For many, computers have been the connection to the outside world during the pandemic. When Dianne and Tom are hacked, they find that connection suddenly cut off. Worse yet, the retired professors’ bank accounts and entire life savings are now at risk. Frantic, they work with a bank employee to move their money to safe accounts, which includes meeting couriers to transfer boxes of cash.
In Part 2, 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.
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?
In the second part of our special report, Bob sits down with experts to learn why cryptocurrency-based scams, like the one Mei Mei experienced, are exploding in popularity. Amy Nofziger, director of victim support, shares stories from the AARP Fraud Watch Network™ Helpline, and Kathy Stokes, director of fraud prevention, discusses changes that are needed to protect consumers. Cryptocurrency scholar Lee Reiners provides a big-picture view of why crypto enables scams.
The first part of our special report delves into one cryptocurrency scam. Mei Mei, who is looking for her dream job, starts building her professional network on LinkedIn. When one of her connections invites her to invest in cryptocurrency, she is cautious, doing her research on the company and making only a small initial investment. When it pays off, her confidence grows and she decides to invest a significant amount of money, with devastating results.
When a scammer posing as a Bank of America employee steals the money for Lura’s new baking business, she is left feeling hopeless. But with a little encouragement from her sister, Lura seeks help from her local TV station and gets results, at the same time bringing needed attention to a growing problem of fraud in person-to-person payment apps.
After many years in the corporate world, Lura decides to turn her passion for baking into a small business. She secures a loan, perfects her recipes and then, the day after her big launch, her bank calls. They tell her she’s been hacked and helpfully walk her through the steps to recover the funds. When she calls back the bank, though, she’s stunned to learn that it wasn’t her bank who called at all, but an impersonator. Her money is gone. Will her dreams of owning her own business also disappea...
With over 2 million subscribers, Scammer Payback captivates YouTube viewers with his ability to spot scams and flip the script on the scammers. In this special interview, host Bob Sullivan sits down with Scammer Payback (also known as Pierogi) and learns more about the man and the methods behind his successful channel. They’ll talk about how Pierogi got started, his most interesting confrontations, his experiences inside the call centers where these scammers work, and his tips for listeners on h...
In this bonus 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...
Matthew, a one-time wealthy investment star, has a rare and deadly form of brain cancer. In Part 2, on a trip to the bank, Matthew’s mother, Jan, is shocked to discover that her son’s bank accounts are nearly empty. Even worse, Matthew is convinced the police are coming to arrest him at any moment. Jan, who lives in California, and Matthew’s brother, Justin, who lives in North Carolina, have to work across the country to unravel what has happened and find a way to put a stop to the scam.
Matthew, a successful Chicago investment analyst, is diagnosed with a rare and fatal form of brain cancer, which he fends off at first. Four years later, though, the disease takes a turn for the worse and his life is turned upside down. Partially paralyzed, suffering from brain fog and in a great deal of pain, he goes looking for relief online. What he finds are the worst kind of internet criminals lurking on the dark web, looking for people just like him, suffering in their darkest hours....
When investigators from the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission begin showing up at the homes of Dominion Investment Group clients, it becomes clear that Daryl Bank is not the trustworthy adviser and radio host he presents himself to be. Bank, Roger Hudspeth and their associates have been skimming 20 percent to 70 percent off the top. At this point, there are hundreds of victims, who’ve lost around $25 million — much of it spent on Bank’s lavish lifestyle.
On his Saturday-morning radio show, Daryl Bank advises listeners on retirement investments and avoiding scams. He and his firm, Dominion Investment Group, target retirees like Charlotte Annas and her husband, Pat, who decide to invest their hard-earned retirement savings, and Richard Fairchild, who is working and wants to save more for his daughter’s college tuition. But when federal and state investigators start looking into the company, it’s clear that that trust has been broken.
When Therin Miller walks into the FBI office to throw himself on the mercy of the government, he’s not sure if he will leave a free man. To clear his name, he becomes an FBI informant, recording conversations with his roommate and business partner, Brant Holloway, and his associate Lyle Livesay. Therin’s work results in indictments on multiple counts of bank fraud related to the luxury car scheme, plus the arrest of a Russian mobster in Ukraine. But even with the criminals behind bars, will Ther...
Therin Miller’s exciting new business venture with his roommate, Brant Holloway, is quickly becoming a nightmare. Not only does the luxury-car dealership seem to be part of an elaborate scam, but his girlfriend, Kirsten, uncovers a connection to some very dangerous people, including notorious Russian-born mobster Mani Chulpayev. Therin could be an accessory to some serious crimes. Terrified of going to prison, or worse, he and Kirsten come up with a plan.
National Guardsman Therin Miller never imagined that placing an online ad for a roommate would result in something far scarier than anything he faced on two tours of combat zone duty. His new roommate, Brant Holloway, is a friendly, well-mannered local business owner. The two become fast friends, so when Brant suggests they go into business together, Therin is intrigued. Before he realizes it, Brant and his adviser, Lyle Livesay, have drawn him into a crime ring involving luxury cars and the Rus...
Brad is in an uphill battle he never expected: He can’t convince his father that he’s the victim of a classic lottery scam. Even after talking to a veteran police detective and having a judge declare his son the conservator of his finances, Brad’s father just won’t stop sending money to the criminals. By the time his father has lost almost all of his life’s savings, Brad can’t believe it could get any worse. Then, he learns his father is not only a scam victim, but is also working for the scamme...
Believing he has won a multimillion-dollar lottery prize, Paul heads to the airport to claim his winnings. When he returns empty-handed, his son Brad learns that his father has wired $50,000 in prize fees to criminals outside the country. Despite Brad’s efforts to convince his father of the scam, Paul remains optimistic the prize money is still coming and sends even more money, nearly $150,000. Desperate, Brad enlists the help of a police detective and becomes conservator of his parents’ finance...
Recently widowed, Janet has dedicated her life to helping others. When a friend tells her about a charity serving disabled veterans, she is eager to do what she can. The founder, John Paul Hope, is disabled and ill with terminal cancer. Together, they come up with a plan: Janet will give John Paul three acres of the land on her ranch on which he will build tiny homes for veterans in need. After the deed is signed, she realizes he has actually taken 30 acres! Janet comes to the terrible realizati...
After building up his side business and Instagram following over a few years, Tim takes the leap to run his business full time. When he sees a testimonial video from an Instagram friend boasting of her successful cryptocurrency investment, he decides to make a small investment with extra cash from his booming sales. He is, in turn, asked to make his own testimonial. Before he knows what has happened, his account has been hijacked and a hacker is using the video to steal money from his friends....
The Perfect Scam returns February 11th with more shocking tales of fraud and deceit. Host Bob Sullivan, along with fraud experts, helps equip listeners with the tools to protect themselves against scams.
In the 2019 episode, the FBI is on to Farid Fata, an oncology doctor in Michigan who has been administering unnecessary cancer treatments in order to steal $34 million from Medicare. George, the practice’s office manager, has gathered enough evidence to bring the case to the authorities. It lands of the desk of Agent Drake during his first week with the FBI’s health care fraud team. Investigators are disgusted by what they find and work to bring Fata to justice.
In this 2019 episode, when oncologist Soe Maunglay moves to Michigan, he’s excited to join Farid Fata’s practice. But Fata’s controlling and odd ways make him question his decision to take the job. When Maunglay looks into a patient’s records, he’s shocked at what he finds: Fata is giving chemotherapy and other treatments to patients who don’t need it, some of whom don’t have cancer at all. His motive? Stealing money from Medicare.
In this 2019 episode, a bustling oncology practice in Michigan is hiding something sinister. Patients come to Farid Fata at their most vulnerable, after they’ve been diagnosed with cancer or to receive the life-altering diagnosis. But when Angela, an oncology nurse, arrives at one of Fata’s well-regarded clinics for an interview, she finds that nothing is as it seems. Horrified by what she sees, she reports the doctor for committing an unthinkable form of Medicare fraud.
When 96-year-old Mary steps off the plane in California for a vacation with her sisters, her niece can tell that something isn’t right. Her normally vibrant aunt looks tired and frazzled. But the truth is even wilder than she thinks: Aunt Mary believes she’s in the midst of an elaborate operation working with a government agent to catch the criminals who have stolen her identity.
In this 2019 episode, journalist Alex Palmer tells the story of his great-granduncle, colorful conman John Duval Gluck, who created the Santa Claus Association. Before Gluck started his charity, letters from New York City children to Santa were destroyed, unopened, by the U.S. Post Office. Gluck saw an opportunity and created the Santa Claus Association in 1913. The organization claimed to use the donations it collected to answer children’s letters to Santa and deliver them Christmas gifts. For ...
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?
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 sold without her knowled...
Rochelle scores a great deal on a house in northern Virginia, only to have her dream home transformed a few months later into Pet Scam Central. Day after day, strangers show up on her doorstep, claiming they’ve arrived to pick up a puppy they paid for. Some have driven over six or twelve hours with their family. Unfortunately, Rochelle must break the news that she has no puppies to sell, and the hopeful would-be owners leave heartbroken, confused and out hundreds of dollars. Even worse, over the...
Young ICU nurse Whitney Kirkpatrick’s life is turned upside down when the police show up at her door looking for her boyfriend of nine months, Gregory Thomas. He is not the wealthy, successful oil executive he claims to be. Instead, Gregory has spun an elaborate web of lies — and he’s been funding his extravagant lifestyle with Whitney’s money. With the support of family and friends, Whitney finds the strength to move on and to educate others about identity theft and white-collar crime.
