In this bonus episode, Bob sits down with Josh Margolin, writer and director of the action/comedy film, Thelma, to discuss Josh’s real-life inspiration – his 104-year-old grandmother, Thelma, and her frightening experience as a scam victim. Josh took the experience to heart, especially because the criminal pretended to be him. Thelma is winner of the 2025 AARP Movies for Grownups Award for the Best Intergenerational Movie.
Apr 25, 2025•34 min
Jordan is a star athlete and homecoming king who is packing for a beach vacation when he receives a message on Instagram. The account is of an attractive girl named Dani. Jordan exchanges flirty messages with her, and eventually, she convinces him to send an explicit photo of himself. That's when everything changes. Dani threatens to send the photo to his family and friends if he doesn't pay $1,000. Jordan tragically sees no way out and dies by suicide. Law enforcement tracks the crime to brothe...
Apr 18, 2025•58 min•Ep. 220
In part 2, US Postal Inspector Cory McManus is hot on the trail of criminals running an elaborate romance scam network. After identifying dozens of victims, he arrests two suspects who've been acting as money mules. They quickly give up information about how the scam works and the name of the ringleader, Wisdom Onyobeno, who lives in Atlanta. Onyobeno's many victims finally get justice when he pleads guilty and is sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
Apr 11, 2025•46 min•Ep. 219
When Debbie's mother passes away suddenly, she is not prepared for what she finds. While sorting through financial records and paperwork, she discovers correspondence with the US Postal Inspection Service and letters to a victim's advocate. Debbie learns that her mother was hiding the painful secret that she was the victim of a romance scam that had stolen over $400,000 from her. But a US Postal Inspector is putting together the pieces to catch the ringleader of the elaborate, wide-ranging roman...
Apr 04, 2025•33 min•Ep. 218
In this 2021 episode, when Shirley Gibson learns that her property in Miami’s historic West Grove neighborhood has been sold by someone using a forged deed, she is determined to fight. Working together with journalist Phil Prazen and lawyer David Winker, they uncover an elaborate real estate scam targeting dozens of elderly property owners in this historically Black neighborhood. Law enforcement is soon on the trail of the criminals, but will Shirley get her land back?
Mar 28, 2025•25 min
In this 2021 episode, Miami’s historic West Grove neighborhood has recently become a hot real estate market. So hot, in fact, that it has attracted the attention of scammers. It wasn’t always so. Shirley Gibson’s family has owned property in West Grove since her great-grandmother immigrated from the Bahamas over 100 years ago. Now in her 80s, Shirley had hoped to pass on the property to her niece and nephew. But when Shirley goes to pay her taxes one day, she learns that her property has been so...
Mar 21, 2025•26 min
Suzi and Gary retire to Tucson and find the perfect house with a less-than-perfect kitchen. They love to cook and entertain, so they put their energy and money into renovating their dream kitchen. Construction starts and is going smoothly until the payment for cabinets is due. The designer requests immediate payment by wire transfer, but a week later they discover that the designer never received the payment. Suzi and Gary discover that they are the victims of a BEC (business email compromise) s...
Mar 14, 2025•45 min•Ep. 217
Retired priest, Father Robert Banzin, has devoted his life to the service of others. Now in his 80s, he continues to preach every Sunday at his Chicago-area parish. Father Bob, as he is known in his community, gets an alarming email claiming that his PayPal account had been used for a purchase on eBay. Concerned, he calls a number he believes to be PayPal's customer service and is informed that his bank account has been compromised. Within weeks, every penny of his life savings had been stolen. ...
Mar 07, 2025•40 min•Ep. 216
In part 2, Chris and his family try without success to stop their father, Alfred, from sending money to a series of criminals he met online – some claiming to need medical care and one even impersonating WWE wrestler Alexa Bliss. One day when Alfred comes to him asking for a $5,000 loan, Chris thinks it could be a turning point. The optimism is short-lived, however, as Alfred's story will soon take an even more tragic turn.
Feb 28, 2025•44 min•Ep. 215
When Alfred's sons notice unusual transactions on their dad's bank statements, they start asking questions. But Alfred's reaction tells them that there is much more to the story than he is letting on. The family spends the next several years trying desperately to disentangle their father from various scams, one even involving an online romance with an impostor posing as WWE wrestler Alexa Bliss.
Feb 21, 2025•37 min•Ep. 214
After 25-year-old Niki Hutchinson loses her mother, she uses some of her inheritance to start fresh in California. Not knowing anyone, she does what many people do today and joins a dating app to make connections. She develops a friendship with a man named Hao and, in time, he offers to teach her how to invest in cryptocurrency. With some small successes and lots of encouragement from Hao, she dives in and invests her inheritance, plus some of her dad’s money as well. That’s when her friend beco...
Feb 14, 2025•58 min
When Cathy's disabled husband loses his Medicaid coverage, she must look for a job to help pay the rent. The retired Army Reserve veteran has impressive work experience, so when she puts her resume online, she almost immediately gets an offer. The job is for a shipping company, receiving, inspecting, and forwarding packages, and it allows her to work from home while caring for her husband. It seems like the perfect job for a while, but when they offer her a promotion to purchasing agent, it coul...
Feb 07, 2025•41 min•Ep. 213
80-year-old David lives in a tight-knit community, frequently helping his neighbors with yard care and other tasks. So when he gets a knock on the door from two brothers claiming they are working on his neighbor's home, and noticed a hole in his roof, David agrees to let them fix it. But one repair turns into many as the brothers find more and more work that needs to be done on his house. David's daughter is suspicious, and when she finds out that the work has cost her father over $450,000, she ...
Jan 31, 2025•50 min•Ep. 212
Rodney Baldus, a retired truck driver from Minnesota, believes he is the recipient of a large inheritance belonging to his late wife. The inheritance is in Italy, but he is told he must first fly to Africa to sign papers before going on to Italy. Since his travel expenses are all paid for, Rodney is not suspicious of criminal activity. Unfortunately, Rodney is now sitting in a crowded jail cell in Mozambique with little hope of ever getting out, and his daughter, Nicole, fears for her diabetic f...
Jan 24, 2025•49 min•Ep. 211
Ray is retired but always looking for interesting opportunities. So, when he gets a cold call from a whiskey brokerage firm asking if he wants to invest in some of the world's rarest whiskeys, he's intrigued. He meets with a wealth manager, Casey Alexander, who is well-mannered and professional. Ray feels confident investing over $300,000 in whiskey, although around this time, the investment scheme catches the attention of a U.S. attorney and the FBI.
Jan 17, 2025•54 min•Ep. 210
In this 2023 episode, YouTube star Kitboga has turned scam baiting into performance art, delighting his 3.6 million followers with his many characters and laughs at the expense of online criminals. It started out as pure curiosity, and a way to avenge his grandparents who'd been victims of scams, but along the way, he's helped return money and hijacked accounts to victims, and he's taught a lot of viewers how online scams work. Bob sits down with Kitboga for a humorous and enlightening conversat...
Jan 10, 2025•57 min
In this 2022 episode, host Bob Sullivan welcomes special guest Alexis Conran. Conran’s insight into the mind of a con man comes from acting as one on the popular BBC show The Real Hustle . On the series, Conran, an actual trained magician, and his team perpetrate scams on unsuspecting consumers and then reveal the crimes to the victims (now in the hundreds), all in the name of educating the public. Conran discusses what he’s learned about the criminal mindset and what he has identified as the el...
Dec 20, 2024•30 min
We use our smartphones for just about everything these days, and that makes them a prime target for scammers. Online banking often relies on a code sent in a text message to verify the account holder's identity, but criminals have figured out a way to impersonate the phone and intercept these messages. This is exactly what happens when Jeff receives an SOS message on his phone, and before the day is over, thieves steal tens of thousands of dollars from him. The good news is, there's a simple thi...
Dec 13, 2024•31 min•Ep. 209
Imagine you've just had everything stolen from you by a ruthless scammer. You are wondering how you will pay your bills, maybe even have enough money to buy food. And then a bill arrives from the IRS – you owe taxes on the stolen money. Unfortunately, scam victims across the country are getting hit with huge tax bills thanks to a change in the tax code a few years ago. In this episode, you'll meet Chester, a retiree from California who is living this very nightmare right now, as well as the lawm...
Dec 06, 2024•38 min•Ep. 208
Thanksgiving is a time for sharing food with family and feeling grateful. It means a lot to Georgete, a struggling mom who just wants to make the holiday special for her kids. She relies on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits to get by, and when her Thanksgiving dinner is essentially stolen from her, she is devastated. The theft is part of a highly organized crime and Georgete is one of hundreds of thousands of victims, resulting in $150 million of taxpayer money stolen by ...
Nov 22, 2024•43 min•Ep. 207
Alice hires a local handyman, Joey, as a live-in caregiver after her shoulder surgery. She recovers, but soon COVID-19 hits, and Joey, who is down on his luck, stays on to help around the house. Alice has known Joey for years and trusts him completely. But one morning when she opens her monthly bank statement, everything about her relationship with Joey changes....
Nov 15, 2024•40 min•Ep. 206
Debbie, a Colorado native and mother of three adult children, leads a fulfilling life of travel, salsa dancing and volunteer work. While her life is full, she would like to have someone to share it with. So, Debbie looks for love online and meets a seemingly great guy named Russell who claims to be a successful businessman. After weeks of daily texts and phone calls, they plan to meet. That’s when things get complicated – Russell, who is dealing with a work crisis overseas, needs her help to mak...
Nov 08, 2024•59 min•Ep. 205
It’s a typical busy day for Amanda as she sees her teenaged daughter off to work. But five minutes later, everything changes when she receives a call from a local number and hears her daughter’s voice crying. A man comes on the line with a chilling threat for Amanda if she doesn’t do exactly what he says. Technologies like AI are making virtual kidnappings and similar scams easier than ever for criminals. Bob talks with Vijay Balasubramaniyan about this ever-evolving technology and how listeners...
Nov 01, 2024•48 min•Ep. 204
Dennis, an 82-year-old proud father and grandfather, makes a connection with a woman he meets on Facebook named Jessie. Jessie claims to have made a lot of money through crypto investments and offers to teach Dennis how she did it. Having developed a trusting relationship with Jessie and hoping to build an inheritance for his family, Dennis decides to invest his savings. When it is revealed that the investments are a scam and Jessie is a fraud, a devastated Dennis takes his own life. Now his son...
Oct 25, 2024•53 min•Ep. 203
In this 2019 episode, Marlene is enjoying the Atlantic City boardwalk with a friend when a young woman approaches her. The woman introduces herself as Savannah and offers to give Marlene a psychic reading. Figuring it will cost her just a few dollars, Marlene takes her up on the offer. Savannah takes Marlene back to her shop. During the reading she picks up on many of the troubles Marlene is facing in her personal life. Having gained Marlene’s trust, Savannah offers her various items for sale in...
Oct 18, 2024•25 min
In Part 2 of this 2022 episode, Darlene Asher, as the head of her local dart league, has been leading the charge to help Jeremiah Jon Smith, who they believe is dying from cancer. But when Jeremiah’s wife leaves him, she shares her doubts with Darlene about his illness. A police investigation reveals the devastating truth: Jeremiah has been faking his cancer and exploiting his friends' generosity in order to line his pockets.
Oct 11, 2024•45 min
In this 2022 episode, Darlene Asher is the head of her local Minnesota dart league, a close-knit group of dart enthusiasts who rally around champion dart player Jeremiah Jon Smith when they learn he is dying from cancer. They raise thousands through fundraisers and a GoFundMe page, going as far as paying for Jeremiah’s wedding. It seems like they’re doing the right thing, so why does Darlene have doubts?...
Oct 04, 2024•28 min
Kim is grieving the tragic death of her son, who was serving in the Army, when she learns that she is the sole beneficiary of his military death benefit. To help with financial decisions at such a vulnerable time, an adviser named Caz Craffy is offered by the military. Kim plans to use the money to buy a home, but Craffy insists that she make investments in stocks of specific interest to him. One day Kim is contacted by the FBI and learns that Craffy is under investigation for redirecting milita...
Sep 27, 2024•44 min•Ep. 202
Neill is a successful ER physician and business owner who has regrets after a recent missed investment opportunity that proved to be lucrative. So he jumps on board after meeting Clinton Herzog who is offering buy-ins for his dental clinic chain in Austin, Texas. Unfortunately, this new investment opportunity turns out to be a classic Ponzi scheme and Clinton disappears with hundreds of thousands of dollars from the doctor and his friends.
Sep 20, 2024•52 min•Ep. 201
The Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes is famous for showing up at winners’ homes with a giant check and transforming lives. So when Kathy receives a call from someone claiming to be from Publishers Clearing House, saying that she’s the next lucky winner, she begins dreaming of all the good she can do for her friends and family. However, after several months of empty promises and tens of thousands of dollars in “taxes” that she must pay upfront, a concerned neighbor convinces Kathy to go to t...
Sep 13, 2024•38 min•Ep. 200
