Sneakier Scams Targeting Younger Folks #485

It's true, that is what we're talking about today. We are talking about scams and specifically how they're targeting younger generation because because oftentimes I feel like they're viewed as this thing. They're like, oh, I would never fall for that, or that that's something that I heard my dad talk about one time, or my mom. You know, my nana she talked about this guy that she talked to one time and he ended up swindling her out of a

couple hundred bucks, that sort of thing. But no, these are scams that are that needs to be on our radar, which scams from the new generations. That's what we should have titled this episode. But it maybe wonder have you ever been scammed so I fell for that? You're aware of a very very informal scam. One time when I was I guess early twenties a girlfriend up in Canada. I had like three girlfriends of in Canada. Now, so

is this young and I was broke. Young fella came up to my door when I was still living at my parents house. I don't know, I was probably like nineteen and twenty, and he was selling stuff to raise money for for school. And he was selling Blockbuster gift cards. This is how old that scam was. This is when Blockbuster was. To our gen Z listeners, Blockbuster was the

real life equivalent of Netflix. And so the combination of Netflix and the library mashed together, right, and my my penchant to get a deal he you know, he was. They were discounted, and so I got something like, I don't even remember twenty five dollars worth of Blockbuster gift cards for the low low price of fifteen dollars, and I got to feel good that I was supporting this.

This his school fundraising efforts at the same time. But alas I law stout on all the money I gave to him because it was a fake gift card, and I think just enterprising young scam artist had he printed them out himself, or like, what was the deal. I know, it's so long ago, I barely remember, but my family joke about it. No, maybe they were expired and they were legitimate, and maybe it could have been in the best case scenario, give it, give him the benefit of

the doubt. Maybe he didn't even know that they were expired and was just trying to to make a buck, because that's that's the only time I can remember where I got scammed. And but it's still just like a humorous story to tell when we're hanging out as a family. Nice man, I don't think you've ever told me that or or even shared that here on the show. But scams, dude, they're not going anywhere. And so I am glad that we're going to dedicate an entire episode to the subject today.

But I can ask you a frugal or cheat before we get to it. Okay, So we are getting rid of a lot of old paint at our house, all right. I think everybody out there probably does kind of switched up the interior color of your of the house during the renovations, and so we have, you know, a few

extra cants that we want to keep on hand. But there's just a bunch of old paint and owning multipl rental houses over the years, I've just had old old paint cans stacked up for use of different properties, and so trying to consolidate my colors to where we're using one color when I paint anywhere. That's how you do it. Yes, And secondly, you keep the paint at the houses, keep them in like a little tupperware, like either in a closet or down in the basement. Man, that's all right,

that's a good call. Maybe I should do that from now on. But for anybody who has old paint hands that they need to get rid of, you can't just toss them in the trash. That is toxic material that you can't just uh toss in with with all your other trash items. So well, you can throw it away as long as it's dried, yes, if there's not much left. But lots of times there's a lot of paint left in some of those here you switch color, so you have a lot, you probably have like half gallons left.

But if it's an older can and you've used maybe most of it, you can just like pop that lid off, let it dry out. If that's the case, I know, at least here in Atlanta, you can throw those away, okay, alright, Well, but if you don't, and you've got tons of paint like Joels paint, as I have, you have to go to a place for specifically hard to recycle items. And there's a place here in South Atlanta called Charm, and

that's where you can drop your stuff off. They Here's the thing, though, They they accept up to twenty five pounds worth of paint every visit for free, but then you have to pay per per pounds above that pound limit. And so I think anywhere this is going and my frugal or cheap for making multiple Charm runs in order

to avoid paying. And I did pay a little bit the first time because I was at something like forty forty pounds, but I'm not like weighing it by hand at home to make sure I don't go above the twenty pound limit. But I'm also not taking it all in one fell swoop so that I can at least

take advantage of that that free threshold a few times. Well, Charm isn't too far not only from where we live, but some of the other spots that we like to hit up and so as long as you're not going out of your way to have to swing by there, which I don't think you are, because I know why you're hitting down there that I don't think it's that

cheap of a move. If it was across town, uh say, it was like, you know, miles away with cash prices these days, so yeah, like it would I don't even know if it'd be worth it now actually the time now that I think about how much gas costs. But one of the other things I was gonna mention maybe that's worth checking out is just like listening it on Facebook, either the you know, like like one of the buy nothing groups or just listening it locally, uh, you know,

for free. Remember any of the paint that's still in good conditions. If it's in good shape and you buy good paint. We both like that Sherwin Williams stuff. And I feel like getting decent paint is something that we

learned over the years too. If you go with the cheaper stuff, it doesn't really stick to the walls all that well, I thinks as well as like super Paint, the top rating Consumer Reports paint is like the bare Premium plus and it's still pretty cheap, something like twenty bucks a gallon, and I don't know with inflation, it's probably a hundred dollars a gallon out. But so you don't have to get the really nice menchment more. Yeah, no, I don't think you do. I think, yeah, just just

read those consumer reports. Trainings still help leading in the right direction. But okay, good to know. I am doing the multiple runs to get rid of some of those pain But did I'll post some of the nicer gallons on by Nothing group. So the reason I mentioned that is because one time when we were flipping renovating a home like this is maybe five six years ago. Did ever tell you about the time that I sold a five gallon, you know, one of those big drums, like

one of those big buckets of paint. It was a custom color that we already had mixed, and you can't return those. It was It's not like it was a base and uh kit and I we didn't like the color. They started putting it up in side. We're like, oh no, we there's a chance we're gonna live there ourselves. And so we wanted to make sure that we really like the paint color. And so obviously we couldn't return it, but I listed it, and somebody was glad to show up and pay a discounted rate for all of that

pain because it was a popular color. It just wasn't right for us. So I wanted to mention that because there is hope for some bring a new paint that you just can't take back. Okay, good to know. I'll put that on my list of things to consider. This isn't a paint episode, though, No, let's move on. Let's get onto the actual topic in hand. But first, the beer we're having on this episode is called Electric Venom.

It's by a brewery called Little Cottage, just like like fifteen minutes away from where we live here in Atlanta. But it's worth a drive, one of my favorite breweries. All right. So but let's get to scams and scams, Matt, I say they're kind of like zombies. Did you ever watch the TV show The Walking Dead? I watched a couple of episodes, Okay, never remember really get into it. Basically, I only got into the first season. I thought the first season was really good. But I think they're in

season like ten or eleven or something like that. I'm still surprised they have that much zombie content that they can cover. But but basically the reason I'm acquainting it to two zombies, it's in that show there are just a few remaining humans and there there are hordes of zombies that are coming after them, and they've got to protect themselves, right, They've got to figure out a way to not get bit because then they too will turn

into a zombie. And basically, you know, there's a never ending litany of scams out there, just like there's a never ending amount of zombies coming after you, which is why they can create double digit seasons out of such a basic premise for a show. But you can never really get rid of all the scammers. And if these

scammers spot you, they're gonna come at you. And and that means that you have to be prepared in order to avoid the most clever ones, because there's always a new scam, there's always a new tactic, and the only way that you can outrun them yourself is is really

through personal preparation. That's rights. Yeah, I feel like I mean, zombies they're always there, right because like when you're watching those shows, you know that at any moment, like one could just kind of like you know, pocus out through the window, come out of the shadows. It's it's sort of like this low grade stress where it's just kind of constant. And I think that's true of these different scams.

I think they're always to be there, and there's there's always gonna be these bad players, right Like there's always gonna be criminals who are looking to take advantage of us. And so I think this is why we wanted to talk about this today. And I did say criminals as well, because it's not just folks who are oh, you know, they're they're they're not making the best decisions. It's like, no, like they're actually law breaking criminals who are trying to

steal your money. We're not trying to gold with ne ferious intent. Yeah, we're not gonna sugarcoat it here. But another problem here is that these scams they're they're seemingly everywhere these days as well. They've they've gotten so good at targeting folks wherever they hang out. Um, these scams they're in your dating app, they're on Twitter, they're they're on TikTok, and it certainly feels like scams are you know,

like they used to be easier to spot. But they've just gotten so much more sophisticated over the years, and by the numbers. You know, it used to be the elderly who were most commonly susceptible, you know, for these scams and who have their money stolen, but that is not the case these days. People ages twenty nine, they reported losing money to fraud more often the folks who are ages A D and over, And so we're talking about young professionals. They're the ones now who are getting

more often than their grandparents. Although it's worth mentioning when when older folks do fall prey to a scammer, they tend to lose more money with each scam attempt that they succumbed to. But either way, that's quite the reversal that's happened in a short time span. So yeah, not only are they more ubiquitous, they are going after all

the different generations. Now, Yeah, that's right. And part of our reason really for creating this episode is because the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, they just released their list of top scams for one for last year. The heavy hitters were identity theft, imposter scams and credit bureau scams. And the FTC received five point seven million reports in total.

And let's be honest, when when someone gets scammed, they're not always reporting um to to the authorities, whether it was successful or not, you know, whether they got taken advantage of, whether they ended up giving money to the scammer or they didn't. Either way, they're often not filing a report. And so yeah, reported losses totaled five point nine billion dollars and the average person lost something like

five dollar. But again, since a lot of these scams don't get reported, the numbers are likely a whole lot higher than what the FTC is actually relaying than what they have in their reports. So yeah, on that note, if you ever are the victim of a fraud or a scam, we would say let the FTC no by heading to report fraud dot FTC dot gov. That's just a good way for us all to kind of know what scams are most prevalent, how much money they're taking

from people. It's just good knowledge that should be made public. Even though I know for a lot of people it feels like a shame inducing thing that you got caught up in a scam. But we we don't think that should be the case either because they can really get anybody these days, that's right. Yeah, and specifically via social media, because that's one of the main avenues for scamming these days, accounting for seven hundred and seventy million dollars in just

last year alone. Fake accounts, they're a dime a dozen. They're getting harder to spot. Actually, Morning brew the they had this really interesting article about fake accounts pretending to be real advertisers on TikTok. You know, you think you're buying a flannel shirt from l L Bean, or maybe you're buying a new side table from Wayfair, but in reality, it's actually a scammer offering you a deal that's too

good to be true. You don't actually get anything, but then you still end up losing that money and due to be honest, like, I have real questions about the viability of the metaverse, given that you know, meta can't even curb scam artists and spam comments on Instagram. Just imagine an alternative reality where spam artists continue to run amuck in the virtual world. Yeah, you know, and we're

just talking about ads that they can't even ring. Every time we make an Instagram post, and look at all the scam spam comments that happened to get posted on pretty much every post we create. Sometimes it's in the double digits, and Instagram can't seem to figure that out. I don't think it's a good sign. And yeah, I think for me, I'm not terribly bullish on the metaverse too, although I think it has some interesting sounding features. But yeah, if if spam continues to be a major issue, people

aren't gonna want to hang out there. But it's also important to mention how scammers ask for money. That's changed a lot too in recent years. You know, there's Venmo, cash app, Zel, PayPal, all of those apps have made it just so much easier to steal your mind. And so yeah, Medium love Exchange has become something that's as easy to send as like a text message, instead of like physically having to lift your wallet out of your

back pocket. There are much easier ways now to check, yeah, access those funds, and so it's it's become a lot

harder to track that criminal down. In the modern day of digital payments and then different cryptocurrencies, they're quickly becoming a common way to these scammers asked to receive money too, and because the way we send and receive money has changed just so much in recent years, it means that you've got to be on your toes even more before you send someone money, before you transfer any funds to

somebody that you don't know. That's right. Yeah, So let's talk about some of the most common scams and how they work. Scams in the realm of finding love online, they've kind of dated back almost, you know, like as far as the Internet, but the FTC stats show that romance scams rose nearly seventy percent last year. A lot of times you're already in a particularly vulnerable position already, you know, like if you've created an online profile, you're

entering into these sensitive conversations with strangers. Well, scammers there, you know, they continue to flock to every iteration of dating apps to try to take advantage of folks there. The New York Times they just read the story about crypto scams on apps like Hinge. As more people seek to find love online, the possibility to get taking advantage

of his grown exponentially. One telltale sign that you might be getting scammed, as if the person you're talking to tries to move the conversation to what's app, which encrypts every message that gets sent. And another sign is if you get asked for money in any way, any form, any fashion. But oftentimes these folks are looking for cryptocurrencies. Uh. The scammer will often make it sound like they're they're trying to help you to invest your money, but in

reality they are they're really just taking your money. Let me teach you how to invest in bitcoin, and then you send some over and then they show you a website where it looks like, look, look at your money going up in value. This is incredible, You should send more. And then it turns out that that money is in their hands in the website they're pointing you to is

actually fake. And it just makes me think of the old saying Matt Love is blind, and in the case some of these, like romance scams, love is blind, and it just causes you to not see what's actually in

front of your face. When people are asking you for in particular for for you to transfer money their way, you start thinking the best of this person because you've been chatting back and forth for weeks or months on end, and you trust them, But the reality is you've never seen their face and you have to continue to proceed

with more caution. Yeah, well I do. I think this is like, first of all, this is just such a sad thing, right, because first of all, not only are you not having your money grow in ways that you think it should be growing, but you're actually having your

money taken away. Right. The second strike is the fact that not only are you uh not finding someone who is like your soul mate, like you found somebody that who's trying to like damage you, you know, like they're trying to harm you in in a financial way at the very least, it's like this double wiming. And because of the pandemic, it's like this perfect storm. Because obviously cryptocurrencies have been crazy hot over the past few years, there's been a lot of interest in those. It's hard

to meet somebody I r L and exactly. And then on top of that, folks are dealing with just huge amounts of loneliness, and so you combine those two things together and you have a very vulnerab population. Yeah no, that's exactly right. And and because it's someone that you've gotten to know and trust over over that period of time, you're susceptible to lose even more money in these scamps. I think some of the people who fall baketot to a romance scam can lose, you know, up to their

entire fortune something sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's all because they've developed this relationship built on trust that the stakes are high. So be warned. We would say, don't send money to someone you truly don't know. This is, of course, one of the massive downsides to online dating. But yeah, after the break, we're going to get to a really common scam that almost anyone with a kind

heart could fall prey to. It's basically digital pickpocketing, and we'll discuss that and more right after this break, we're back. We were talking about the proliferation of scams, and Jil, let's get to the one that you just mentioned before the break, digital pickpocketing. Let's do it. Let's do it, man. This one's been around for a minute here listener, Gary, he actually sent us this article from his local TV station in Savannah, and this one involves the different digital

payment apps. Basically, someone comes up to you. This one uh takes place in real life. They come up to you, they ask you to borrow your phone, maybe to make an important phone call, maybe their phone has died, or maybe they don't have their phone at all. Sometimes. Uh, In this this specific story, it was a kid, which is something you can identify with. We've all had our phone right out of battery exactly, and you, being a nice person, you hand them your phone to make that

quick call. I think a lot of decent human beings would probably do that. But then, you know, what do they do while your phone is in their brief possession? Will they open your PayPal or like venmo zel cash app. That's another one too, where they make a quick transfer to their own account. They hange your phone right back to you, They say thanks and walk away, and it's not until later that you find out, you know, like via email or when you check your statements, that you

have lost money. The lady that they had interviewed for the story was standing right there. She was talking about how she was just feet away and the kid even had it on speaker phone, and she she was watching him. But then he had asked her if he could pull up maps, and so he was kind of mess one with the phone. She saw him actually messing with it and with some quick fingers he got away with a

few thousand dollars. Yeah, yeah, I mean I think what the lady in that article lost right in just a minute or two to this to this young kid, and then she didn't find out till later when checking her bank statement. And so yeah, if this happens to you, if someone comes up to you and ask to borrow your phone, we would say, uh, it sounds unkind, but just to say no, to not give your phone over to anybody, um, and so yeah, offered to dial the number yourself and to put it on speaker phone for them.

Also enable stuff like touch idea, there's technology to help us with this stuff, right or face I D for these apps to make it harder for someone to get in there to mess with your money. Face I D. Yeah. Dual factor authentication is another one. I have fingerprint I D on my Google pixel for a for for all those apps. But yeah, that's one of those things where even if you just left your phone sitting around and the screen was unlocked or something like that, someone could

get in and easily steal money from you. So yeah, you want to make sure you have the technology set up and you just don't like give your phone to random people who who asked to borrow it, totally dude. And I will say this is when when I read this story, I was just like, a good thing, I've got face I D already turned on on my phone, which I do, you know, as far as unlocking the phone, but I would have sworn that I also had it set up on some of those different apps I checked

earlier today as we were getting ready for this episode. Nope. I went to PayPal, cash App, and Venmo, all three of them they weren't locked down, which is crazy kind of your phone for a second, Oh my god, you know you can't, but it's just crazy to think that, Like, I'm not somebody who goes in and customizes all my different settings right normally. And so I guess, like what I'm saying is that what that tells me is that

is the default option. When I know that there are some other apps, like, for instance, I know my Ally bank app, which I know I've been with ally for years, they have always had the face I D like. I distinctly remember that one. I think it may have been the first app ever that required me to you know,

acknowledge the face I D thing. But I wanted to mention that because it is super easy to turn that on once you go into the actual app, you go to your account, uh, your or your profile, and then you just go down to the security settings and turn on you know, at least on the iPhones face. I d uh. Sometimes they'll prompt you to enter in a little pin, but now I know that I'm totally secure.

There you go. I love that. Yeah, and and that's just a good warning to everyone else who thinks, maybe, oh, yeah, I believe I do, but go in there and check because probably not. Yeah, you want to make sure it's on UM and and yeah, so that's definitely one of the one of the scams that's been kind of making the rounds, and that can affect especially young people. It's like, oh, hey, I gotta call my mom or a friend and my

phone died like that. That seems like one of those innocuous asks, but in reality it leads to you losing potentially thousands of dollars. Um. Okay, let's talk about another scheme out. We talked about multi level marketing UH schemes back in episode too. We didn't we didn't have very much good to say about them back then. And yeah,

we talked a lot of trash about Lulu Row. Yeah we did, we did, and that that documentary came out on Amazon and documented even more of the oddities happening in that organization and how many people just just thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of women who got who got ripped off. We lost a lot of money

in that organization. And um, and most of these MLMs are actually pyramid schemes, which we put in the same camp as scams, and they are in actuality too good to be true, and and really only a handful of people make any money. The only real way to make money in a pyramid scheme is to recruit other people to to sell things underneath of you and the item that's being sold. It makes it seem like there's this legitimate business opportunity, but nobody really makes money that way

in these organizations. And so, in fact, the FTC says that less than one percent of m LM participants actually end up making money. And so, yeah, the vast majority of folks that participate, they end up wasting a lot of time, They put forth a lot of efforts, and

then they lose a good bit of money. Um, and they often end up hurting some of their friends along the way too, because yeah, that you're you're being told to recruit more people, um and and then you can just you can damage relationships in the process of trying to yeah, pursue being in an MLM. Two. Yeah, not only have you written them hard to actually buy that product, but now you've roped them in to the scheme that they can't escape. Uh, we we've got to bring up

imposter scams as well. These types of scams are on the top three on the Federal Trade Commission list. It's where you know someone they call you to tell you that you owe the money, and if they do it well, it's easy to think that maybe, like maybe I actually did just forget to pay a bill. Well, an impostor can call you, you know, they might email you posing as a representative from either the government or from a company. But the thing is, first of all, government employees they

don't do this. You'll never get a call from the Social Security Administration or from a local government agency demanding payment of fees or taxes. You also won't get a call from a government agency requesting any personal information because guess what there to have that information? Uh, they're not asking you for it because like, I'm from the Social Security Administration, but I'm gonna need your Social Security number. It's like, wait, wait, aren't you supposed to have that?

It's like, what kind of incompetence are we dealing with here? But but scammers like they're going to assume the role of a government agent, you know, whether via email, text, or phone call, and they're going to attempt to free you out in order to make some quick money. Oftentimes it is done over the phone because when they have you on the line like that, they can create that sense of urgency and that's a lot of times when

we can make some poor decisions. Yeah, okay, so let's talk about I R S games because that that is an imposter scam. That's a form of imposter scam. And particularly since we're we're in the middle of tax season right now, we'd be remiss not to mention this one because it's it's going around in a big way, and there are a number of different I R S related scams out there, and and the pandemic actually seems to have created an even larger variety of these scams, largely

because of like stimulus payments and extra unemployment benefits. A lot of people have been targeted because maybe they were a recipient of one of these things, or they thought they should be and so oh, low, low, behold. A scammer comes in, sends an email and tells you there's a stimulus payment waiting, or there's additional unemployment compensation, and

you click the link and you fall prey. But Matt, like you just said, it's important to know that the only way the I r S legitimately contacts people is via snail mail, like through a traditional letter in your mailbox. And so yeah, if someone from the I R S tries to get in touch with you via some other method, we just encourage you not to respond because it's fake. That's right. The utility scam. That's another popular imposter scam. Uh. This is when your water, your gas, your electric company.

They might call you to tell you that your months behind and your bill. You better pay up, and you better do it quick, otherwise your power is gonna be cut off. It sounds like such a hassle, and so because of that, so many people go ahead and decide to pay there on the spot. Sometimes the fake utility company will tell you to go buy a gift card. And the reason is because if you pay them with a gift card, those funds can't be traced. It's like

paying with cash basically. And some might even go the opposite approach, saying that you have overpaid, which sounds nice. And so when that's the case, just give them your bank account number and then they can send you that money back your way. You didn't overpay and you don't get your money back. So be warned of the utility scam that sounds like that block poster scam I fell

prey to. It's like, hey, it's you know, you feel like you're coming out ahead and you're doing something good or whatever, and um, ultimately in the end it comes back to bite you. Right. But and I actually had a friend Matt, who fell victim to the utility schame or the electric company called him at his place of business and then they said, like, your power is classic just about to be shut off. Stay on the phone with us, go get a gift card, send us that

information and you're gonna be embarrassed. Yeah, and then the customers. The thing is when a scam artists gets you once, which they got him once, they try to get you again, but by then hopefully not always, but you know, and he wised up the second time around, he realized he had been had. But that is one of those nefarious things, especially for someone who has their own business, because they can't afford to be shut down, They can't afford for

the power to be shut off. Their livelihood is at stake. If you own a restaurant or just any place where people come in to to do business like that could throw a whole wrench in your day or week. And so, yeah, that is something in particular for business owners to be

aware of as well. Yeah, and that that's another reason too why we'd always recommend for you to go straight to that company's website, don't do it over the phone, don't click any links in your email, go directly to the website that you know to be legit, or go straight to the government website that straight to the dot gov website. Don't click the links in your email. Yeah, totally. All right, let's talk about something else. Let's move on

from imposter scams. There's charity scams happening all all over the place too, and so yeah, fake nonprofit donations are just it's just a terrible version of a scam. Really frustrating to see these. These often happen after a natural disaster or it's like support the victims of this in such tornado or hurricane um and and you know, but not just that, like scams have already happened invoking their

Ukrainians and supporting their cause. They're a bunch of websites that have already gone online, uh, generically promising to funnel your funds to support the efforts over there and support the individuals. The Ukraine coin like that's one of the like it was a crypto scam and basically the purporting to support the people of Ukraine. I mean, yeah, it's just heinous that people will take advantage of something like that happening internationally or or locally in an effort to

steal your money. But it happens, right, and it happens all the time, and they just want to take advantage of your generosity. But really it's just terrible people who are trying to, you know, make use this conflict for their own gain. And so yeah, if a cause that you would like to donate two comes on your radar from a plea you've read online, that's okay, but we would say, don't click that link to give, and instead let that lead you to research different organizations who are

doing great work in that area. Only give to organizations that you know, that you've vetted, that you trust. And Charity Navigator and charity watch are just both excellent sites that rate charities and they show you how those charities used the dollars that you donate. So we would say go there, type in the name of the charity doesn't even come up. If not, that's a huge red flag.

And if it does, you can find out more about how they actually use the funds that they receive, and you can give you a greater peace of mind before you actually, you know, click the button to donate. That's right, And I think I just said Ukraine coin. It's actually Ukraine token. Yeah, so you're probably both either way point of those. But we're gonna get to a couple more scams.

We're gonna talk about some some sound general advice regardless of the scam that you might come across, and we're gonna get to all of that right after this break. All right, now we're back. Let's keep talking about scams and yeah, and just a little bit we're gonna get to some general advice, just kind of a few takeaways that will help protect you and your assets from the vast majority of scams out there. But let's detail just

a couple others first. One of them, and especially right now in a hot job market that is making the rounds, are employment scams. Yeah, and a lot of how money listeners have benefited from this hot job market. Some people have uh told us that they have doubled their income in in just the last few months, which is incredible to see. You know, don't let this scam uh cause you to apply avoid applying for jobs, because there are a lot of legitimate opportunities for you to make a

whole lot more money out there. Um. But yeah, employment scams have been around for for years, and the listings on these jobs can appear on legitimate job hunting websites. And in fact, a report from the Better Business Bureau review that indeed dot com, which is a place where people go to find legitimate jobs all the time, was plagued,

which is a huge number of job scammers. And so the application that you're being asked to submit it often asked for personal information that shouldn't be required for a first phase interview, stuff like your social Security number or your bank account information, we would say never ever your mother's maiden name, yes, exactly, what's your password to Gmail? I mean those are the kind of things your first pets name while we're at it. Yeah, yeah, what's what's

your vanguard logging information? We say never never give what are your first four favorite numbers? That just pop in your mind that that sensitive information is stuff that you definitely do not want to bring to the table to someone that you just met through a job interview website. That's a massive red flag. When they're saying, like, you know, you seem like you'd be a good candidate. Tell me everything about you. I feel like we would. It sounds

like we would make good scammers. Well, now we know all the tools of the trade. I guess that's true. We know how it works. Uh. The thing is too, with the different employment scams, they can kind of shake out in different ways. Right, Some scammers they'll they'll use job positions like mystery shoppers. They'll use these vague positions like work from home opportunities to find their victims because guess what, anybody can do that, And so they're casting

their net really wide in that case. Yes, like jobs doing with shipping or drop shipping. That's another common uh you know job description term that often has some sort of scam element taking place. Totally yeah, But one of the common forms, uh that these scams play out is that you will receive what looks like a legit paycheck in the mail after accepting one of these completely bogus positions, and then your your quote unquote boss, they say that

you were overpaid. Hey, sorry, uh, could you send back a portion of that check? And then the problem is, even though that check cleared your bank, it looks like that money is in your account, but it actually isn't. The paycheck it bounces and then guess what, You've already sent your real money back to that scammer and then you're out all of that money. And so make sure to do your own diligence here, make sure that you research any supposed company that is offering you a job.

Another way that this plays out as well. It's not just that first paycheck, but sometimes uh, you know you've signed the line, they're like, you're hired. You're gonna be making six figures. However, there is a pretty lengthy training process, and you're gonna need some supplies. You're gonna need this a new company laptop because you're not allowed to do business on your personal laptop. They send you a link to a portal where you pay for all of these

expenses yourself. But you know it's gonna be worth it because of those six figures you're gonna be raking in. This is just another way that they get legitimate dollars out of your bank account without offering you anything. Seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the just sick paychecks you're gonna be pulling home in the near future. And uh yeah, it turns out paycheck, it turns out those you know that thousand dollars or more, it's just

gone immediately. Yes, let's talk about like scam adjacent sort of rip offs to Matt, because sometimes I think you know, there there are clear cut scams. A lot of the ones we've covered so far are just these clear cut, tried and true scams that have been happening for a long period of time. But sometimes it's it's not necessarily a full fledged scam that's happening that you get taken with.

It's just an inferior product or service, And so yeah, the ways that people lose money these days don't always involve someone actively trying to steal money from you while not giving you anything in return. And then they're just completely pulling the wool over your eyes trying to trick you.

Sometimes people are selling a somewhat legitimate product or online course, and you know, they're not trying to completely rip you off, they just don't really have your best interest in mind, and they're over selling something that is actually kind of a piece of crap. It's it's a turret on the back end, and so uh, they're they're looking to make a living in the shady corners of the internet. Basically, it could be advice that you're getting on YouTube or TikTok.

As we mentioned earlier, there are a lot of scams on those platforms, a lot of people pitching something that actually isn't good for you. You know, online courses are a dime a dozen, and Matt, you and I know friends in the personal finance community who have really good online courses that cost a pretty penny. But those people get almost like a mini college course in how to invest in real estate or something like that. High end videos with a lot of accompanying material that is actually

really helpful. But then there are a lot of other people who are selling courses that are complete trash where you can get that information for free really easily, and they're not giving you anything special, and depending on the method of payment, there's no way to get your money back. And so yeah, you just have to be careful, you have to tread lightly. Even when we're not talking about full fledged scams, there's still a lot of ways to to lose your money or to spend it in effectively,

you know, on the internet. That's right, And sometimes too, it's not even inferior products because like you kind of we're targeting just courses that are kind of crappy. It's just I think it's first time we've ever said turn on the back end. But sometimes they are legitimate products, right, Like I'm specifically thinking about cut cod knives. Those are legitimate knives like that. You know, they've got like these lifetime warranties you can send them in to get sharpened.

But so much like it just makes me think of sales just more broadly speaking, and anytime you're dealing with a salesperson, you need to sort of look at things through a slightly different lens because in that case, in this case, like when we're talking about knives, it's not that those aren't good knives, but if you're somebody who already has twenty four knives in your drawer at home, you don't need another butcher's block full of you know,

like a knife set or whatever. Uh. And so it comes down to whether or not you need that as an individual. And that's where where it takes a little bit of wisdom to determine. You know, am I just being swayed by this persuasive conversation that you know, do I like this person that do I want to help them? Or is this something that I actually need? That's something that we all just need away in our minds when

we're having these conversations with people. Man, that's true. And I think that they talk about whole life insurance as being an item that is sold, not bought, and it's one of those things where it's like it's high pressured sales tactics. Often times that leads people to get that product when they would be much better served by having term life insurance. Matter, how to kind of listener reach out recently and and she is very young, with no dependence,

no kids, she's not married. And she said, hey, I've got this whole life insurance product. I'm starting to get concerned after listening to some of your episodes. And I was like, yeah, you're you're right to be concerned, and she started to to push back, and so she's thinking about ditching it. And she doesn't even need term life insurance yet. Maybe in the near future she will, we'll see. But yeah, those are the kind of things where there are a lot of things out there that are are

sold not bought. If it's something you didn't go out searching for and someone pitched it to you, give to do some extra thinking to see about whether it makes sense or not. So let's give some general advice, because yeah, we've listed a lot of popular scams, but there are just a few things where if you were to implement these, they would make you not necessarily like scam proof, but scam resistant. Right. Like uh, like what I'm thinking about,

like a rainproof jacket. If if it's water resistant, it's it's gonna hold up pretty well. Right, Um, it's gonna be much better than like that fleece you're exactly that's gonna get drenched in a heartbeat. But um yeah, the first thing, right, the general way to protect yourself is to know that if it's too good to be true, it probably is. And so yeah, a scam artist is often going to make a guarantee. You know, that's it's meant to give you some assurance that the money you're

about the handover will be taken care of. But really that guarantee is fake. Peace of mind, we would say to trust your instincts and to not give someone your hard earned money just because they offer verbal assurances and and really lots of times, man, this is just like a gut check, like it sounds really nice, like obviously I want this to be true, but if you had another friend that that happened too, and it was actually real, Like have you ever heard of this happening in the

real world? Those are the kind of filters you need to run this pitch through before you sign on the dotted line totally. We want to recommend for folks also to freeze the credit. This is something that we've advised for years now, but freezing your credit with all three of the major credit bureaus is worth doing even if you think that you couldn't possibly fall for one of the scams that we've talked about today. By the way, I hope we've actually made it clear that you can

actually potentially fall for one of these. But we've got an article up on the site that will link to about doing a credit freeze, really freezing your credit. It's sort of like using a bike lock. That is the most deaf, the cheapest and smartest way to make sure that your bike doesn't get stolen. You know, not using that simple tool is putting yourself at unnecessary risk, And the same thing is true with the credit freeze. Right.

It just takes a few minutes, it costs nothing, and it provides a lot of protections, so someone doesn't open up credit in your name without your knowledge or without your consent. You don't want to become an identity theft victim. Uh. This is one of those instances where you're not being parted with your current dollars. You're just being parted with

your future dollars. And that's basically what debt is. You don't want to owe I owe use either, right, Yeah, exactly, I owe us that somebody else had the fun of spending that money, but you're on the hook to pay the bill and so yeah, like you said, Matt, it's just so ridiculously easy, Like why would you not do it? And Uh, I think another thing that we need to know. Another way to protect yourself is to realize that scams can often come from someone who you're somewhat close to.

This is called affinity fraud. It's kind of tough to come to grips with because you don't want to be suspicious of everyone who's close to you, like, oh, my best friend trying to scamy or my grandma, Like what's her problem? Uh, why is she trying to get my money? Like usually uh, yeah, yeah, I don't wanna talk to

you anymore. Um, but it's it's so it is important to note though that it's not criminals stalking strangers on the internet, and many people have uh and continue to use race, religion, and age as a tool to connect with you and to part you from your money or in the case of MLMs, it's often friendship that gets you in the door, right, It's like kind of joined me in this opportunity. It'll be fun. Uh, And you know, you just trust your friend instinctively, and so you decide

to jump on board. But we would say, don't just assume that because you know someone or you share the same faith with that person, that their pitch is infallible. And here's the thing too, Matt. I think sometimes people feel the need to respond antagonistically if they feel like that pitch is not appropriate for them and they want to tell their friend all of the reasons that this is actually made up gobbledygook. But I don't think you necessarily have to write. You don't have to right all

the wrongs of this world necessarily. You can just use a simple response like, uh, hey, I'm glad it's been good for you, but I've already got too much on my plate. And that simple response might be like, okay, cool, I guess they're not interested. There's there's just no need to argue the merits with someone who has drunk the kool aid, because as that doesn't always work out. It's like a protracted conversation where maybe you create some bitterness

in that friendship. That's true. Something else that we'd recommend for folks as well is to take your time when you are considering uh financial opportunity and also make sure that you're doing your research as well. But scam waters, they will almost always use time to their advantage, sort of like what we're talking about earlier about being you know, once you're on the line, whence you're on the phone, they are not going to want to hang up. They're gonna want to get you to head to the store,

buy those gift cards. That sort of thing. Same thing with a utility scam that we talked about earlier, that involves you having to give them money immediately. It's just this shrewd tactic because it's harder to make a smart decision when you're under the gun, when you're in a pressure cooker. Right, So do your research, take your time, and don't let any claim that you need to make a decision now or being told that the opportunity it will be gone forever. Don't let those tactics lead you

to act impulsively. What's so difficult, you know, like you're you're talking about how like you don't want to be suspicious of every relationship in your mind, Like that's what's so crazy about a lot of these schames is that it does involve some sort of relationship, right, whether that's the trust you have with a certain company, or whether it's because oh yeah, I'm acquaintances with this person, I kind of know them, or even if it's somebody that

you think you love right go, kind of going back to the different dating apps. Scammers target all those different kinds of relationships, whether it be with a brand or with someone who's closer to you, to take advantage of you, to part you with your money. And so it's difficult because what we're saying is like, you got to be on alert, but don't be so un alert that you're just this crazy person, right Like, like you don't want to live in the equivalent of a bunker when it

comes to your relationships where you're just hunkering down. But we do want you to think twice anytime you are faced with some of these decisions. Just give pause and think twice before you take any actions. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think what you're saying is that you don't have to be paranoid. But but I feel like someone could listen to most of the episode and be like, I should probably be paranoid because is there a zombie behind me right now? Everyone's out to get me? And

so yeah, I should get my shot. I can kill all those zombies. But you know I will say I don't. I don't personally live in fear of internet con artists or or that someone close to me is going to try to steal my money from me. Right, I'm not like line up awake at night when I opened watching my wife's sleeps just in case she's gonna try to scam me out of something. Right, Um, she's gonna try to sell me some lie or some whole life insurance.

What's her problem? But I think the goal of this episode it really is to raise awareness and to highlight the fact that even intelligent people like our listeners, because if you've been listening to the show for any amount of time, you are a smart person, and anybody, even you can fall victim for a scam. And at the same time, scammers are getting savvy er, you know, they're

they're making those scams more difficult to identify. There's just no foolproof way to avoid getting scammed completely and to assure that you'll never get scammed for the rest of your life. But you know, if scams are like zombies in the Walking Dead math, then I think we'd all be remissed to not carry a shotgun and take some of the steps that we just outlined. Like you, you want to make sure that you're prepared do those simple tasks that we just outlined, and hopefully it will make

you scam resistant. That's that's our goal. That is right. Man. Let's go ahead and get back to the beer that we enjoyed during this episode. You and I we shared a crawler of electric Venom. This is from Little Cottage Brewery, and I will say with it being in a crawler, you and I we both got a full sixteen ounces. I'm pretty sure John filled this thing like up to the brim before and before he gave it to you. But man, how much pineapple juice do you think is

actually in this thing? Because there's more pineapple juice than beer almost, like uh like, I mean that was the first thing I could smell. We could crack the first of all, it's a crawler, so when you crack the top, it's like you're opening a drum of oil or something like that. But yeah, as we poured this, I was like, holy cow, Like the the amount of pineapple fragrance was definitely noticeable. And as you're drinking it too. It's I mean, that's the first thing I noticed. But it wasn't like

over over the top. It wasn't so much that it was like that it overwhelmed the senses, right. It wasn't too perfume me, I guess, is what I'm saying, because there was a lot of actual fruit flavor within the beer. Because a lot of times I get turned off if like the smell doesn't match up with the eiver, then something's wrong. And we've had beers like that before where the fruit flavor it almost felt artificial, But this I

feel like there's nothing artificial about this pineapple. I feel like I'm like biting into a giant pineapple, like it's an apple pineapple. If nobody does that kind of like cut the exterior. If you do that, you're like bleeding cut it into cubes. Does does your mouth get tore up if you eat fresh pineapple? Like, because it's kind of like I don't know if it's what it is about it, but like the actual fiber is kind of stuff on the mouth. Don't you try to remember the

last time I had a fresh pineapple? I don't think so. But you know, you don't even know what I'm talking about how crazy. Yeah, Okay, if you're listening and if you have to moderate the amount of pineapple that you eat because it blisters up the inside of your mouth, let me know, because that happens to me. I think pineapple juice is one of the best ways to consume finepple's delicious. And this should think like you gotta pinnick a lotter or something, right, Yeah, And this beer had

a ton of just distinct pineapple vibes going on. It's definitely the most pineapple beer I've ever had in my life. But our friend John who who's the brewer over there. He and an owner of Little Cottage Brewing. He as a knack for making just ridiculously interesting beers that are a little off the beaten path, but that anybody can enjoy, I think. And so yeah, this, I think this beer in particular is like one of the best representations of

how far in a particular direction he can go. He can get crazy with it but still make it an excellent final problem. Absolutely, Yeah, anybody who's in Atlanta and hasn't been a Little Cottage you gotta go. Absolutely, it's it's I mean, we've got a couple of favorite breweries in here in Atlanta, but he he's tied for first. Also, yeah, but it's the perfect amount of sweetness. There's like a

touch of tartness with this being a sour ale. But I was curious if you're gonna note how sweet it was, because I felt like it was kind of pushing the envelope as far as how sweet you like your beers. I thought it was perfect, nice amount of sweetness with a touch of tartness, going yeah, yeah, I know, I agree, And yeah, it's definitely on, you know, higher on the sweet scale. But because it was like had a depth of juiciness to it, it kind of I was cool with it. It had the fruit to back it. Yes,

for sure. Well, dude, cool. I'm glad you and I got to share this beer on the episode. Yeah, like Joel mentioned, everyone check out Little Cottage Brewery if you are going through Atlanta or if you live here, And we will make sure to have our show notes up on the website at how the Money dot com and we'll link to any of the resources that we mentioned during this episode. No doubt. By the way, if you haven't joined our Facebook group, it is a pleasant place

where people help each other with their money questions. We've encourage you to go over to Facebook dot com type in how the money in the search line. I promise this is not a scam. It's just a truly good online resources where people can ask each other questions and receive help. So um, yeah, I feel free to check that out. But that's gonna do it for this episode. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,