Retrospect
Retrospect
The New Face Of Scams In The Digital Age | Retrospect Ep.182
In this week’s episode we discussed the world of scams and fraud in the modern age, exploring how technology has made it easier for criminals to deceive individuals and businesses alike. From phishing emails to complex financial frauds, we discuss the latest tactics used by scammers, how to spot the red flags, and tips to protect yourself in an increasingly digital world.
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Retrospect
Ian
Welcome to the retrospect podcast, a show where people come together from different walks of life, and it's because a topic from their generations perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Stoney,
Stoney
hello
Ian
and Jason,
hello. Everyone
a little bit off the off our rhythm there for a second there.
Jason
Yeah, it's just the way life goes. Sometimes it just we have curve balls that we just have to deal with. Well,
Stoney
unfortunately, Part of that's my fault. That's okay because of this accident at the former corporation that I used to work for, Stoney,
Ian
a troublemaker. No,
Stoney
not a troublemaker. I i now have to wear hearing aids, right? And because of that. Now, my ears have a tendency to get infected and expel a lot of wax and things like that. My ear got my good ear, my deaf ear is from the accident, but my good ear, which actually I have a cross system, so my my deaf ear, has a microphone which broadcasted over to the actual hearing aid, which is in my good ear. That ear got so infected. I showed you all the pictures, it was completely closed in 100% she dusty. So in a way, I got to feel what 100% deaf is. But on a on a pain scale, I was up in the 8.5 to nine.
Ian
Oh, yeah,
Jason
anything dealing with the ear and yeah, especially as an adult,
Stoney
Miranda said the side of my face was puffed out an inch. It was swollen so much. And it was kind of funny, because I went to my my general practitioner, and he gave me some stuff, and it really didn't start working, so I had to go to an ENT and it's kind of funny, because he goes to look in my ear, and the first word out of his mouth is, dang,
Ian
oh, that's never good.
Stoney
So that's not a good sign. That's not a good sign when you start to shock the professionals, you're like and but they gave me some new stuff, and they spread my ear open a little bit and put some powder, some kind of a antibiotic, powdered antibiotic and steroid or something in there with a new antibiotic. And I've got some relief now. I'm not completely closed in. I'm still probably 75 to 80% closed off, yeah, but it's getting better.
Jason
That's good. Well, main thing is, we're making it, making some some improvements.
Stoney
Yes. and poor hottie, doctors had pneumonia for the last week, and it went from one lung to two lungs, and
Jason
so you can't play, you can't play around with pneumonia. Well, I pick on her. I said,
Stoney
she's very competitive. And I said, Let me have my hearing thing, right? You gotta, you gotta overdo me, right? So now you gotta have double pneumonia, because you just can't let me do my thing, right?
Jason
I hope she's getting some good rest.
Stoney
She's she, she's very hard to get her to rest. I can only imagine it's hard to get her just to kind of take a deep breath, and because she's always on the go, she's always taking great care of us, and, you know, just, she's starting to see a little improvement now. So she's
Jason
in our prayers that hopefully she gets up the cover is in a, in a, you know, very quickly. Yeah. So, so
Stoney
I apologize. Hey,
Ian
that's okay. I again, that was, I just was making a it's, it's been a very wild week for me as well. There's a lot of changes happening, and things are getting shaken up. And so the fact that this is all happening, I think, in some way, has kind of made my week a little bit easier, because I could, so I could focus on all this stuff happening. And I was like, hey, I can get it. Yeah. Can get it, yeah? So I
Stoney
do an episode on change
Ian
and so it's been, yeah, well, so the fact that this is all happening, I think, is it's all, I think, working out. And I'm just glad that we're here, but it feels a little bit different. I feel like we've been out of I've been out of saddle a little bit. So I gotta, I gotta dust off the Yeah,
Jason
well, it's, you know, where things are happening. Yeah, I'm actually getting ready to go back to work. Yeah. So, you know, things will be changing for me. I'll have to get back into a work routine again.
Ian
Speaking of can't rest, I'm playing.
Jason
Yeah, people say you're bored already, Jason, I'm like, No, I'm not bored. No, I tell people all the time, I love retirement. I's why you're going back to work. I'm going back to work because, you know, it's nothing gets cheaper. Of course, nothing gets cheaper. And you know, the fact of the matter is, when I did retire, my goal was not to stay retired at my age. I mean, I'm little too young to be just sitting at home unless I just had millions of dollars in the past, of course, right, which I don't. Oh. Um, but, you know, I'm comfortable and but, you know, my old employer called me back and offered me a spot and told me, Hey, just give it a shot. You know, you can just always re retire something that doesn't work out or you don't want to do it, which is, you know, for me, it's that's an option so, but I'm going back to some people I've worked with, and I know them, and I'm looking forward to kind of working back on the team. And
Ian
so how long? How long ago was it that you actually retired?
Jason
It's been now retired. My official retirement was February 21, of 2024
Ian
Wow, yeah, okay, over year, yep, so take a little year off. I
Jason
said at the time. I said, Look, when I made the decision to retire, I wasn't gonna be give it a year, right, right, right, and just kind of digest my my career and see what doors opened up after that. Yeah. So this one opened up and I said, you know, let me go and do it. You know, make a little extra money. I can keep collecting my pension, yeah, just whatever I make, I can technically work toward another pension if I wanted to. Wow, really. Okay, yeah, no, it's, so it's, it's, and then, you know, plus my girlfriend, she still works, so it's, you know, miles will go ahead and work too. So, but yeah, so I'll be start back probably next two weeks. Okay, I'll peek in, back into the Easter. Yeah, well, actually be the week of Easter, so not this week, but next week, I'll go back to work. Okay, okay, start of a new pay period. So I'd rather start at the Yeah,
Stoney
you'll start on a four day work week now. Yeah, that's a good way to start.
Jason
Yeah, exactly kind of ease back into it, yeah, you know. But you know, those people working in private sector going, Really, come on, give me a break. But yeah. So other than that, yeah, so that's it's kind of getting back into that kind of mood of of life again. And I got a lot of things I got to do it I still got to do around my house. Of course, there's always something, well, I mean, I got, I got, I got big, big ticket money items that need to be done. Oh, right, right. So it's, yeah, I mean, to kind of get, get moving in that direction, yeah. Well, you were
Stoney
going to come help me with some stuff, since I can't stand on a ladder, I guess. Well,
Jason
I tried, and then that time, you we had a bad we had to back off. So it's, but, you know, we'll get it done. Get it done. But no, I think, I think our, you know, one, I should say, I don't think our topic today, yeah, was a something I saw in a social media page and dealing with frogs.
We've all been a kind of exposed to some things that get thrown our way occasionally, especially with everybody having a cell phone
Stoney
now. Well, and it's, it's not a new thing. You got to remember, what was the guy who sold the Brooklyn Bridge like 10 times? Yeah, you know, he had printed stocks and ownership papers. I mean, this has been going on, yeah? Scamming people for a long time.
Jason
Yeah, they have and I just
Stoney
No snake oil.
Jason
I pulled up a little snap, a little snapshot of by the Federal Trade Commission. They're the ones who track this stuff and in. And this is 2024, data. So this is relatively This is new. There were 2.6 million fraud reports filed with an average with a $12.5 billion in reported losses. Well, how much 12 point 5 billion? 12
Stoney
billion? Yeah, because, see, that's an increase. Because I started back in 2022 where they lost 8.8 billion in fraud, which was a 33 increase from 21 and then in 23 they had fraud losses of 10 billion, which is almost a 14% increase from the year before. So it's,
Ian
like, every year it's a couple more billion,
Jason
yeah? They say right now. I mean, I'm just, this is from the Federal Trade Commission. This is top fraud. So one is, is the imposter, yeah? Two is online shopping and negative reviews, right? Three is business and job opportunities. And I. Will point to an example of one I just received on my cell phone that I will read off. Okay, to show exactly what happens with this stuff. The form of four is investments and five is Internet services, right? But here, according to the FTC, job scams and employment agencies, losses soared. Total losses went from 90 million in 2020 to 501 million in 2024, jobs, 38,000 reports filed in 20, 105,000 reports reported in 2024 and then losses to investment scams keep climbing. 3.8 billion in 2022 4.6 billion in 2023 and 2024 saw 5.7 billion. Wow.
Stoney
I think it's really interesting who is targeted and why. Because there's a new age now. Before it was the pre Internet, and a lot of it was phone scams, and a lot of that was targeted at people 65 years and older? Why? Because they're lonely, yep, because they're not as informed, necessarily, on some things. Now that's changed with some of us older people, but 65% of people over 65 are saying they have daily encounters with scam and attempts, and that's from Statista statistic millennials, ages 30 to 49 are reporting over 13,000 complaints of investment fraud in this recent Year, surpassing other investment other age groups and Gen Z's are three times as likely to fall for over online scams compared to boomers, and twice as likely to have their social media accounts hacked. Wow, and but it's a it's targeting specific people, but before, when it was harder to get people that had been through a telephone or some mail thing. Now, since the internet, it's email push, phishing and things like that, but it was targeted the old people because they were lonely, and they would gladly have that connection with anybody, yeah, because their kids and their grandkids have gotten so busy that they kind of neglect them and ignore them, and they're just hoping for somebody to spend some time with, to talk to, yeah, but that's changed now, since we've got the internet and social media and smartphones. Well,
Jason
according to as I'm just kind of reading off this fact sheet here, it said younger people reported losing money to fraud more often than older people really 20 to 29 year olds showed a 44% versus 70 to 79 year olds 24% and this is 2024
Ian
Wow.
Jason
Something interesting here. Big losses follow scams that start with a call or on social media, the highest per person reported loss, the median loss is $1,500 Wow. Okay. Social media, the highest overall reported loss is 1.9 billion. Really an email highest overall number of reports was 372,000
Ian
reports. Email is so unsecure, and man, I wish there was a way that we could, like, reinvent email and like, do it better, but like, I just you
Jason
would have to, oh, you'd have to the encryption that you have to do to well, in 2023,
Stoney
this is one of the big ones. The Federal Trade Commission reported that consumers lost over $1.4 billion for romance scams. Yeah, I can see that with a median loss of over $2,000 I mean, yeah, how lonely are we coming back to that lonely part again, yeah, and that's, I don't know why my research kind of went in that direction, yeah. But you know, a guy, dumb guy, will send some money to what he thinks is a pretty girl on the internet because he's got some attention. And when it turns out to be a 400 pound dude from Nigeria, what the hell
Jason
yeah, yeah, right. Here, it's just some other numbers here, reports by military consumers, 99,004 Fraud reports filed by, I guess, people in the military, yeah, with reported losses of 584 million.
Ian
That's wild. That's wild. That
Jason
is, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's
Ian
a lot. I know that. I know that, obviously the phone scam has been around for a long time, and I remember certain online and email and stuff like that, scams that I used to be able to sniff out pretty well, but now a lot of it's gotten really good at masking itself as something that is
Stoney
well, I think that one of the things in the research and my past being in protective services and stuff, if someone reaches out to you, yeah, walk away. Yep. Because if you're actually doing research and you're looking for something and you come across something, you might now that that again, yeah, does that mean a friend saying, Hey, I found this stock, right? Not necessarily, you still need to be cautious in that, right, excuse me, but if you find something just out of the blue, somebody's research, you're reaching out to you. But
Ian
that's what I mean, is the couple of times that I've almost gotten nabbed by this has been scammers pretending to be services that I already have, right, like a like a PayPal or something, and they're the all their stuff. On a surface level looks very legit, where, if I just read the email, and I were to open it, or read the message, or something like that. But once you kind of peel back the surface a little bit, you start to see that, like, the returning email is not, not correct and but, like, but if you just go off a first instinct, and I wasn't paying attention, on the surface, it looks very legit, and it's like, oh, update your password, update information, like things that, like I have gotten in the past, of like, it's time to update your password, or put in some other sensitive details, or whatever. One of
Stoney
my favorites is to see these white hat hackers. Yeah, the videos, because these call centers and indie and other places like that, I love it because, oh, this is, you know, Google or Microsoft or whoever, and you have a thing. But if you send us $300 we can blah blah or send whatever, and then they totally destroy the call centers computers. Yeah, freaking love that crazy like, you know, if they can do that, why can't the FBI and the National Security Agency and everybody else put these guys to work and have them just go out there and destroy these call centers? Why? Why can't they do that? You know, in Quantico, the FBI has two floors with nothing but 1516, and 17 year old hackers, they actually have, you know, marijuana, medicinal marijuana vending machines and Red Bull vending machines that these hackers just why can't we put them to something like that? Yep, you know, yeah, and that's not a conspiracy theory. Okay?
Jason
Well, you're talking about, you know, scams and stuff I get on my phone through text or emails. But here's one that I received. Maybe y'all have received this also. This is from a person or entity called random mirror, a new mic at cyber something, yeah.cu, okay, it's um. It says, Hello. Excuse me. I'm a recruitment assistant at Indeed, okay, we would like to offer you a great, great remote part time, full time job to help update App Store data, increase app reviews and downloads, and provide you with free training, flexible part time and full time jobs, allowing you to work 30 to 90 minutes A day, four days a week and earn extra income on weekends. You can work anytime, anywhere, according to your schedule, and earn 100 to $800 a day.
Ian
Sounds too good to be true. The basic
Jason
salary is $950 for every four days you work paid annual leave. How they're affording that? I have no idea. Yeah, in addition to statutory holidays such as maternity and paternity leave, okay, full time employees also enjoy five to 15 days of paid annual leave. If you'd like to participate, please send a message to this number, some number. For more information, you must be 25 years older. So you know, this stuff is constantly coming along, no telling if you try to call that number what that's going to lead to. But I've been getting a lot of this stuff lately. I mean, I. Basically delete and report junk. Well, stuff
Stoney
like that is, you get these random messages and you get random phone calls. One of them is, you'll get a random phone call and all of a sudden the person who's called your number. Now, can you hear me? Yeah? Never say Yes, right? Never say the word yes in the phone call that you did not start, unless you know it's your doctor, you know, something like that. But if it's just a random phone call, never say yes, because they'll take that and they'll say for some other stuff. So respond, I hear you fine. Never say yes, they
Ian
use your now, in the modern age, with AI being a big thing that yes, your
Stoney
deep fakes and voice cloning scams are hugely on their eyes. Grandpa, it's me, I need bail money, and it sounds just like your grandkids. Yeah, that's scary. Yep.
Ian
They use, they use your voice to train their model to sound more realistic, is what really do it? Yeah?
Stoney
So you have to be careful. Yeah. I really have to be careful
Ian
with some of those things as well. It's really hard with AI as well, becoming so good at mimicking text as a human, like you see something like that, and it's worded very realistic, or it's worded very much like a like an actual, real text message, when, in actuality, it's probably just some bot that's fishing you for something which scary, but it's crazy.
Jason
Well, there's a lot of information right now on this stuff, because, you know, now with AI and oh yeah, yeah, this that, that cloning of the voice kind of freaks me out. Yeah, I mean, it really does, because I don't know how you, how you combat that, I really don't, I know, you know, Stoney says, don't say yes, right? But I guarantee you, they've probably already overcome that, right? You know, with something else. So I just, I don't know. They said identity here. I was just identity theft at 18% or 1.1 million people. Do y'all belong to? Do y'all have any identity theft services? Y'all I do, I have, have you had to use it yet? No, it's, was it that the real famous one? I
Ian
believe I've gone with Norton in the past, or one of those big companies that I've used in the past, but I don't use currently.
Jason
Yeah, it's life lock. Life lock. That's it, yeah, I have LifeLock, so I pay a fee. Yeah, that's Norton. That's what I yeah,
Ian
that's why I think that's what I meant. What a life size, yeah, whatever service they have,
Jason
yeah, they say one in five people reported a financial loss due to imposter scheme. Well,
Stoney
one of the things you can do for your imposter scans is to have your your reporting agencies. What is it? What's the three big ones? Crap? Here comes brain damage again. What's the three credit reporting things? Yeah,
Jason
the experience, Equifax, Equifax, TransUnion, TransUnion. Experience or no, it's it's transient Equifax and
Stoney
shit. What's the other one? Well, these can be turned off. Okay, okay, so you can turn them off. And let's say you need to go do something. You want to go buy a car, you want to get a credit card. You can turn them back on for a certain period of time. So if someone is trying to get your identity and want to get some credit under your name, you can have these turned off. Mine are off all the time. I wanted to go get a little bump on my credit card, so I turned it back on. The bank was able to do what they needed to do, and I turned it back off. So that's something else you can do to help yourself out too. Yeah, and that's important, yeah,
Ian
that was a big the only time I've really gotten hit like that was somehow, in some way, on my, one of my bigger credit cards, the I got a charge at this point. It's probably been eight or nine years ago now, at a charge that was on, like for a television they were that they had purchased, and I was able to dispute it instantly. So well,
Stoney
on credit cards and stuff like that, you have to be so careful at the gas pump and eight items. I'm always people look at me crazy. I'm always jiggling on the little thing there to make sure it doesn't come off. No, really, I pull two of them off. Pull do? I found two of them. Really, every time I go to the gas pump, I'm pulling the little plastic cover to see if it'll come off. I found two of them. Wow. I've
Ian
seen some online where they have, like the keypad at the red. Just heard that like they have, like a false button pusher on it that they've ripped off or whatever. And it's like,
Stoney
scary stuff. But even, like my wallet is I have one of those small wallets that they can't use. Yeah, they can't pull that off of my credit cards, right? Yeah, because people can just walk by you now and get your information.
Jason
Well, here's another report, five scam statistics that you need to know in 2024 this is a site called F secure, and they're basing this data on their 2020 4f secure, living secure survey. And they said in this survey, they got insight from 7000 people in seven regions around the world, highlighting the digital moments we need to protect in 2024 they said our findings show that seven in 10 people didn't don't know who to trust online, with over a third, 36% saying they received more scam attempts now than they did just 12 months ago. Really? Here, he says they're these, these top five here, 34% of people have experienced cyber scams during the last 12 months. Yeah, basically it's a 7% increase over the previous year. So it's it's going up, yeah, 85% of people received a digital scam attempt. Survey reveals that cyber crime has never been more prevalent. 85% of respondents, they received a digital scam attempt, with four in 10 people receiving them on a weekly basis.
Ian
Weekly basis is crazy, yeah,
Jason
exactly 80% of respondents worry about their online safety. Now here they're comparing this to their 2022 results they said 80% of people surveyed in 2024 saying that they worry about their online safety. That's a 5% increase over the last two years. 450 4% of cyber scams are conducted via email. That's what I'm talking about. Same, yeah, sending and receive is the it remain the top digital moment that we do at least weekly. Yeah. And so it comes to no surprise to the vast majority of Cypress scam attempts are being conducted via email, and then five, seven and two people say they don't know who to trust online. Well, I mean, that's now, now with AI, yeah, it's even worse, because they got all the bots out there. You don't know what's going on,
Ian
yeah. And that's been in just the past, like, two years, that's been increased. It's like, like I had just said, I mentioned earlier, it's, it's hard, harder now, because they have become so good at mimicking what it sounds like to be human over text, which is, well, and I think
Stoney
one of the things, especially on the internet people, and I don't want to use this word lightly, but I have to use this word, okay, People are lazy. Oh, 100% people are lazy and remember that big thing on Facebook? Oh, what's your favorite color? What's your favorite pet? What was your your first pets, name and things like that? That was information for the dark web. That's all. It was hackers putting that out there so they can find information. Security Questions. Security Questions, yeah, and it's like people don't understand what. What do you do for your password? Well, I need to be able to remember it, so I'm gonna make it kind of simple, right? No, that's completely ridiculous. I have and I've had some of my white hat friends attempt to crack my passwords, and mine change every three months, yeah. And I have one foreign language word which is misspelled, love it, and I know how it's misspelled, right, right, a series of numbers and symbols, yeah. And one English word that's misspelled, love it, and I know how it's misspelled, how it's misspelled, wow. And I changed my passwords every three months, yeah, and that's a good way. My characters are 20. Yeah, I have 20 characters in my password, right? So most people that their boyfriend's name or their name and their girlfriend's name, or their kid's name, their birthday, something like that, and a hacker is not gonna actually sit out there and sit there trying to get onto your Facebook account. Okay, that's a friend. That's somebody in. Know, yeah, that's somebody that's close. But then if someone's trying to get onto your computer, it's a it's a robot. Hackers have these robots that scan all these IP addresses, and if you leave a door open, they're gonna take it, yeah? And it's just, it's sad that people do that, because when computers came out, they were supposed to be this great resource, right? Okay, help save the trees, and you were going to be able to hand somebody a disc instead of a paper, you know, stack this high, and now it's just made it so easy to take each other's information and hurt people. It's ridiculous. It's just beyond ridiculous. But something you can do to there is enable your two factor authentication on there too. Yeah. So basically, if you want something done, they have to verify it through another email, your telephone or something else, right? Phone, call, email, text something. And
Ian
there's a lot of services too that I make sure that some they really want you to to. This is not any kind of special advice or nothing, but there's some sensitive and crucial accounts that I have that I don't stay automatically logged into, just in case. Like, Oh, that's good advice. Whatever happens, good advice. But like that, and then also at the same time, like, there's a lot of there are some services out there that I have used in the past that have, like, I think Apple and some other companies are kind of getting on board with now, called, like, key chains or something that where you can, like, store, you can encrypt your passwords and keep them stored in your phone somewhere. There's also other services that I don't even trust those. No, I don't either. There's like a service out there, and I can't remember what the name of it's called. It's not a sponsor, but they randomly generate passwords that are, like, super heavily encrypted, like you can then use that for other services, and you can log on to their service and see what the passwords are and stuff, and it keeps them fresh, or whatever it's but there are some services out there that keep your stuff really locked in, that are really good. But I think with like, it's just like you said, I think lazy is a is a word, but I think it's people just don't care. I think either, I think they it's one of those situations where you don't care until it's too late, right? People don't, people don't want to worry about security, especially cyber security and all that stuff, or they want to go through all the effort of figuring out the password and being super safe online, because they haven't had to.
Stoney
Was it last pass? Last Pass? You? Yeah, big pass service, and then they got hacked, and a lot of people lost their passwords from that really? Yeah, last pass was that maybe,
Ian
I'm not sure if that, but it's probably the same, it's probably the same company that I'm talking or something the same kind of service I'm talking about, but, but like I was saying before, is that, I think that people start to care about security whenever, obviously, you get, you know, in a fraud situation, that's kind of the sad part is I think that some people, I think, are lazy, but I think some people just don't really care about it until, well, that wouldn't be lazy. Well, what I'm saying is, like, it's out of sight, out of mind. I wouldn't really call it laziness as much as, like, I just don't really care that much because it's, it's not gonna affect me, but everyone's susceptible to it, and the second it does, all of a sudden, you're like, oh, I should have been more prepared. But you know so
Jason
well I'm looking at here. We've all heard crowd strike. Crowd strike 2025, Global Threat Report. Of course, I don't you have to sign up to get the full report, but they have do some to have some findings here. Yeah, 150% increase in China Nexus activity across all sectors. 442% growth in fishing operations between the first and second half of 2024 51 seconds was the fastest recorded e crime breakout time. Wow. Wait
Ian
5151 sec, God, less than a minute.
Jason
79% of detections were malware free. 26 newly named adversaries in 2024 and 52% of vulnerabilities observed by crowd strike in 2024 were related to initial access. So, you know, there's a there's a lot of stuff out there, man, I'm tell you, right now, in the state of the our our world is in with a lot of countries that don't like the United States right now. And would you be surprised? You're going to see more, especially, I think you're going to see a lot of Stump coming in from Iran and stuff like that. So, but yeah, the globally scammers have. Victims worldwide. Now, now we're getting to worldwide stats, staggering 1.0 3 trillion over the last 12 months. So, oh yeah, yeah.
Stoney
Well, something else a lot of people don't realize is just like your simple email, I have four email accounts, and that protects me in a number of ways. My main email account, I give to my doctor, and I give to hottie doctor, my wife, Miranda, and one or two other people might have that email right? And then I have one email that if I have to sign on for this coupon, yeah, or whatever, the throwaway email, throw away email, and then I have one for, say, all of my warranty stuff. If you need something for a warranty, like if you buy a DeWalt ratchet, yeah, and you want to enact the warranty, I'll use that, and that way I know where my email is going from. Yeah, and it's kind of funny, because I think it's actually, is it Google, Gmail, Google, that you can actually assign a title to the Gmail to find out who is selling your, I think email, because your your emails get sold. Yeah, it's information, right? And so if you did it to XYZ company and it comes back, you know, yeah, you know, dumb ass at Gmail, yeah, blah, blah, blah, X point, you know, XYZ company, then, you know, that's who sold my information, right? So that's another good way to protect yourself there too. Yeah. But another I like to tell people is, with your phone, take the time to hit the button that this was a scam phone number, yeah? And there's a couple of apps on your phone that you can use Robo killer and a couple other ones that just hit it say, spam, unwarranted threat, whatever. And that way that'll help other people, because if they have the same process, it'll say, Nope, this has been used to scam people block done. So that's something else too. You can use technology to a certain extent to help yourself, right, right? And that's a that's a big thing there to do
Ian
a lot of times, my phone specifically has gotten better. I think recently. I'm not sure if it's because it's a Google phone or what's been going on, but sometimes, if I do get spam phone calls, it tells me, it alerts me like spam, fraud, potential fraud, or whatever. And that's been hopping on some and even with text messages, sometimes I don't even receive text messages, but like, it automatically filters out, like some
Stoney
that's part of going and hitting number right? So that's part of the process that can help people, even though
Ian
it seems kind of dim, there are, there are some technologies that have been, I think increasing, getting better as it's
Jason
right now. They say globally, only 4% of victims got their money back. Only 4% 4% 36% 36% of victims reported a severe emotional impact after the scam, and 70% didn't even report the scam to law enforcement. Wow.
Stoney
And a lot of people don't want to do that because, you know, they feel bad about it, but then you need to, you need to report it to help them out.
Jason
Yeah, it's right. Talking about the rise in AI, yeah, deep fake and taking photos and sending photos and all these other things that said here, they give a real life in a business situation. AI was also used to call a fake meeting, and we've heard deep fakes of a company CEO and CFO in the video meeting persuaded and employed to send 20 million to scammers. I've
Ian
heard that, and that was crazy.
Jason
And then I said, this is from the this is from this report here, cyber crime worldwide. So, you know, imagine
Ian
having like your two big bosses on a call. You thinking that you would think that they're making a really big decision. You're like, Ronnie, I need
Jason
you to send 20 million to these accounts. Like, Okay, boss, you got it come to find out? Yeah, it's not even, oh man, yeah.
Ian
I don't even know how you would I would approach that situation, because if I got fired from that, I feel like I would be, I mean, if I could be upset. But the sentiments also like, Man, I don't, I didn't know, I know how to feel about that. He's talking about being bare, and as
Jason
as AI gets better, I dude, I know it's, it's, uh, being up. So I'm saying they're gonna have your voice somewhere, if they can. Somehow, even just hack cell phones and listen to you a conversation, yeah, oh, when
Stoney
they hacked the NSA, they're going to have all of our voice conversations anyway. That's kind of the, I think that's they've been listening for how many years, how many decades now?
Ian
That's what they've been saying before about, I think Apple like they have their, if I'm not mistaken, they're trying. You can train your AI on your phone to like through like sentences and things you can say. You can train it to sound like you so that way it can respond.
Stoney
Oh, no. You can do that regular AI, the AI that I had when we were at once. What
Ian
I'm saying is I can completely do that. What I'm saying is that Apple is saying it's encrypted on their end, and you can make an AI sound exactly like you. So that way, whenever people text you or call you, you can make it sound like yourself talking to them, saying, hey, sorry. I'm a bit busy right now, but you never actually said that. And what I'm saying is like, what if that information somehow gets in the wrong hands, and now you have your one to one copy of an AI going, Yeah, trans transfer $20 million into the right whatever it's like. Come on,
Jason
just some ways, yeah, some ways to protect ourselves from some of this. I mean, they this article gives some some suggestions be wary of sense of secrecy and urgency. Urgency is a big one, and every scan the scammer will emphasize that something has to be done quickly and quietly without telling anyone else. I could see how elderly people could fall victim to that, right, right,
Ian
especially if they believe it's from someone reputable, like, if it's a big company or some a service that they already use exactly, have them contact you and say, Hey, we have an emergency. I need you to do this. It's like, Oh, all right, hey.
Jason
Use multi factor authentication, two factor authentication, or multi factor authentication as an extra layer of protection to your account through another verification method, like text, code, phone call or through an app. Yeah, use unique pass phrases for every account. Use a 12 plus character pass phrase or phrase unique to you instead of an eight character password. Also do not reuse pass phrases from multiple websites or accounts. Guy, how many times we do? Yeah, you secure payment methods online shop only trusted websites and use only trusted payment methods. If you shop at an unfamiliar site, use a payment method that has a dispute resolution process, like credit card or PayPal. Never open a link from an unknown source, don't click on links or download attachments via email or text, unless you're expecting something from a person or business, you know, sign out of accounts. When you're done, always sign out of accounts,
Ian
especially sensitive ones. It's one thing to like, you know, here and there, but like, I feel like, I feel like, like Facebook and some of the other big ones like that, you got to be careful with, just like, leaving it open or on a computer, obviously, like, if that computer never leaves your hands, understand a little bit. But even still,
Stoney
I kind of went about this, kind of like Jason did too. I did some research on mental health and cognitive awareness tactics, right for this, because that's what they're, they're, they're attacking our dreams, our goals, our, like you said, I need it now. You know, normalized number for us, normalized talking about scams, yeah, especially with your parents and your grandparents, right? You know, why would this work? You know, shame is a big reason people don't report or share the fact, right? They've even been scammed. You were just talking about that. Talking openly reduces that stigma and helps other people kind of stay alert to the situation and maybe push that information out. Maybe there can talk about it at their card game, friends and things like that. And if you treat a scam just like you would the weather traffic. It's not as embarrassing, of course. So, you know, it's a norm in our society today, just like traffic is, just like the weather is, yeah, but that stigma behind it is why people don't want to talk about it. You know, I feel foolish that I fail for that. Well, that's what they're attacking. That's why they want you to do it now or keep it quiet, right? You know, or don't dispute it if it happens, right? Absolutely they say, check on the isolated, lonely individuals, especially seniors, are more likely to bond with scammers. Yeah, a simple weekly call or call every couple of days can be effective in keeping that, you know, be the trusted contact for these older, you know, people, so that they know who's kind of, who they can trust, especially when it comes to financial matters. Yeah, and then it's like, you know, like Jason was talking about, I don't know if y'all remember back in the day, credit cards were really taken off. How did you protect yourself from using your credit? Credit Card.
Jason
Left it at home, no
Stoney
close. You put it in a bucket, filled the bucket half with water, then you put the credit card on top of it, and you filled the bucket half with water, and you put it in the freezer. So before you could use it, you had to wait for it to thaw out. And so that's why, you know, scams create this urgency act now type thing, you know, which disables the rational brain, so to speak, right? And so what that did was, and give yourself like, before I make a major decision, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take 24 hours and I'll think about it. And if you say that, the scammer is gonna lose their ever loving mind. And then guess what? Click. Now, you know, you know. And something else we can start doing is, is teach digital hygiene as a regulation, an emotional regulation, because this helps people respond to these things differently, you know, and then watch for red flags, oh, cognitive decline in your people, yeah, when you see people start forgetting things and not handling things, start maybe approaching them a little bit more and become that trusted person, yeah, that they can have to reach out and touch to, you know, and talk To and and just be there for them so they don't feel so lonely, because that's what these scammers are attacking, is that loneliness and your dreams and we, you know, we got to look out for each other. That's the biggest thing. Yeah, looking out for each other.
Jason
Well, you know, sometimes this, these, these scams that, and you hear about this stuff all the time. There's some truly crazy stories out there of some of the swindles that have happened. I'm reading one here and you, you have to laugh. But same time just really happened to somebody. But right? A French woman was swindled out at out of over $800,000 by scammers posing as Brad Pitt. I've heard that as well. Yeah. Who made her believe she was dating him and that he needed help paying for medical care? Yeah? The UK paper, the times and French outlets AFP and BFM TV reported that the woman identified only as an spoke to French television outlet TF one, which has since removed the interview from its website after a flood of online ridicule sparked by the report, and reportedly told the French station that she was first contacted online by someone claiming to be pits mother, yeah, saying it's a woman like you that my son needs. The Times reported, despite expressing skepticism, a woman kept in contact before being messaged by someone posing as the actor.
Ian
And I've, I've also seen the pictures, the AI pictures that they have, they made. Yes, I'm looking at them right now that, like some of them are some of them, I can probably, I could sense it out, but I can see how someone that may not be able to know the different, like, know how to differentiate between, um, AI and what's real. Can look at that and then assume that, like, there's a lot of pictures, I don't know if you've seen or not, uh, Stoney, but there's a lot of pictures, yeah, of him in bed and him wounded, and him like, it actually like, so it's almost like, it reaffirms the fact that like, and I don't think giving money to this person and they're reaching out, but there's a picture of them, yes, in the hospital, and it's anyways, it's just yeah.
Jason
The article goes on to say shows that this is the woman speaking. She goes, at first I thought, said to myself that it was a fake, yeah, that it's ridiculous. And told TF one according to BFM TV. But I'm not used to social media, and I didn't really understand what was happening to me. The woman first sent 10,000 pounds on the fake account. Said it needed her to pay customs tariffs so she could receive gifts he claimed to have sent her. According to the reported interview with the woman, there are so few men who write you this kind of thing. And said, According to the report from BFM TV, I like the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women. He was always well done. Wow. So she went on basically, and gave a bunch of money, yeah, come to find out, it was a big scam. So that's what I'm saying. Some of this stuff is but look, some of this stuff is good. Even savvy people, yeah, fall victim to this stuff.
Ian
I mean, that's why, as possible before I feel like I'm pretty on my toes about it all. But even still, there's been a couple times for me where it's been like, again, it's very believable. Yeah, sure. It's like, it's hard to unless you're being sharp about it, you know, it's scary stuff, and like you're saying, in a situation like that, where it's like a person that sounds like she needed somebody in her life to talk about, to talk to her like that,
Jason
yeah, you know, just kind of going back to an earlier point that we talked about, about the age groups that are more susceptible to scams. Yeah, and, you know, I've venture said that younger people have lost more money, but and older people generally less. But the ones, when it does happen to elderly people, they lose a lot. Yeah, they can. Basically, I've seen stories of their bank accounts being completely,
Stoney
completely drained out.
Ian
Yes, so sad.
Stoney
It's a shame. It's really Yeah,
Jason
yeah. It's
Stoney
okay. Director Kash Patel, here you go. Why don't you take some of this newfound FBI stuff and let's go after some of these people? Yeah, we'd appreciate
Jason
the problem is it's so hard to track down because some of these people are operating,
Stoney
but it can be done. Okay, if you look at some of this stuff, you know, it can be done. It just takes people actively going after it, actively reporting it, and then people that are active going after it, yeah, you have to want, it's kind of like leadership. You have to want to be a leader. To be a leader, you have to want to attack this, to go attack it. And it's something that we could do with with some of the amazing, talented individuals that America has, these smart kids coming up today. You know, the average hacker is 15 to 17 years old? Yeah?
Jason
Yeah. We have some
Stoney
brilliant, brilliant minds out there that are looking for direction. They're looking for a passion. Why can't we turn some of that energy into protecting other people? Right? How about that? Yeah, I'm just saying, I agree. Wow, yeah, it's a shame that there's so many billions and trillions of dollars being lost. Yeah, to people. You know, first we got to lose it in our taxes, then you got to lose more to scammers, then you got to lose more to this and lose more to that. You know, if all this wasn't going on, we might be doing halfway, okay, right? It's a shame. It really is, especially
Ian
like with the advent of technology, I think there's a lot of good security measures that have come out, but there's also a lot of new ways for people to steal and
Stoney
to scam people. You have to be active in taking care of yourself. You have to be active on your digital profile. You have to be active at your home, in your neighborhood and your community. You have to be active in all of those things to protect yourself and other people around you, right?
Jason
Well, they say scams are on the rise across the globe. It depends on where you live, because some areas have seen increases while others have seen decreases. Really found it interesting here that countries like Brazil, Hong Kong and South Korea facing nearly daily scam exposure. Conversely, nations such as Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and China reported a noticeable drop in scam encounters because
Stoney
they don't allow freedom of the internet. Wow, yeah, probably actually target and hurt people that scam people. Yeah.
Jason
So the global confidence and scam detection shows promise, the report found that 67% globally feel confident in their ability to detect scams. Wow, reflecting the success of some awareness campaigns, also that could rise complacency. Countries with high scam detection confidence include China, at 84% Australia at 72% while Japan lags behind, highlighting the need for targeted educational efforts in certain regions. Wow, yeah. Financial losses Mark clear division between developed versus developing nations, the financial toll of scams is staggering with the US, Denmark and Switzerland reported the highest losses per victim in Denmark and Switzerland. Wow, with Americans averaging $3,520 per loss. Meanwhile, in developing countries like Pakistan, scams have a far greater impact, equivalent to four to 4.2% of the country's GDP get out. Kenya and South Africa also reported heavy GDP impacts of 3.6% And 3.4% respectively. Wow. Yeah, so, I mean, it sounds wild,
Ian
yeah, it feels like not even they're safe from it, which is kind of the scary part.
Jason
Yeah, it's, I mean, I mean this, this report really goes into a lot of stuff here, on emotional impact. Yeah, you know, feelings of vulnerability, fear, loss or trust are common with Kenya, the Philippines and South Africa reporting the highest emotional tolls. Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea show a lower emotional impact. Really, possibly reflecting cultural differences in scam reporting and victimization perceptions.
Ian
Interesting. Okay, I was, that's my next question was, why? Why are those countries not having an emotional impact of that kind of stuff? But, yeah,
Jason
anyway, like I said, 4% of scam victims worldwide actually get their money back. Shame, much? That's not a lot at all. At all. Wow, yeah, scary stuff, yeah, why some regions are more affected than others? Report sheds light on why certain regions have higher rates than lost shopping scams dominating Kenya and Nigeria, while investment scams are rampant. Uh, a rampant in night in are rampant in Nigeria. In contrast, South Korea and Vietnam report the lowest levels of online shopping scams. Identity Theft remains a significant concern in Australia and Mexico, with both countries showing a 25% victimization rate.
Stoney
Oh, that's, that's insane, yeah. So,
Jason
you know, as I said, it's uh, tell people, you know, just have to be careful. You know, don't believe everything that comes across as an email or text. If it just doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. Yeah,
Ian
that's crazy. Well, I hope that there's ways that we could also encourage people to, you know, with this all being said, that there's a way we can find different sources, like, I think there's been a couple of great resources that we both have talked or we all have talked about so far that we can have better, uh, safety and preparation for ourselves. It's crazy. In the digital age, I feel like there's a few things that I think we
Stoney
should be further along. I know I don't feel that. I'm kind of like we should be further along. I feel like there's
Ian
a lot of really cool technology that has made life a lot easier, and I look at that fondly. There's a couple times you look back in history and you're like, man, it sounds like it'd be a little bit easier in some some earlier time than this. I don't think about that often, but I feel like in this scenario, it's like, I don't know. I feel like a handful of years ago would be a little bit easier when it comes to all the scams and stuff like that, but I still think that
Stoney
lot of good that, I think it's why the scams work. Yeah, you know what, what they're targeting? You know, we all have the same hope and dreams. Yeah, that's what they're targeting, yep.
Ian
Well, with all that being said, if you guys feel so courageous enough to share. If there is a scam in your life that you have either avoided or the you have experienced yourself, please feel free to reach out. We have comment sections on Spotify and YouTube where you can comment. We also have the email address get it fitted together@gmail.com, or the website and the website, you can reach out to us as well. Scams
Stoney
succeed because they don't just trick your mind. They manipulate your emotions, fear, hope, love and urgency. The best defense is emotional awareness and digital mindfulness, backed by an open communication with community support.
Ian
We really appreciate you listening and until next week, bye, bye, Goodbye everyone. God bless
Stoney
thanks for hanging out with us today. You're the best. Peace.