole thing

00:29:00.520 of stop and verify again if everything's fine until i start asking you for money or i start asking

00:29:07.460 you for information that's when you really need to stop and verify that that is who they say they are

00:29:13.440 and that it's real yeah i think that's a for everything even like just personal security you have

00:29:17.980 to put up barriers you have to make things a little bit more inconvenient for yourself if you want to

00:29:22.640 maintain security right and there is no such thing as convenience and security you can't have both so

00:29:28.320 you either have security you have convenience so if it's your personal security that should be number

00:29:34.400 one you should be thinking about how safe you can make it for yourself and and doing that so that you

00:29:41.620 protect yourself as number one so you know i do a lot of simple things for example you've i've written

00:29:47.620 a lot about the fact that i only use a credit card i don't own a debit card never owned a debit card

00:29:54.000 and the credit card i use is in fact a credit card not a credit debit card and i do that because i know

00:30:00.720 that no matter where i go in the world if someone gets my number and charges a million dollars on my

00:30:05.960 card tomorrow by federal law i have no liability if i buy something online and they don't deliver it

00:30:12.880 credit card company makes it good if i purchase something online and it comes broken but the

00:30:18.500 company refuses to take it back the credit card company makes it good when i pay the bill or the

00:30:25.440 minimum due i raise my credit score my core keeps going up when you use your debit card every time you

00:30:31.640 reach for it you're exposing the money in your account and so in every breach that we've had they

00:30:37.460 went way back to tj maxx 15 years ago when they've gotten the credit card number when you interview in

00:30:44.320 a post investigation the person says well no i used my visa card and uh actually they canceled it the

00:30:50.640 next day and then two days later i i got a new card and that was the last i heard about it oh no i used

00:30:56.620 my debit card off my credit union they took three thousand dollars out of my checking account and it took me

00:31:02.520 about three months while they were investigating to get my money back so to be honest with you even

00:31:07.680 when i go to an atm especially overseas i withdraw money on my credit card yes they charge me a fee but

00:31:15.520 i look at that as cheap insurance that no one is getting into my account they're not being my account

00:31:21.260 is not being exposed to anyone and they're not going to get my my money so common sense things like

00:31:27.660 that that you look at what eliminates the risk so if i'm going to use limo or any of those kind of

00:31:32.780 payment forms i'm going to back those by a credit card not backed by a debit card because i don't

00:31:37.880 want someone to have access to my account now i truly understand that there are people who can't

00:31:43.440 handle their money very well they're not good at paying their bills well then those people should

00:31:47.880 stick with a debit card but if you're good at handling your money and you're good at paying your bill

00:31:52.520 and what's due when it's due then it's much better off using a credit card so a scam you talk about

00:31:58.240 that i didn't know existed but i've used these services a lot is vacation rental websites like

00:32:03.380 vrbo or airbnb some of these websites have frauds running on how do the frauds work on these

00:32:09.640 vacation rental sites constantly as a matter of fact i just had dinner a few nights ago and i live in

00:32:16.280 charleston south carolina a young man who grew up in tulsa i was a godfather to his sister know his

00:32:22.980 family very well known him since he was a baby he's working on his master's program so he is coming to

00:32:29.020 charleston for one year to finish his master and he was telling me he said you cannot believe all the

00:32:35.140 scams when i was trying to rent an apartment all these people wanted to me to send them a 1200 deposit

00:32:41.920 you didn't it was just by email you didn't see them you couldn't talk to him on the phone

00:32:46.740 and he said my friend went made the foolish mistake of sending 2500 to one of those people and then when

00:32:53.900 he got to charleston there was no the place was not for rent it never had been for rent and he's out

00:32:59.380 his 2500 he doesn't even know who that person was because he only dealt with them on email and yes

00:33:05.780 these things happen all the time i send you pictures of the place i send you all the information

00:33:10.980 about the place it looks very legitimate and then the red flag is that i'm telling you that there

00:33:16.600 is a deposit you need to make the deposit up front and again if i was in that situation i'd have to

00:33:22.760 say to the person i'm going to have to wait till i get down there see the place and then i will be

00:33:28.980 more than happy to sign the lease and and give you the money i don't feel comfortable sending the money

00:33:34.300 i've not been there i don't know that this is a real place i don't know who you are and that's what

00:33:40.200 he did he waited till he got here a young lady had the place he looked at it he knew it was her place

00:33:46.880 and then he gave her the deposit and took the apartment i mean would another strategy be was

00:33:51.940 like only interact on the website itself and like don't take it off the website so like instead of

00:33:56.860 like it sounds like you if you just go to email and work directly that you're you increase your

00:34:01.100 chances of being frauded defrauded absolutely because you don't know who's on the other end of

00:34:05.420 that email and of course we know there are a lot of phony websites and i can create really very

00:34:10.160 impressive replicas of real websites but again you want to you want to make sure that you're doing

00:34:16.100 business with somebody that's real so you you want to go check it out and i mean those are simple

00:34:21.220 things if i was doing something like that i might call a real estate office down there and ask if this

00:34:25.920 property exists or you can call the better business bureau and say did you have complaints of people

00:34:31.500 selling these apartments or this address and not scouting with the money there are many ways to

00:34:37.120 check those things out but i again would would say that that's what i would do before i parted with

00:34:42.900 any kind of money so one scam well we're probably seeing more of right now because baby boomers are

00:34:48.640 retiring and there's gonna be this huge transfer of wealth coming up pretty soon is the inheritance scams

00:34:54.640 yeah inheritance scams and scams of all kinds you know um i know people don't like to hear this

00:35:01.860 because they think it sounds simplistic but having done this now for 43 years on this side of the law

00:35:08.340 written books about it articles about it having been involved in cases all over the world having worked

00:35:15.400 with arp for the past five years on these problems with these crimes the one thing that really comes back

00:35:22.020 to me all the time is that we live in an extremely unethical society we live in a society where

00:35:27.800 we don't teach ethics at home we live in a society where we don't teach ethics in school because the

00:35:33.160 teacher would be accused of teaching morality we live in a society where you you don't get in a four-year

00:35:39.240 college a course about ethics only one son who went to law school got a course on ethics and in most companies

00:35:45.800 there's a code of ethics but a code of conduct but it's just printed on the back of the annual report

00:35:51.440 it's not really instilled in their employees so we've come along now to generations of people who

00:35:57.500 have real really no ethics no character and it's all about me it's all about greed what can i do to

00:36:04.920 enhance me and if i have to step on somebody or i have to hurt somebody or especially somebody i never

00:36:11.500 even met i just know online i'm willing to do that and until we change that attitude and this has nothing

00:36:18.580 to do with religion it's just the difference between what's right and what's wrong until we

00:36:23.760 start bringing that back into our homes back into our schools back into our universities crime is just

00:36:30.520 going to get easier because technology will always make crime easier will always allow the criminal to

00:36:36.140 do things as well as technology stops crime it's also very easy to commit crimes with technology so you

00:36:42.560 have to stop the way people are thinking and the way people perceive things and the way people

00:36:47.260 interact with other human beings otherwise it will just continue on this cycle forever right and i guess

00:36:54.180 with the inheritance scams if you have older parents like make sure they have a will in place a trust in

00:36:58.560 place all those they have a will in place and i don't know how many cases i have where somebody has an aide

00:37:04.480 or a secretary they're 82 years old and the next thing you know they pass away and all the money's been

00:37:11.440 left to the aide or left to their secretary or assistant and the will's been changed maybe a year earlier or six months

00:37:19.800 earlier and they say well no he wanted to give me everything that's hard to believe that he didn't want to leave

00:37:25.840 his children anything but people do that and sometimes people get away with that so you always want to be making sure

00:37:33.620 your family especially older members of the family are protected and what happens unfortunately is with

00:37:39.660 a lot of these scams is that maybe mrs johnson who's 78 years old falls for a sweepstake scams and

00:37:47.940 loses five thousand dollars well she's afraid to tell her loved ones because then the daughter says

00:37:54.400 see mom you can't really handle your money i need to take over your checkbook all your finances and

00:38:00.100 basically take away your independence they're afraid to tell the police because it might get out

00:38:04.980 in the news and then her friends will know that she was scammed out of this money so when we look at

00:38:10.080 the billions of dollars in scams against crimes against the elderly we only know what we know to

00:38:15.080 be facts we don't know all of the people who didn't report it and most people don't report it and i

00:38:20.780 always remind those people that there's nothing to be ashamed of anybody can be scammed the most

00:38:26.120 intelligent people in the world get scammed i know i can be scammed but if you're scammed you need to

00:38:31.880 tell somebody so that something can be done about it if you don't tell anybody they're just going to

00:38:36.680 go on and scam somebody else i know some states are actually passing laws to help prevent scam on

00:38:43.380 elderly people so like if there's like a sudden transfer of wealth in a certain amount of time like

00:38:48.220 they'll actually retroactively say no that doesn't count or something like that i think florida's doing

00:38:52.120 that right and what's what's happened and how i really got involved with all of this you know aarp

00:38:57.180 has 38 million members so a number of years ago in a survey out to their members they asked them what

00:39:04.240 were some of their concerns and they were amazed that they came back saying that they were concerned

00:39:08.820 about identity theft falling victim to these scams losing their life savings and so they went out to

00:39:15.100 find out what information was available out there in the marketplace and there wasn't really a whole lot

00:39:20.020 about it so they came to me and i started working with them five years ago they developed what's

00:39:25.860 called the fraud watch network and developed educational materials training materials they asked

00:39:31.660 me and commissioned me to write this book for them all the proceeds from the book and the advance for

00:39:37.400 the book will go to and the royalties of the book will go to aarp and basically they have gone out and

00:39:44.240 set up the fraud watch network they have a call center in denver colorado where you can call the

00:39:49.760 800 number and speak to a volunteer there that's very knowledgeable if you think you've been scammed

00:39:55.100 or you're thinking of investing in a charity but you're not sure the charity is legitimate or you

00:39:59.720 got this phone call and you're not sure that the phone call is real and it might be a scam but you

00:40:04.920 don't have to be an aarp member you could be 18 years old and call i've been to 40 states on their

00:40:10.820 behalf speaking to groups thousands at a time sometimes in major cities and anyone can come there's no fee to

00:40:18.160 come they're not selling you anything they don't allow you to sell anything it's strictly to help

00:40:23.060 educate people and so this has been very rewarding for me to be able to do something a little different

00:40:28.540 in my career not just protecting businesses and corporations and banks and governments but being

00:40:34.100 able to go out and help the people who really need the help people who can be victimized whether they

00:40:38.920 be a millennial or whether they be a senior to help educate them so they don't fall victims to these

00:40:44.160 crimes so there's a lot being done both on the law enforcement side as well as being done on groups

00:40:49.960 like aarp who have taken upon themselves to help fight some of these crimes so let's talk about one

00:40:55.340 last crime that that hadn't existed maybe five years ago but now you're seeing more of and that's

00:41:00.060 like cryptocurrency fraud or bitcoin fraud what does that look like yeah because it's not very safe we

00:41:06.320 last year we shut down more than a hundred exchanges that turned out to be fraudulent exchanges a lot of

00:41:12.920 these bitcoin sites can easily be hacked into there's no real good internal security so people get lose

00:41:19.300 all of their money in matter of seconds by someone that's hacked into it or someone pulled a scam

00:41:24.100 doing that i was asked many years ago in atlantic magazine where they have on the last page of their

00:41:30.980 monthly magazine they ask a noted person a question and you one response and they asked me what i thought

00:41:36.900 about bitcoin and i said i felt it was actually one of the biggest scams perpetrated against the people

00:41:43.220 of the world it's just basically not safe it may be safe someday but it's now just a way to hide money

00:41:50.740 to launder money to use illegal money and get it to turn into proper money there's a lot of issues with

00:41:58.220 bitcoin so i think it's very risky but again it has a high return people get greedy they're willing to take

00:42:05.420 the risks and it can be very harmful if you obviously lose all your money well frank we've

00:42:11.120 just scratched the surface with this where can people go to learn more about the book in your work

00:42:14.740 scam me if you can is in the bookstores on amazon and basically my website is just abignale.com very

00:42:21.380 simple my last name.com i write about a lot of things i put them up on my website i try to make sure

00:42:27.080 they're timely every interview i do in print i publish it up on my website so people can go see what i had

00:42:33.820 to say about it there's information on my website about how to spot a counterfeit bill how to spot a

00:42:39.000 shortchange artist how to use credit properly identity theft all of these issues and in scam if you can

00:42:46.060 i truly took the time and effort to recognize every type of scam explain it in very simple language i wanted

00:42:52.840 the book to be a reference book too for police officers social workers even individuals who can go

00:42:58.980 five years from now and say you know i think this is a scam i think i read something about that i'm

00:43:03.700 going to look this up and see if this is actually a scam and that was the purpose of the book and so

00:43:10.140 i'm i'm a big believer that education is the most powerful tool to fighting crime and if you educate

00:43:16.660 yourself you make yourself more aware of your surroundings and what's going on around you you're going to be

00:43:22.660 better off doing that so i hope this book is just one way of helping people achieve that well frank

00:43:28.300 thanks so much time it's been a pleasure thank you it's great talking to you again my guest there

00:43:32.280 was frank abagnale he is the author of the book scam me if you can it's available on amazon.com and

00:43:36.840 bookstores everywhere you can find out more information about his work at his website abagnale.com

00:43:41.100 that's a-b-a-g-n-a-l-e.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash scam where you find links

00:43:47.360 to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:43:49.640 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at artofmanliness.com

00:44:01.460 where you can find our podcast archives there were 500 episodes there as well as thousands of

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The Art of Manliness - September 23, 2019

#545： How Not to Get Scammed, Conned, or Duped

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