The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1775 - I Thought I Was Too Smart To Get Scammed. I Was Wrong.

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00:00:55.300 You know, I like to think that I'm a relatively smart and savvy guy, although some might disagree.

00:01:02.580 Smart enough to sniff out a scam pretty quickly anyway.

00:01:05.960 And yet just recently, I almost fell for one.

00:01:08.800 It was a scam text message, one of the seemingly dozens that I get every week now.

00:01:14.380 And you probably received a similar message.

00:01:15.900 It was one of those fake toll notifications where you're told that you owe money because you passed a toll booth without paying.

00:01:21.420 and the reason that it almost worked on me and kind of tripped me up is that I had recently done

00:01:25.940 exactly that when I was out of state. I came up on the toll, didn't have an easy pass, didn't have

00:01:31.140 any cash on me, so I just blew through it like an irresponsible citizen and I knew I'd get a ticket

00:01:36.460 and figured I'd just pay it whenever it comes in. It just so happens that a few days after my

00:01:41.660 dastardly toll dodging crime, I got this text message. So my first reaction was to take it at

00:01:47.440 face value. The text said I had an unpaid toll. I did, in fact, have an unpaid toll. So I was just

00:01:53.680 about to click the link, but then I thought better of it. I realized that they probably wouldn't send

00:01:58.380 a text to get me to pay a toll. And also the wording of the text was weirdly aggressive,

00:02:04.260 threatening that my license might be imminently suspended if I don't pay right away, which,

00:02:08.940 of course, is not true. So on second thought, it seemed suspicious. And then on third thought,

00:02:13.540 I realized that it was very obviously a scam and I was an idiot for even considering clicking on 0.99

00:02:19.260 the link. So I deleted the text and moved on, slightly embarrassed. Still haven't gotten the 0.84

00:02:25.800 ticket for the toll, by the way. But this put things in perspective. If I could come somewhat

00:02:33.000 close to falling for a scam as a relatively young, emphasis on relatively vigilant adult who's very

00:02:40.680 familiar with the internet and all these different scams. And it stands to reason that elderly 0.88

00:02:45.820 people are getting ripped off constantly. As a 39-year-old, my general familiarity with these

00:02:52.780 kinds of scams was enough to set off the alarm bells at the last minute, stop me from doing 0.99

00:02:57.180 something really stupid. But if I was your 75-year-old grandfather, it'd be a different 0.97

00:03:03.140 story. Now, put another way, enormous amounts of money are being stolen primarily by foreigners 1.00

00:03:09.620 who despise this country. This problem has long since reached epidemic levels.

00:03:16.320 The vast majority of Americans have been targeted by attempted scams, are targeted all the time.

00:03:21.960 In fact, the majority of Americans receive scam calls and texts weekly, if not daily.

00:03:27.460 And a lot of Americans are losing a lot of money, sometimes their life savings because of it.

00:03:33.460 now we have uh no idea where specifically that money is going and when you understand the

00:03:40.780 implications of this theft then you quickly realize that this is a genuine national security

00:03:45.700 crisis it's not a civil matter or a nuisance or anything like that bombs should be dropped

00:03:53.280 that's not an exaggeration this is one foreign intervention that every rational american would

00:03:58.780 support wholeheartedly without any reservation. It's also very easy to do, and if that sounds

00:04:04.360 like hyperbole or something that will never happen, consider the fact that less than a year ago,

00:04:09.340 Thailand began conducting targeted airstrikes against scam call centers in Cambodia. They got

00:04:16.440 fed up with the constant fraud that was ripping off their citizens, so they blew up the source of

00:04:21.280 the fraudulent phone calls and text messages. Really, these call center operations are organized

00:04:26.320 as small villages complete with dorms where the scammer sleep, and Thailand demolished these

00:04:32.180 compounds one by one. They only stopped when the U.S. brokered a ceasefire, which was obviously a

00:04:37.820 huge mistake that we should rectify immediately. And we'll get more into detail on Thailand's

00:04:43.280 military campaign and how the United States can emulate it in just a second. It's a truly crazy

00:04:47.900 story, particularly when you hear about how the scammers' Chinese handlers responded to the 0.75

00:04:52.540 bombing raid. This is one of the least discussed military campaigns in recent history, but it's

00:04:58.360 one of the most important because of the precedent that it could set. But before we talk about that

00:05:03.240 military campaign and how to obliterate these scammers with B-2 bombers, we need to establish

00:05:08.040 the extent of the problem. And it's a huge problem. The scammers targeting Americans are extremely

00:05:14.360 dedicated. They don't let anything distract them, even for a second. So here, for example, is one

00:05:20.000 call that in the hands of a less experienced scammer might have gotten derailed watch how the

00:05:24.740 scammer handles it watch you please give me your credit card number so I can help you yeah sure let

00:05:32.760 me just pull over because I'm driving all right yeah sure

00:05:50.000 Can you hear me?

00:05:57.000 I can hear you.

00:06:00.000 I just had a car crash.

00:06:03.000 It's going to be alright. Don't worry about it. Do you have your credit card details?

00:06:11.000 I just had a car crash. I'm bleeding.

00:06:19.000 Yeah. I just need your credit card number. That's all. Yeah. Yeah.

00:06:25.640 So he doesn't even flinch. He thinks this woman just got hit by an 18-wheeler and she's bleeding

00:06:29.820 out. And what does he do? He asks once more for her credit card number. And there's a lesson there.

00:06:35.040 The scammers are relentless. They're ruthless. They don't feel human emotions. And unless they're

00:06:40.020 wiped off the face of the earth, they're not going to stop defrauding people. Now, I will mention at

00:06:44.740 the outset that my grand plan to bomb foreign scammers, of course, will not completely prevent 0.99

00:06:51.100 Americans from getting scammed. That's because we've imported a lot of scammers into this country 1.00

00:06:55.340 and most of them have gotten very creative. This domestic scam, for example, is one that if, 0.82

00:07:00.780 you know, we're being honest, a lot of us would probably fall for. It's extremely difficult to

00:07:04.960 detect and frankly, most people would never see it coming. Watch.

00:07:07.800 Erica Pender of Atlanta noticed something was off in her local parking garage.

00:07:17.200 It was like extra shiny, like it had been like recently laminated. I could see like it wasn't

00:07:24.220 really a part of like the fancy signs they have out there and I was able to just peel it right

00:07:28.900 off. Scammers putting fake QR codes over the real ones hoping to trick parking garage customers

00:07:35.200 into transferring them money.

00:07:37.760 They're moving fast.

00:07:38.720 You'll have to be careful.

00:07:40.280 Be alert, be aware.

00:07:41.480 And the FBI says Erica is not alone. 1.00

00:07:44.480 Where are we seeing these QR scams happening?

00:07:47.460 Unfortunately, they're relatively widespread.

00:07:50.400 They are happening in parking lots.

00:07:53.300 They're happening in areas where you may anticipate

00:07:56.620 this is a legitimate QR code and I'll scan it,

00:07:59.560 but somebody has altered it.

00:08:01.240 Fake QR codes aren't just misdirecting your payment

00:08:03.940 in garages like this one the fbi telling us thieves often use qr codes to take your money

00:08:10.260 and steal other important personal information what happens when you scan a qr code that isn't

00:08:16.180 the one you're supposed to be scanning it can give the criminal access to your phone which

00:08:20.660 that allows them access to any apps that you normally use it can also drop some sort of

00:08:26.660 computer intrusion type of software that can alter your phone and steal credentials and that sort of

00:08:32.660 thing. So the QR code scam is most effective when it's done in real life, just like this.

00:08:40.360 Nobody thinks twice when they scan the QR code at the local parking lot because they want to

00:08:44.220 get out of there as quickly as possible. And on top of that, it's hard to imagine that anybody

00:08:47.820 would actually go through the trouble of messing with the payment terminal of a parking lot. But

00:08:52.560 the QR codes are slightly less effective when they're used for text message scams, where they're

00:08:57.860 becoming more prevalent. Take a look at these two letters, which were just sent to my producer over

00:09:02.220 the last week via text message. As you can see there, other than the location, they're very

00:09:08.260 similar. They threaten some kind of enforcement action if you don't pay the fine for toll evasion

00:09:13.160 as well as speeding and some unexplained parking violations. So they really covered their bases

00:09:18.260 with this scam. Just accuse you of committing every imaginable parking infraction in the hopes

00:09:22.760 that you'll say to yourself, well, I must have done at least one of those. But in order to clear

00:09:28.620 this violation, you're directed to a QR code in the bottom right of the letter. And when you

00:09:34.420 follow that QR code, you're taken to a website with a very strange name, something about puffer

00:09:38.400 jackets, which is obviously a red flag. But if you don't notice the URL, the first thing you'll

00:09:43.360 be asked to do is confirm that you're a human. And it looks like a normal verification step,

00:09:48.580 which you'll see on any number of websites. But in reality, it's a way to download a virus to

00:09:53.400 your computer watch. Okay guys I am really alarmed by this new scam going around and I am someone who

00:09:59.740 covers consumer news and scams for a living so I could really see a lot of people falling for this

00:10:04.280 one. So you know those capture boxes you have to click I'm not a robot on well scammers have found

00:10:10.240 a way to create fake versions of this that look real but instead of clicking a button what they

00:10:15.920 actually want you to do is press a series of keys. So here's a real world example of what this looks

00:10:21.400 like that someone shared on Reddit recently. And here's the thing, when you are running this

00:10:26.140 sequence, what you are actually doing is running a command that will download malware onto your

00:10:31.600 device. That malware can steal your passwords, logins, potentially even banking information. So

00:10:37.260 here's what you should know. A real CAPTCHA message will never ask you to run a sequence of

00:10:42.740 keys. So if you see that immediate red flag, close out of the tab immediately. Now, after looking

00:10:47.820 this up, here's how it works with some more detail. If you press the button to verify that

00:10:52.300 you're human, the website copies some malicious code to your computer, and then the website will

00:10:56.800 ask you to press a few keys to copy and paste that code and execute it. And when it says press

00:11:01.980 the Windows key and the R key, it's really telling you to open up a command window within your

00:11:06.840 operating system. Again, it's an effective scam because everybody's familiar with websites that

00:11:11.140 tell you to verify that you're human, so they hope you won't notice what they're doing as you try to

00:11:16.820 verify your identity and pay your toll or your parking ticket or whatever. Now, as simplistic

00:11:21.980 as these scams might seem, they're extremely effective. Millions of Americans are losing

00:11:26.460 a ton of money because of them. And while our government doesn't seem interested in doing

00:11:31.600 anything really about it, they should be. You could judge the merits of a government based on

00:11:36.840 how well it protects its citizens from foreign threats. That's one of the few fundamental core

00:11:42.380 functions of any government. And by that metric, despite fielding the single best military in the

00:11:47.180 world and despite our supposedly advanced intelligence agencies, America is failing in

00:11:52.360 this regard. So here's the growth in scams over the last five years using the FBI's 2024 report.

00:11:58.320 So it's even worse now. This is two years ago. But this is from the FBI's Internet Crime

00:12:02.940 Complaint Center, which says there were 859,000 scam complaints in 2024, including 256,000

00:12:09.960 complaints with actual loss, totaling more than $16 billion. The average loss was $19,000.

00:12:18.160 Now, for comparison, as you can see, losses were around $6 billion in 2021, $13 billion in 2023.

00:12:25.380 So the losses are stacking up. This epidemic is growing exponentially. And these are just

00:12:32.260 the people who have logged official complaints. It doesn't count the people who get scammed and

00:12:37.340 don't realize it, or the people who get scammed and never bothered to report it, which probably

00:12:43.000 happens a lot if the losses are relatively low, then a lot of people probably think, well, there's

00:12:47.240 no point in reporting it because nothing's going to be done about it. So, you know, the problem is

00:12:52.860 bad and it's getting worse. And even now it's worse than it looks, and it looks pretty bad.

00:13:00.060 And in particular, older people are getting hit the hardest, as you might expect. As you can see

00:13:05.740 on the graphic there, people over the age of 60 are reporting more scams than any other age group

00:13:10.440 and they're losing more money as well. And what's interesting about this chart is that the number

00:13:15.620 of reported scams drops by quite a bit, around 30,000 between the ages of 50 and 59. And then

00:13:21.980 after that age group, the number jumps up again. And you can come up with your own theory as to

00:13:26.600 why that might be the case. Most likely it's because people in their 50s are old enough to

00:13:30.820 be wise and savvy about these things, but not so old that they're totally out of touch with

00:13:34.820 modern technology and easily confused. Whatever the case, as for the specific scams that people

00:13:40.280 are getting hit with, here's the data on that point. Gold courier scams is an interesting one

00:13:48.540 that happened a few hundred times and caused hundreds of millions of damages. Apparently,

00:13:52.280 the way this works is that scammers convince people to hand over their gold to them

00:13:57.020 at the front door of their homes. The scammers promise to safeguard the gold or something along

00:14:02.060 those lines. And then they just walk away with it, I guess. Toll scams, like the one I almost fell

00:14:07.120 for, accounted for 60,000 complaints, but only 129,000 in total losses, which is a high number

00:14:15.720 of complaints, more than any other category on the page, but it's also the lowest amount of total

00:14:19.820 losses. So the toll scams are stealing a few bucks from people on average. No one's getting

00:14:26.760 scared into paying a $500 toll or anything like that. But the important point is they're giving

00:14:31.880 away their credit card information, which, even if they're not taking a lot from you

00:14:36.880 up front, can obviously create a lot of problems down the line. Watch.

00:14:44.240 They make you feel like you better do this or there's severe consequences for not paying this

00:14:51.020 toll. Sue Walters had just returned from a spring break road trip when she got a text claiming to

00:14:56.740 be from EZPass, demanding $6.68 for an unpaid toll. The message threatened severe penalties,

00:15:04.340 including suspension of her registration if she didn't pay within hours. Having just crossed the

00:15:09.260 Ohio River, she thought it could be legit. Even though she's usually skeptical, the timing,

00:15:14.080 the small amount, and the urgency tricked her into giving up her credit card information.

00:15:19.220 But when the site asked for a second card and she spotted the typo in the URL, she knew something was

00:15:25.120 wrong. What's really frustrating is that it's hard to catch them. You know, I would love to

00:15:30.640 see them heavily prosecuted when you steal people's personal information, but it's really

00:15:36.020 hard to do that. So they're out. So unfortunately, the person that scammed me is still out there,

00:15:43.220 right? So the scammer's still out there, but we could do something about it, as we'll discuss

00:15:50.520 momentarily. We don't have to just sit back helplessly while these scammers run roughshod

00:16:00.340 over the population, especially older people, and steal billions of dollars. And like I said,

00:16:05.840 it's only going to get worse. You don't do anything about it, it's only going to get worse,

00:16:08.300 a lot worse. But for now, let's keep going down the list of scams. Call center scams are by far

00:16:15.300 the most profitable, raking in nearly $2 billion in losses in a single year with 53,000 complaints.

00:16:20.900 Typically, this involves tech support scams where they call you and tell you that your computer has

00:16:24.760 been hacked and you need to pay them to fix it. Category also includes fake calls from a brokerage

00:16:31.240 or cryptocurrency website, which convince people to hand over their account credentials or transfer

00:16:35.800 money. Also included here are so-called pig butchering scams. Now, usually these scams follow

00:16:42.540 a straightforward routine. So it starts with a wrong number text. And if you've noticed

00:16:48.840 like a weird uptick recently in people texting you because they supposedly think you're somebody

00:16:53.480 else, you know, a wrong number, and I've noticed that, it's probably one of these scams. And they're

00:16:59.800 all over the place now. So the way it works is that the scammer hopes that you'll text back

00:17:04.340 to tell them that they have the wrong number, which is a normal thing to do.

00:17:07.980 um and but then they strike up a conversation and they befriend you often trying to betray

00:17:15.440 themselves as somebody attractive and wealthy and then they're hoping you'll think that wow

00:17:20.620 this is an interesting coincidence you know it's a person text me wrong number but they are so nice

00:17:28.120 and friendly and look we're having a little now we're becoming pen pals isn't that isn't that cute

00:17:32.900 well eventually they try to rope you into whatever scam they're running often it'll

00:17:37.920 be something like a cryptocurrency website which they control might look like a real website but

00:17:43.060 it's fake and they'll tell you to invest some money on the website and then they'll rig the

00:17:48.000 numbers so that your investment looks like it's increasing again it's all fake they control the

00:17:52.180 website the scam is designed to extract more and more money from people since they think they're

00:17:56.820 getting great returns and then when they try to withdraw the money they realize that they've been

00:18:00.920 defrauded. Now, the reason they call this a pig butchering scam, by the way, is that the scammer

00:18:05.560 tries to fatten you up, essentially grooming you as they pretend to be your friend and all this

00:18:12.440 kind of stuff. And they make you think that they're very wealthy and very financially savvy.

00:18:17.340 But really, they're preparing you for the slaughter financially, basically.

00:18:22.620 There are some common variations on this scam. Here's one of them. Watch.

00:18:26.100 And the FBI says tens of billions of dollars are lost every year to these types of scams

00:18:31.500 and for this couple it started going online and looking at videos from social media influencers

00:18:36.700 and they wanted to share their story as a warning to others.

00:18:40.780 In the end it was a really bad choice but the opportunity looked great at the moment.

00:18:44.860 Daniel Hovland's family is trying to bounce back after falling prey to an online scam that drained their life savings.

00:18:50.440 He says it started last May when his wife answered an ad on Facebook to earn some money on the side.

00:18:55.340 I was like, it looks like a scam, and you shouldn't get involved with it.

00:18:58.260 The job? Looking at videos online, then liking and sharing them to help social media influencers monetize their accounts.

00:19:04.760 It would allow them to monetize faster, thus we'd be getting a cut of their monetization.

00:19:09.200 He says his wife was getting paid through a digital account, then he started doing it, and they were making more and more money.

00:19:17.040 I consistently got paid, and it's not normal for a scam to, like, pay you.

00:19:22.640 Hovland then encouraged other family and friends to jump on board.

00:19:26.240 He says they would have to reinvest money to reach new earning levels, sort of like multi-level marketing.

00:19:31.760 Hovland says it lasted for about six months.

00:19:33.840 Then suddenly the company's website was gone, and through a chat room they were told they were fired.

00:19:38.740 Then they realized their money was also gone.

00:19:41.460 Nearly $40,000 of the Hovland's money, around half a million for the entire group.

00:19:46.340 It was traumatic. It's one of the toughest times I think that we've ever had to go through.

00:19:52.240 It's a scam known as pig butchering.

00:19:54.680 It's like they're fattening you up to basically get, you know, for slaughter later.

00:20:01.440 So when you compare to other losses, this, you know, $40,000 actually got off kind of easy.

00:20:07.160 I'm not, it's all relative. That was their life savings.

00:20:10.500 But in terms of sheer numbers, people lose a lot more than that. 1.00

00:20:14.200 This woman gave away a million dollars for no apparent reason. Watch. 0.95

00:20:19.540 Almost a million dollars gone.

00:20:21.340 I know. And then I had to tell my kids because they had no idea I had that kind of money.

00:20:27.520 All that money was socked away in investments, and now Erica DeMask is in financial ruin. 0.99

00:20:33.040 In fact, she was forced to sell her Lombard home and everything in it. 0.85

00:20:36.680 This is my garage sale. It's really hard because a lot of the stuff,

00:20:41.300 there's glasses here that belong to my husband and have to sell them.

00:20:45.400 Her husband passed away decades ago, and recently DeMask met a man online.

00:20:49.420 He said he loved me.

00:20:51.700 But the FBI says that tactic is just part of the fattening up or pig butchering.

00:20:57.300 Fraudsters are going to fatten up the victims by putting more, enticing the victims to put more money into an investment.

00:21:04.480 And then they're going to slaughter them by walking away and stealing their money.

00:21:08.440 He's working on an oil rig and something broke down.

00:21:13.020 Can I send him $20,000?

00:21:14.860 dollars and I said whoa I said you know what I need to pray about this the second time I sent

00:21:22.220 35,000 over time that money sent reached nearly one million dollars to mass says the scammer told

00:21:28.760 her she would get double her money back in his investments instead she now owes money back to

00:21:35.000 her bank cash which she took from her home equity loan plus she must pay taxes on her investment 0.96

00:21:41.280 withdrawals. She was sending 100,000, 300,000, 50,000 at a time, and it was never brought up

00:21:48.700 and stopped and checked. She and her son say the money was sent via cashier's checks or

00:21:53.520 wire transfers through Fifth Third Bank. They say when they filed reports with the FBI and the

00:21:59.100 Secret Service, agents told them that bankers should have spotted unusual pattern. They never

00:22:04.560 questioned why are you closing this whole account? But in this letter to Damask, Fifth Third said it

00:22:10.500 asked a series of questions that the customer must answer before a wire transfer is sent

00:22:15.640 and that her answers provided did not raise concern for potential fraud.

00:22:23.160 So she doesn't have any kind of realization that she made a mistake. Instead, her first reaction

00:22:26.700 is to go on television and blame the bank for, quote, never questioning why I closed this whole

00:22:30.820 account. So apparently it's the bank's responsibility to inform you that despite what you may believe

00:22:35.140 it's a terrible idea to wire a million dollars to somebody you've never met. It's the bank's job to

00:22:40.480 to tell you what to do with your money, I guess.

00:22:42.540 But as unsympathetic as this woman might be,

00:22:45.760 and in some of these stories, people are unsympathetic 1.00

00:22:48.140 because they do things that are really, really stupid. 0.99

00:22:52.480 But, you know, she's got nothing on this guy 1.00

00:22:54.200 with the IQ and morals of a houseplant

00:22:56.720 from the San Francisco Bay Area.

00:22:58.560 Watch.

00:23:00.040 I have this all ready to go.

00:23:02.120 All ready to go.

00:23:03.380 The Don look was packed and ready to fly off to a new life.

00:23:07.120 Packed clothes, pants.

00:23:09.180 He'd be joining the young woman he met on Facebook.

00:23:12.000 Together, they'd build their dream home in Hawaii.

00:23:14.900 Even swimming trunks, walk on the beach, yeah.

00:23:18.080 Her name was Anissa.

00:23:19.620 He called her Annie.

00:23:21.000 They'd been chatting on WhatsApp since last May.

00:23:24.040 Brand new pants, brand new.

00:23:27.100 Had them tailored.

00:23:28.760 Annie said she was from Japan working in microchip sales.

00:23:32.640 Her family had made millions.

00:23:34.600 He told her he was alone, his wife in a nursing home.

00:23:37.940 I told her that, you know, there's no one here to cook for me. It's just me.

00:23:41.620 You know, she assured me, well, you know, I'll be doing the cooking for you.

00:23:46.580 She promised to visit, even sent flight information. Yet she never came.

00:23:51.280 I was head over heels, pretty much out of control, ready to do anything.

00:23:55.300 And then she said she was into crypto.

00:23:58.640 Annie told him she'd made millions investing in crypto. He could too.

00:24:03.000 They'd make enough to build a life in Hawaii.

00:24:05.160 I was ready to fly. I was ready to go. I was going to start a new life with this person.

00:24:11.220 I didn't know what had happened to my dad. It was kind of this,

00:24:15.540 like he flipped a switch into someone I hadn't seen before.

00:24:18.700 Adan's son, Jonathan of Hayward, saw signs of trouble.

00:24:22.380 Found some pictures of a woman, Asian woman.

00:24:27.660 He saw the text messages about love and investing. He confronted his dad.

00:24:32.560 Well, you're a married man. What is this? I don't know, 20-something-year-old woman.

00:24:37.800 I wasn't paying no attention to it because I was too immersed in my bubble.

00:24:43.280 Then Jonathan discovered this $300,000 wire transfer to a fake company and a deposit into an unknown account.

00:24:51.580 Immediately shifted to red flags everywhere.

00:24:53.940 Later, he discovered his dad also wired thousands of dollars directly to banks in Malaysia and Vietnam.

00:24:59.920 First, $5,000, then $100,000, then another $100,000.

00:25:05.880 He told me he was investing and that, um, not to worry.

00:25:09.900 But Jonathan was worried.

00:25:12.000 He warned his dad these crypto websites he was using appeared fake.

00:25:16.360 So the $6 million in his account was not really there.

00:25:20.360 Annie herself probably didn't exist.

00:25:23.120 He texted, Dad, your friends and I need to talk about the romance scam you are a victim of.

00:25:28.360 Adan replied, no, I'm good, Jonathan.

00:25:30.920 My choice, my life.

00:25:32.660 Ready to run away from everyone.

00:25:34.760 So he thinks he's turned his $500,000 investment into $6 million and he only realizes something's

00:25:40.800 wrong when he tries to withdraw the money.

00:25:42.540 But he's told he needs to spend $25,000 more to unlock his account.

00:25:47.180 And he doesn't have $25,000 anymore because he's given everything he has to this non-existent

00:25:51.240 woman while he was cheating on his terminally ill wife.

00:25:54.200 his defense when he was confronted by his family was, let me live my last few years, okay? And it's

00:25:59.960 hard not to conclude based on that statement that he realized at some level that he was being ripped

00:26:03.640 off, but he didn't care. He doesn't think he's going to be alive for much longer, and he's

00:26:08.560 probably right. So in his mind, the value of the money is extremely low. He's obviously not loyal

00:26:13.200 to his family, so he's not concerned with their inheritance or anything like that. So he's happy

00:26:16.680 to waste the money on the slim chance that his phantom relationship is actually real. 1.00

00:26:20.560 that's the pig butchering scam basically and although that guy is a scumbag and an idiot 1.00

00:26:28.020 a lot of people get sucked into it who are neither of those things who are just decent normal 0.99

00:26:32.640 and even relatively intelligent people and these kind of scans are usually run out of big call

00:26:39.160 centers which we'll come back to the call centers in a moment there's also the emergency scam where

00:26:44.840 people are pressured into paying money to save their relatives from some kind of disaster

00:26:50.320 This is a more rare form of a scam, but it costs victims millions of dollars every year.

00:26:58.260 If you're tempted to think that you'd never fall for something like that, well, consider the fact that these scams are now using AI to mimic the voice and sometimes even the appearance of people who are close to the victim.

00:27:12.100 So you might get a call from somebody who sounds a lot like a family member.

00:27:16.140 and in isolation you know when you hear a news report about these kinds of scams

00:27:23.040 it's easy to underestimate them the fact is that most people when they think that their family

00:27:28.980 member is in trouble they're going to panic and when you panic you tend to make quick and often

00:27:34.480 pretty bad decisions and as ai gets more and more sophisticated these scams are going to get more

00:27:39.480 and more difficult to detect we could very well reach a point where you basically can't trust

00:27:45.800 any call you receive from anyone, including people you know, because of the way that the

00:27:53.320 technology is getting more sophisticated. Now, for now, these AI scams are one of the reasons

00:27:58.040 you should never answer the phone when you don't recognize the number. If you start talking to an

00:28:03.900 AI bot, it can capture a voice sample in just a few seconds. So even if you just say, hey, who is

00:28:09.240 this, that might be enough. And then the scammers can make the AI say anything they want in your

00:28:15.620 voice. It sounds very unlikely because right now it is statistically unlikely, but according to

00:28:22.460 this FBI data, it happened to at least 357 people in 2024. That was two years ago. Think about how

00:28:30.320 much more sophisticated technology is even today. So as the technology improves, it'll happen more

00:28:35.840 often. And the upshot here is that you should never answer the phone for numbers you don't

00:28:41.140 recognize. You should never text anybody back if you don't recognize the number. You get a wrong

00:28:47.020 number text, just ignore it. Delete the text. And you should never open any emails from email

00:28:53.000 addresses you don't recognize. Now that may seem paranoid, but at this point it's just a basic step

00:28:58.760 to protect yourself. Then there's rental scams, which are extremely common now. Basically scammers

00:29:04.600 advertise a property which they don't control, and they charge you an application fee that they

00:29:10.300 never refund, often they'll steal the listing, including photos and videos of the property

00:29:15.260 from a legitimate source. And that's the more sophisticated version of that. A lot of these

00:29:21.500 scams are being run out of foreign countries, as you might imagine. And as for what the scammers

00:29:25.860 are doing with the money that they're stealing, well, we really have no idea. Here's the latest

00:29:29.880 information on the FBI as to where fraudulent checks are going to the extent that they can

00:29:35.740 even track them. You can see it right there. In order, top destinations for fraudulent checks

00:29:41.720 are Hong Kong, Vietnam, Mexico, the Philippines, India, and China. So that's where most of the

00:29:48.880 money is going. As for where the money mostly is coming from, according to NBC, the District

00:29:55.000 of Columbia, Nevada, and Wyoming report the highest per capita losses to online scams.

00:30:01.800 On the bright side, something you should keep in mind if you're ever scammed for a large amount

00:30:06.140 of money is that your money isn't necessarily lost forever once you make a wire transfer. In

00:30:10.600 March of 2024, the FBI's Denver field office reported that, quote, individuals were in the

00:30:15.600 process of purchasing property and receiving a spoofed email from their supposed real estate

00:30:20.540 agents requesting that they wire $956,000 to a U.S. domestic bank to finalize the closing.

00:30:27.160 Two days after the wire was initiated, the victims realized the instructions came from

00:30:30.260 a spoofed email. Upon notification, the recovery asset team immediately initiated the process to

00:30:35.740 freeze the fraudulent recipient bank account. The transfer was stopped and the money was returned

00:30:40.060 to the individuals. So that's a little bit of good news. Wire transfers can be reversed in a

00:30:45.060 sense if you catch them quickly enough, although I certainly wouldn't bet on it. Better to just

00:30:49.980 not wire money to anyone you don't know, because in most cases, you've probably lost your money

00:30:54.800 forever. And there's a good chance it's being wired to foreign countries that seek the destruction of 0.89

00:31:00.460 the United States. Remember the days of the internet before it consumed society's everyday

00:31:04.940 life, back when it actually felt like a place you could go and be left alone? Well, that version of

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00:32:11.320 go to expressvpn.com slash Walsh. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash Walsh for four

00:32:17.280 extra months of service. And that's why, and I don't think this should even be

00:32:22.000 a controversial suggestion. We should immediately drone strike every illegal foreign call center 1.00

00:32:30.680 that scams American citizens, regardless of where it's located. And it's just obvious. 0.99

00:32:37.820 Why shouldn't we do that?

00:32:39.980 And after we're done with, you know, some place like Nigeria, we could turn to countries like Cambodia, which are full of scammers to a degree that's frankly difficult to even believe. 1.00

00:32:50.780 But it's true. 0.95

00:32:52.060 Turns out that Cambodia's entire economy is dependent on scamming. 0.79

00:32:57.640 And it's sort of like Somalia for so long was their whole economy was based around piracy.

00:33:03.380 Less so today because of the crackdown on piracy. 1.00

00:33:07.360 Um, now they just come here and scam Americans. 1.00

00:33:11.020 But just like that, Cambodia's, their whole economy is based on scamming. 1.00

00:33:15.580 If they weren't defrauding Americans, they'd have basically nothing left. 0.99

00:33:19.620 According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, quote,

00:33:23.060 Cambodia has emerged as a central hub of this illicit economy.

00:33:26.620 The country hosts more than 50 scam centers, and the revenue from these operations exceeds $12.5 billion annually,

00:33:34.480 roughly half the country's formal GDP.

00:33:38.080 Senior Cambodian government officials and business elites are reportedly involved in and benefit from scam operations.

00:33:44.760 For instance, Chen Zia, Chinese-Cambodian national who the U.S. Department of Treasury sanctioned for operating a transnational criminal enterprise through online investment scams, served as an advisor to both current Prime Minister Hoon Manette and former Prime Minister Hoon Sen, as well as other senior Cambodian government figures.

00:34:05.520 Yes, half the country's GDP comes from scamming at a minimum.

00:34:12.620 100,000 people are employed in scam operations in the country, according to the UN, and in these centers that we know where they are.

00:34:21.420 We know where the centers are, and we know that they exist purely to steal money, mostly from Americans.

00:34:30.180 Why exactly should we put up with that?

00:34:32.620 What would be the reason?

00:34:33.680 and the most senior politicians in the country are directly profiting from this arrangement.

00:34:39.680 There's no reason whatsoever why the United States should allow this.

00:34:45.480 Cambodia's Air Force has zero fixed-wing combat aircraft. 0.98

00:34:49.160 We already have air supremacy, and we haven't even started bombing them.

00:34:53.140 This would be the shortest military campaign in recorded history,

00:34:55.640 or at least since we took over Venezuela a few months ago.

00:34:58.840 So why are we doing that?

00:35:01.360 Thailand has already taken action.

00:35:03.060 Last year, the Thai military bombed six casino and hotel complexes in Cambodia, including the Osmach Resort and the Royal Hill Resort, as well as a casino compound that the U.S. government claimed was involved in cryptocurrency fraud.

00:35:17.820 Thailand claimed that the facilities were being used for military purposes, but they also declared that they had enough of the fraud.

00:35:24.340 And Cambodia's government knew exactly what was going on.

00:35:27.400 This is from Bloomberg. Watch.

00:35:28.860 Thailand says its deadly clashes with Cambodia aren't just about a border dispute.

00:35:35.620 It's recast its motives to say it's also a wall against scammers. 0.87

00:35:40.240 A sprawling scam ecosystem here in Cambodia has swindled billions of dollars, 0.81

00:35:45.580 primarily through so-called pig butchering and call center schemes.

00:35:49.860 And Thailand is often used as a transit hub for trafficked victims forced to be part of the fraud.

00:35:55.740 You cannot use one issue of scam to invade the country. That's my own opinion.

00:36:04.580 But Thailand's framing also shows it's trying to align itself with both the U.S. and China.

00:36:10.600 Both countries are separately pushing Southeast Asian nations to crack down on scammers who have targeted American and Chinese citizens.

00:36:18.380 Thailand's Prime Minister Anutin Chan-wira-kun also named tackling scam operations as part

00:36:24.160 of his national agenda after taking office last year.

00:36:27.360 The U.S. interest in the conflict also saw President Donald Trump overseeing a peace

00:36:31.900 accord last October between Cambodia and Thailand.

00:36:35.260 The calm from that was fairly short-lived after tensions escalated again last month.

00:36:40.120 Last year's bouts of fighting ranked among the deadliest between the two countries, leaving

00:36:44.340 hundreds of thousands displaced and dozens of people dead, although Cambodia has not disclosed

00:36:49.600 the number of military casualties. You cannot use one issue scams to invade a country, he says.

00:36:57.440 That's the line from the deputy prime minister of Cambodia. And of course, he's completely wrong.

00:37:02.580 I mean, you can, in fact, do that because they're scamming and bankrupting your citizens.

00:37:07.220 It's actually one of the most logical justifications for a military action you can

00:37:10.720 come up with. If one country is stealing billions of dollars from another country, ruining people's

00:37:16.360 lives, that's an act of war. And Thailand responded appropriately. In December of last year, the New 1.00

00:37:22.080 York Times ran an in-depth on-the-ground report about Thailand's bombing campaign on these scam

00:37:26.960 call centers. And here's how it began. Quote, two weeks ago, Fyip Sriman had just gotten up in her

00:37:33.300 dorm in a scam center in the Cambodian border town of Osmach, right now I pronounce it, whatever,

00:37:38.620 when she said her supervisor ran and shouting,

00:37:41.360 the bombs are coming.

00:37:42.440 Two Thai warplanes were circling overhead.

00:37:45.200 Miss Phipp, a Cambodian, was running for safety

00:37:47.820 when she heard the explosion behind her.

00:37:49.500 She said she saw a security guard dead on the ground,

00:37:51.880 bleeding with pieces of shrapnel in his chest.

00:37:54.320 Two other guards were also injured.

00:37:56.180 The rules remained the same when the bombs fell.

00:37:59.060 The foreign workers were not allowed to leave, she said.

00:38:02.740 So the workers were locked to the compound as the bomb began.

00:38:07.540 And here's what the compound looked like.

00:38:09.100 This is from late last year after Thailand's military moved in.

00:38:12.240 Even their military officials were shocked by the size of the scam operation.

00:38:15.980 Watch.

00:38:37.540 Well, we've heard of stories about scam centers a couple of times in the past already.

00:38:45.780 But I was really shocked and taken aback by the size of the compound itself.

00:39:07.540 I'm quite sure this is an American SIM card.

00:39:23.360 It would be used for, like, making American people believe and transfer money to the scammer.

00:39:32.540 so more than 100 or rather 10 000 people worked in this little village spanning 200 acres they

00:39:41.520 have their own restaurants and dorms and everything and they find the american sim card which was

00:39:45.640 obviously being used to defraud american citizens by itself this discovery should have led to an

00:39:50.240 immediate american bombardment of these uh of these scam centers it's what colin powell or

00:39:55.680 donald rumsfeld would call a smoking gun and we should have acted on it but we didn't only thailand

00:40:02.040 did. And let's continue with the Times report because it starts to get truly surreal. Quote,

00:40:06.680 the toll from the Thai airstrikes at the Osmach compound remains unclear, but videos posted on

00:40:11.000 social media showed scores of people leaving the complex with their luggage. Some were surveilled

00:40:15.480 by their Chinese bosses and told that they had to continue working for them. A security guard who

00:40:19.960 kept watch outside an office inside the compound said his bosses had locked up the foreign workers

00:40:25.380 when the shelling started. He said he worked at a building that the Cambodians called Animal Farm

00:40:29.260 and that he guarded an office of 15 people, mainly Vietnamese and Chinese.

00:40:33.780 The workers had to ask him for permission to use the toilets

00:40:36.340 and were only allowed to leave to have lunch at the restaurants within the compound.

00:40:40.620 Six workers inside the compound detailed a range of human rights abuses that they witnessed at work.

00:40:44.840 They spoke of seeing numerous workers beaten with shock batons, whipped with belts,

00:40:49.420 made to stand for hours in the sun, forced to carry barrels of water on their backs for hours,

00:40:53.920 and injected with serum.

00:40:54.980 One of them reported seeing dozens of people beaten to death. 0.70

00:40:59.260 Yes, the Chinese overseers are literally whipping the scammers into compliance, even as they're under a direct military attack. 0.89

00:41:05.900 They're being forced to romance lonely American men and pretend to offer tech support to elderly women while bombs are actively being dropped.

00:41:15.140 Keep this in mind the next time you get a wrong number text from some crypto millionaire who happens to be an attractive woman.

00:41:21.080 There's a good chance that this woman is really a Cambodian man who's currently being beaten in submission by a Chinese overlord while dodging bombs at the same time.

00:41:30.940 And while it's very difficult to sympathize with these people, you have to admit it's quite a remarkable visual.

00:41:36.220 To borrow the neocon argument, we have no choice but to liberate them from their oppressors.

00:41:42.540 We have a moral obligation to commence the regime change in these scammer villages.

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00:44:10.880 Visit gcu.edu to learn more.

00:44:14.500 And while we're at it, we can't overlook the involvement of the Chinese here, which is an important point. 0.97

00:44:18.920 Many of these scam operations are almost certainly directed by the Chinese Communist Party. 0.98

00:44:22.360 It's an attack on American citizens that's organized by a superpower.

00:44:27.580 And yet, to my knowledge, no American politician has suggested that we do anything serious against these criminals.

00:44:33.700 Instead, we just sanction them, which accomplishes absolutely nothing.

00:44:38.840 And meanwhile, after Thailand bombs these scammers,

00:44:42.040 reporters uncover clear evidence that they're trying to rip off Americans. 0.56

00:44:45.320 Watch.

00:44:46.720 The site has more than 150 buildings split into zones.

00:44:51.980 One of them, Zone E, targeted victims in the U.S., Europe, India, and Vietnam.

00:44:58.220 Workers followed strict shifts from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.,

00:45:02.340 lining up with Western time zones.

00:45:04.340 My choice is an American SIM card.

00:45:08.340 It will be used to make the American people believe

00:45:14.340 and transfer money to the scammer.

00:45:22.340 Inside the offices, investigators found scam manuals in multiple languages,

00:45:27.340 scripts for romance scams, impersonation schemes,

00:45:31.340 Even playbooks for targeting people who had already been scammed before.

00:45:36.500 And when targets were hit, they didn't just log it, they celebrated.

00:45:41.320 Some officers had large red victory drums, beaten when scammers met their financial targets.

00:45:50.500 Now, another interesting point about China is that it's one of the only countries in the world, to my knowledge, that executes scammers.

00:45:57.560 So they facilitate scams against Americans, but if you scam their people, they will arrest you and put you to death.

00:46:04.160 In fact, they just carried out the execution of 11 people from Myanmar who were found guilty of participating in these kinds of scams against Chinese citizens. 0.94

00:46:13.540 And on this front, at least, China has the right idea. 0.79

00:46:16.700 Scamming should be a capital offense. 0.97

00:46:18.760 People found guilty of it in this country should be given the death penalty. 0.81

00:46:21.960 according to pew 31 of americans say they get scam phone calls every single day 21 of americans

00:46:29.680 say they get scam phone calls multiple times per day a third of americans say they get scam emails

00:46:34.960 every day 20 say they get scam text messages all this is happening because foreigners are 0.74

00:46:41.420 gathering together with extraordinary efficiency and discipline often enforced by the communist 0.99

00:46:45.400 Party of China in easily identifiable compounds for the sole purpose of stealing billions of

00:46:53.860 dollars from American citizens. They aren't anywhere near as anonymous or as untraceable 0.90

00:47:00.560 as you've been led to believe. They are, in fact, extremely vulnerable out in the open.

00:47:06.100 If the military of Thailand can disrupt their operations, then we can end them for good.

00:47:10.840 we don't have to settle for blocking these numbers or relying on the useless do not call list or any

00:47:16.600 of that we can actually deploy our military to do exactly what it exists to do defend American

00:47:24.000 citizens from foreign threats they can blow up our cell phones metaphorically we can blow them up

00:47:31.680 literally that's our competitive advantage in the world as Donald Trump realized long ago 0.75

00:47:36.620 now one call center at a time, we need to use it. That will do it for the show today. Thanks

00:47:44.240 for watching. Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day. Godspeed.

00:47:55.180 I do believe that if people have committed treason against the United States of America,

00:48:00.860 their statues should not be in the Capitol. History is written by the victors. And since

00:48:06.580 Since the 1960s, we've been told mostly by people whose ancestors didn't even live here

00:48:10.560 during the war that the South committed treason.

00:48:14.360 But if the Confederates were traitors, then why was Jefferson Davis never put on trial

00:48:20.720 for treason?

00:48:21.720 What were Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson afraid of?

00:48:26.080 Do they know something they're not allowed to say today?

00:48:31.060 It's time for the truth.

00:48:32.060 So here it is.

00:48:33.060 Robert E. Lee was a military genius

00:48:34.980 and a man of immense honor.

00:48:36.620 He was beloved by Americans from the North and South

00:48:39.160 for a century after the war.

00:48:41.500 This is the real history of the Civil War.

The Matt Walsh Show - May 06, 2026

Ep. 1775 - I Thought I Was Too Smart To Get Scammed. I Was Wrong.

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