[00:00:00] A single amp with a specific name, Nauru, a paradise,
[00:00:06] It's a rock with a rock that the whole world wants to have.
[00:00:10] And it's not just a bit more interesting.
[00:00:14] The story of Nauru is one of the most beautiful.
[00:00:16] We went from Gold to...
[00:00:18] And then, then, then...
[00:00:19] Not even Bronze from Gold to Rust.
[00:00:23] That's Ending Pleasant Island,
[00:00:26] a Doku podcast from Andan and the Futurium.
[00:00:28] Up the fort of Spotify.
[00:00:32] They didn't kind of negate an ask for money.
[00:00:35] It unfolded very gradually and incrementally over five hours on the phone.
[00:00:42] And I think that what these people do is they're very good at targeting people,
[00:00:47] figuring out their one specific vulnerability everyone has,
[00:00:51] one at least.
[00:00:53] And then, exploiting that.
[00:00:54] And for me it was my family.
[00:00:55] And they had very intimate details about me,
[00:00:59] about my family members.
[00:01:00] They knew where I lived.
[00:01:01] They knew the last fort is just my social security number.
[00:01:04] They knew about my son.
[00:01:06] And it was terrifying.
[00:01:19] That's Caitlin Cowes,
[00:01:21] a financial columnist from New York Magazine.
[00:01:24] Telling her story to CNN.
[00:01:26] You may have heard of her.
[00:01:28] She has the victim of Scammers.
[00:01:30] She took $50,000.
[00:01:32] Put it in a shoe box
[00:01:33] and handed it to a stranger.
[00:01:37] She should have known better.
[00:01:42] I'm Jim Grinstead.
[00:01:43] And today on Scams and Cons,
[00:01:45] we're going to tell you about people who should have known better,
[00:01:48] but we're conned anyway.
[00:01:51] It's not that they were stupid.
[00:01:53] They just fell into a Scammers trap.
[00:01:56] The same thing could happen to you.
[00:01:59] It's not just the famous who gets scammed,
[00:02:02] but they're the ones we hear about.
[00:02:03] We think they have financial managers who monitor their money
[00:02:07] and that the famous spend so much time being famous.
[00:02:11] They don't have time to pay attention to the investments made in their name.
[00:02:14] It is deeply embarrassing.
[00:02:17] And I wanted to tell this story
[00:02:20] because there really is no stereotypical scam victim.
[00:02:24] And I know this from my own personal experience, obviously.
[00:02:27] Also, the hundreds of emails that I've received
[00:02:30] from other people since the story came out,
[00:02:33] other financial professionals,
[00:02:35] their doctors, their lawyers, their government employees.
[00:02:38] There are people of all walks of life who this happens to.
[00:02:43] And this is also backed up by data and research that's done on STAND victims.
[00:02:47] There really is no one type of person who's vulnerable.
[00:02:52] Take Dennis Hope.
[00:03:02] He's a former US car salesman from California
[00:03:05] who claimed ownership of the moon in 1980.
[00:03:08] He allegedly made $12 million by selling it by the acre.
[00:03:13] Shouldn't we all be suspicious of that?
[00:03:15] We'll remember, con artists have sold the Brooklyn Bridge several times
[00:03:19] the Golden Gate Bridge and the Eiffel Tower.
[00:03:23] Why not the moon?
[00:03:25] How did you do it?
[00:03:27] Here's how.
[00:03:31] He got his hands on a copy of the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty
[00:03:36] and home did on an article 2 which states,
[00:03:40] Outer Space, including the moon and other celestial bodies,
[00:03:44] are not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty,
[00:03:48] by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.
[00:03:57] Hope took that to mean that while countries can't make land claims on the moon,
[00:04:02] individuals can.
[00:04:04] Hope discovered what he thought was a loophole and decided to stake his claim.
[00:04:11] As for scams, this is one that would make everyone including the courts scratch their heads.
[00:04:17] His next stop was United Nations as well as the government of the Soviet Union,
[00:04:23] neither responded.
[00:04:26] Hope assumed that because they didn't reply,
[00:04:28] he had tacit approval for his claim that he was now the rightful owner of the moon
[00:04:33] and ate other planets in the solar system.
[00:04:37] He divided the moon into plots, created deeds, and a special currency.
[00:04:43] He trademarked the term lunar embassy.
[00:04:46] And by 1995, he got a four to give up his day job.
[00:04:49] He also built a website called Moon Shop.
[00:04:53] Not surprisingly, it drew media attention.
[00:04:56] The least expensive plot of land on the lunar embassy site, a single acre,
[00:05:01] was priced at $24.99.
[00:05:05] The most expensive was on sale for $13.3 million.
[00:05:10] It was a continent-sized territory that include 5.3 million acres,
[00:05:15] not that you could use it for farming or grazing.
[00:05:18] Maybe apartments.
[00:05:27] Yeah, who financed that hope claimed to have more than 5 million customers
[00:05:32] who owned 611 million acres on the moon?
[00:05:36] 325 million acres on Mars, and it combined 125 million acres on Mercury, Venus,
[00:05:44] and a Venetian moon.
[00:05:46] Iow.
[00:05:46] Iow has said to have the highest possibility of finding life.
[00:05:50] Not necessarily life as we know it.
[00:05:53] It's unlikely to have drive-in theaters.
[00:06:01] Hope made scabs of money selling to celebrities, businesses and others.
[00:06:07] If not surprising that the whole tale fell apart,
[00:06:10] space law experts say the United Nations treaties applied to people as well as countries,
[00:06:15] rendering hopes claim, null, and void.
[00:06:21] France, Bonderdonk, the world's foremost space law expert agreed.
[00:06:27] The respected attorney has described hope self-proclaimed ownership of the moon
[00:06:31] and the solar system's planets, as eat or a hollow claim, or a fraud.
[00:06:38] It was a good idea that worked for a while, but that didn't stop others from selling real estate in space.
[00:06:44] This is from the news tech site in gadget.
[00:06:48] Mars won ventures, a company that planned to send humans to Mars
[00:06:50] as part of what was essentially in a elaborate reality show,
[00:06:53] confirmed that it filed for bankruptcy back in mid-January.
[00:06:56] That shouldn't end to any notion that the company ever sent anyone to Mars.
[00:07:00] Though let's be clear, the Mars 1 plan was always questionable at best.
[00:07:05] Dutch entrepreneur, Boss Londensdorf, dreamed up Mars 1 as a backdrop to the world's most expensive reality show.
[00:07:11] It recruited potential colonizers from a group of volunteers and made documentaries on each winner.
[00:07:15] The idea was to use all of this as a way to sell the program to broadcasters and get funding for the missions,
[00:07:21] but there hadn't been much movement on that front in recent years.
[00:07:24] No property was being sold this time around, but one way trip to Mars?
[00:07:29] One would anyone buy such a thing.
[00:07:32] MIT researchers poke numerous holes in the Mars 1 mission, saying that we simply didn't have the technology to land as a stain human life on Mars
[00:07:39] and the way the company was proposing.
[00:07:41] Landsdorf admitted that he didn't have the requisite knowledge to be able to talk about the details of the mission,
[00:07:46] instead he outsourced all technological work to other companies.
[00:07:49] While the Mars 1 mission didn't actually call for colonizing until 2027, it all seems to be a move point now.
[00:07:57] I met erupting myself because I need your help.
[00:08:00] In nearly three years, I produced more than 100 episodes of Scams and Cons.
[00:08:05] By choice, I paid all the bills out of my pocket.
[00:08:09] But now it's time to take the show to the next level, and I need your help.
[00:08:13] I'd like you to become a supporter of the podcast.
[00:08:17] Like a lot of shows, I'm using Patreon to make that possible.
[00:08:21] Unlike other shows, your support won't buy any special episodes that others don't get to hear.
[00:08:27] I value all my listeners, and I don't like separating them into the halves or have knots.
[00:08:33] So here's my ask.
[00:08:35] Visit patreon.com and search for Scams and Cons.
[00:08:40] Pick a support level that's right for you, and sign up.
[00:08:43] If you want to know the details of what it cost to produce the podcast,
[00:08:47] read the about section where I lay it out.
[00:08:50] You can do that before picking a level of support.
[00:08:53] Regardless, the podcast will always be free to hear,
[00:08:57] and I hope you'll show me some love by becoming a supporter.
[00:09:00] Thanks.
[00:09:01] Now back to the show.
[00:09:05] Being rich, famous or smart doesn't protect you from scammers.
[00:09:09] Here's NBC Bay Area.
[00:09:11] This is a real person.
[00:09:12] A fellow named Cory Doctorone says he got scammed at $8,000 by someone
[00:09:18] pretending on the phone to be his credit union.
[00:09:21] Cory tells me it was a perfect storm.
[00:09:23] He was rushing through the airport.
[00:09:24] His ATM had been declined recently.
[00:09:27] One of those situations where he was caught off guard.
[00:09:29] The flight that I was going to catch, I was very light to get to because the airport was in chaos.
[00:09:33] So instead of having an hour or two to call the bank, I had just minutes.
[00:09:37] And so I couldn't keep calling.
[00:09:39] It was just a bunch of things lining up exactly precisely in the right way for these fraudsters.
[00:09:44] The reason I'm telling you this story is because Cory is an expert in hacking and cybercrime.
[00:09:50] He's getting a lecture here about fraud and hacking at the hacking conference called DeafCon,
[00:09:55] which means if somebody can fool Cory into giving up his bank information,
[00:09:59] they can fool you, they can fool anybody.
[00:10:01] Look, I've worked in digital human rights for more than 20 years with the electronic frontier foundation.
[00:10:06] A lot of that has to do with information security and information security questions.
[00:10:11] Then there is Andy Cohen.
[00:10:13] He's a producer of the television programs The Real Housewives and watch what happens live.
[00:10:19] What happened to Cohen live was that he was scammed.
[00:10:22] I lost my bank card reported it last the next day.
[00:10:26] I get an email that looked like it was from my banks fraud alert.
[00:10:30] It wasn't because I lost my card.
[00:10:32] I was like, Oh, this must be real.
[00:10:34] I didn't click on the email address.
[00:10:37] You need to click on the email address even though it may say the name of your bank.
[00:10:41] If you click on it, you can see that it's not at that your bank dot com.
[00:10:46] It's from something else.
[00:10:47] I didn't check.
[00:10:48] I clicked the link which took me to my bank page.
[00:10:52] They asked me to sign in.
[00:10:54] I signed in what I did there was give these scammers access to my account.
[00:10:59] They then asked me for my Apple ID.
[00:11:01] No one will ever ask you for Apple ID.
[00:11:03] I said, this is a scam.
[00:11:05] I got off.
[00:11:06] I didn't think anything of it.
[00:11:07] I had already given them access the next day.
[00:11:10] I get a text.
[00:11:11] It looks like it's from my bank.
[00:11:13] Someone's trying to use your credit card at x place.
[00:11:16] Is this you know I type.
[00:11:18] Yeah, the phone rings.
[00:11:20] Again, the caller ID says it's from my bank.
[00:11:23] I pick it up.
[00:11:24] They say this is x fraud alert.
[00:11:26] I said, yes, yes, that's not making that charge.
[00:11:29] Now because I had given these hackers access to my account, they said to me, we want to go through some of your past charges and see if these are yours.
[00:11:37] Did you charge this?
[00:11:38] Yes.
[00:11:38] That was me.
[00:11:39] Did you charge this?
[00:11:39] Yes.
[00:11:40] So now I'm in.
[00:11:42] They're like, we're going to send you some codes.
[00:11:44] Tell us what we send you.
[00:11:45] What they were doing then, they sent me three codes.
[00:11:48] They were initiating wire transfer.
[00:11:50] Oh, my God.
[00:11:50] Out of my bank account.
[00:11:52] Oh, my God.
[00:11:52] I think I'm on with my bank and they were so good.
[00:11:55] Whoever you are, I hate you, but you are very good at your job.
[00:11:58] Oh, I'm telling them the codes over the phone.
[00:12:01] They then did something so nuts.
[00:12:03] Told the woman, wow, I got to see mail yesterday.
[00:12:06] I realized it was fraud when they asked for my apple ID.
[00:12:09] The woman said we would never ask for your own money.
[00:12:13] Oh, my God.
[00:12:15] They were protecting me.
[00:12:17] They then say we want you to get your keypad up on your phone.
[00:12:21] Put these numbers in.
[00:12:22] I do it and I don't understand what's happening for one second something flashes on my phone.
[00:12:28] I happened to take a screenshot of it because I was like, this is weird.
[00:12:31] I said it says caller forwarding activated or something.
[00:12:35] It activated call forwarding.
[00:12:37] What that did was I was on the phone for an hour with this woman.
[00:12:41] I got off and what happened is when the bank called
[00:12:45] me to ask me if I was doing these wires because they call you to say they were sizable
[00:12:50] wire transfers.
[00:12:52] The calls had been forwarded.
[00:12:53] I consider myself a smart functioning member of society.
[00:12:57] It seemed odd and I called my bank fraud after that because they had said to me, we're going
[00:13:03] to call you back in a half an hour.
[00:13:05] They never called me back.
[00:13:06] And so I was like this is weird.
[00:13:08] And I kept leaving things for the bank to call me back.
[00:13:11] They weren't calling me back.
[00:13:12] The calls were being forwarded to these people.
[00:13:14] My phone was silent all night.
[00:13:16] I said, you know what?
[00:13:17] I'm just going to go into my bank the next day.
[00:13:19] I went into the bank.
[00:13:21] We're going through it.
[00:13:22] They said, these wires were initiated when money is wired out of your account.
[00:13:28] It's gone.
[00:13:30] And if there's any place you think can't be scammed, it would be a casino.
[00:13:35] Professional gambler Phil Ivy would take issue with that with the caveat that he didn't
[00:13:40] scam them at all.
[00:13:41] He just gained an advantage.
[00:13:43] Here's Ivy on 60 minute sports.
[00:13:46] Advantage play is the term for any number of strategies used by players to exploit weaknesses
[00:13:52] in the house.
[00:13:53] It is an accepted practice among gamblers, but discouraged by casinos.
[00:13:59] Phil Ivy says he did nothing wrong, but his accusers say he did.
[00:14:04] And are two of the largest casinos in the world.
[00:14:06] The Borgata in Atlantic City and Crocford's in London.
[00:14:11] At the Borgata, Ivy won $9.6 million while playing Baccarot over four months since 2012.
[00:14:19] Over the course of two days in August of that year, Ivy won over seven and a half
[00:14:23] million pounds or about 12 million dollars at Crocford's.
[00:14:27] The Borgata paid Ivy but is now suing to get its money back.
[00:14:32] Crocford's withheld Ivy's winnings and he is suing them in a British court.
[00:14:36] They spend millions and millions of dollars on game protection.
[00:14:40] And a stair job for protector game and I'm viewing the casino as my opponent.
[00:14:44] It's my job to try to exploit weaknesses in the house and try to give myself the best opportunity to win.
[00:14:49] We asked for interviews with both casinos but they turned us down, citing the ongoing legal cases.
[00:14:55] But a look at the lawsuit show that both casinos accuse Ivy of something called edge sorting.
[00:15:01] And old but sophisticated way are reading the back of the cars.
[00:15:05] In high stakes gambling, edge sorting is not illegal.
[00:15:08] But casinos have a right to ban people known as advantage players because of their skill.
[00:15:14] I wouldn't let the Ivy play slots in a place I was working at.
[00:15:17] You would let a play.
[00:15:18] Hell no.
[00:15:19] Jim Hartley is a gambling expert with over 25 years of experience helping Las Vegas casinos protect themselves against
[00:15:26] cheats and advantage players alike.
[00:15:29] Edge sorting is simply taking advantage of imperfectly cut casino cards.
[00:15:35] Here's how it works.
[00:15:35] During the production process of cutting casino cards, the cuts of the edges are not identical.
[00:15:42] Making it possible for a trained eye to identify certain cards by their edge designs.
[00:15:48] Edge sorting is not easy.
[00:15:49] It's not easy.
[00:15:50] It's not easy even for the advantage player.
[00:15:52] Even for the advantage player.
[00:15:54] Hartley says the casinos have a complicated relationship with high rollers like the Ivy.
[00:15:59] The casino grants the player certain privileges and the player agrees to make large bets.
[00:16:05] Each side is looking to take the others money.
[00:16:07] That's what they do.
[00:16:09] So if you come in and we say, oh, we'd love to have you gamble on our casino man.
[00:16:12] You're on TV or the awesome.
[00:16:14] We'll give you a sweet and you know, we'll pick up at the airport and your room food beverage.
[00:16:19] Everything's on us.
[00:16:20] Here's tickets to the fight this weekend.
[00:16:22] But you got to play black check.
[00:16:24] You got to bet $5,000 a hand.
[00:16:25] You got to play point out.
[00:16:27] In Phil Ivy's cases, he answered up big dollars to play Bacara.
[00:16:32] How much money did you wire to Croquord's in London?
[00:16:36] A wire 1 million pounds.
[00:16:38] And to the Borgata in Atlantic City?
[00:16:40] 3 million US.
[00:16:42] A significant amount of money.
[00:16:44] That's correct.
[00:16:45] That was one of the reasons why they granted all the requests that I made because I wired the money up front.
[00:16:50] And they knew they had an opportunity to win, you know, a decent amount of money.
[00:16:53] Phil Ivy readily admits to Edge sorting.
[00:16:56] But it's the request that he made at both casinos.
[00:16:59] There are effort crux of the cases.
[00:17:01] He asked for several conditions that would enable him to read the back of the cards better, including using a specific brand of cards and playing with the same decks of cards for all of his games.
[00:17:12] I made a request for a shuffle machine.
[00:17:15] Why did you want that particular shuffle machine?
[00:17:16] Because I wanted the cards to remain in a certain order.
[00:17:19] And they agreed to that.
[00:17:20] And they agreed to that, yes.
[00:17:22] Second request?
[00:17:23] Our request today is an dealer.
[00:17:24] And the reason you want an agent dealer?
[00:17:26] Asian's deal, Punton Bank all the most, which is Bacharot.
[00:17:29] You felt more comfortable with the agent dealer.
[00:17:31] And your companion you mentioned was Asian.
[00:17:33] And the reason that was important to you?
[00:17:35] Because she was a part of my strategy.
[00:17:38] She was a part of my strategy and gave me the ability to execute this advantage play in mind.
[00:17:43] And she could communicate I'm assuming with the dealer as well too, who spoke Mandarin.
[00:17:49] And the casino agreed to these requests.
[00:17:52] The casinos agreed to every request made.
[00:17:54] In both lawsuits, the casinos mentioned Ivey's Asian companion.
[00:17:59] Her name is Chen Yan-sun.
[00:18:01] She is a known advantage player who has been banned from other casinos in the past
[00:18:06] because of her expertise in edge sorting.
[00:18:09] The Borgata and Crocker's claim,
[00:18:11] Sunspoken Mandarin to the dealers,
[00:18:14] and instructed them to turn cards so that she and Ivey could identify them.
[00:18:19] They don't like the way she plays.
[00:18:20] So, competitive business.
[00:18:21] They don't want you coming in there when they're money.
[00:18:23] They want to win just like I do.
[00:18:25] If you're an advantage player, just like your car count, they ask you not to play.
[00:18:28] So, casinos have that right to say you can't play in our...
[00:18:31] Yeah, they have the right to say we don't want your business.
[00:18:34] But they did not say that at Crocker's about through a companion, but Sun.
[00:18:37] No, they allowed her to play.
[00:18:38] Nor at the Borgata and Atlantic City.
[00:18:40] Nor at the Borgata.
[00:18:41] They agreed again to all of your requests again.
[00:18:44] They agreed to all my requests.
[00:18:46] So, Phil, in your mind, how much of an advantage
[00:18:48] did your successful effort at Edge sorting give you?
[00:18:54] Uh, had somewhere around a 5% or 6% advantage.
[00:18:56] I guess what I still could have lost.
[00:18:58] But in all fairness to be candid about it,
[00:19:00] even the slightest advantage to someone with your skill level can be pretty significant.
[00:19:07] Sure. And that's why I was in there.
[00:19:08] If I make a request and the house grants it, then how could that be cheating?
[00:19:13] Ah, wait! Why are you making a new Flynzburger Strandlorge?
[00:19:18] Grilled?
[00:19:19] Grilled?
[00:19:21] Grilled?
[00:19:21] Grilled?
[00:19:22] No more?
[00:19:22] Yeah, I'm a Christian.
[00:19:26] And so much more than Sun.
[00:19:29] Flynzburger Strandlager,
[00:19:30] without the fact that he was really not.
[00:19:33] I hope I'll be back with more.
[00:19:35] You know what?
[00:19:36] Me making a request, to give myself an advantage,
[00:19:39] you granted it, saying it's okay.
[00:19:41] If anyone should have known better, it's a casino.
[00:19:54] If you want to get screwed, find a con artist.
[00:19:57] If you want to really get screwed, find a con artist and the IRS.
[00:20:04] unintentionally, Francis Sharples did both.
[00:20:16] When she went to her credit union,
[00:20:18] she came with a script provided by a man promising to protect the retirement account she'd built over decades.
[00:20:24] She worked as a science advisor to the US government, including in the White House.
[00:20:30] Sharples is no idiot.
[00:20:32] She's trusted by the highest levels of government.
[00:20:35] The doctorate holding daughter of a plumber from Queens
[00:20:38] had made a life advising the federal government on stem cells,
[00:20:42] do energy technologies, and the effects of biological weapons.
[00:20:47] Despite a history of meticulousness, she trusted a stranger,
[00:20:51] who told her to transfer more than $600,000 to their account.
[00:20:56] She was instructed to keep herself on on so he could listen to her.
[00:21:01] If anyone asked whether she was put up to it,
[00:21:04] she was to say absolutely not.
[00:21:08] She provided the bank the routing number she'd been given,
[00:21:11] then drove her 2,500 home.
[00:21:14] That's when the 73-year-old woman really got hoes.
[00:21:26] The internal revenue service told Sharples she had to pay hefty taxes on the stolen money,
[00:21:32] which the federal government considered income.
[00:21:35] Tax specialists said someone in Sharples' position could face a six-figure bill.
[00:21:40] So why you ask can she be forced to pay taxes on money that was stolen from her?
[00:21:45] The answer is that her retirement fund was an IRA.
[00:21:49] The US tax code says when someone takes money from a tax deferred account,
[00:21:54] the IRS considers it a distribution.
[00:21:57] And distributions generally get taxed regardless of where the money comes from and how it's used.
[00:22:03] That meant Sharples, who had a comfortable income in semi-retirement,
[00:22:07] suddenly looked rich to the IRS.
[00:22:10] If the whole thing happened before 2018, she would not have been taxed.
[00:22:15] At that time there was a long-established deduction for individual theft victims,
[00:22:20] but when Congress overhauled the tax code in 2017, the deduction was axed.
[00:22:26] The stressed caused her to lose weight and consider remoraging her home to cover the taxes.
[00:22:32] Sharples appealed to former colleagues and others for help.
[00:22:36] And accountant pointed her toward the IRS procedure established in 2009 to aid victims of Bernie Maydoff
[00:22:42] and those caught in similar schemes.
[00:22:46] The plan allowed her to deduct investment losses if they met certain criteria.
[00:22:51] It helped, but she still ended up paying 100,000 in taxes.
[00:22:55] She later told the Washington Post,
[00:22:58] I have a fucking PhD, not a stupid person.
[00:23:02] I should have known better.
[00:23:05] Now I offer one other example of people who should have known better than to be scammed.
[00:23:09] East Providence Police are warning about a scam involving the sale of puppies on Facebook.
[00:23:15] Police say the scammers are using the identification of residents,
[00:23:18] listing puppies for sale and requesting money to be transferred for payment.
[00:23:23] Detectives say it appears to be a highly sophisticated fraud ring
[00:23:27] and are warning people to be extremely cautious when using Facebook Marketplace.
[00:23:31] Haley writes that her neighbor did pay only to receive another call asking for more money.
[00:23:37] It really bothers me that people fall for this because a lot of people can afford it.
[00:23:42] So at 1030 tonight, we told you about Elk Grove Police warning about a phone scam.
[00:23:46] Police say it has come to our attention that some have received calls from someone claiming
[00:23:51] to be an Elk Grove Police Department lieutenant.
[00:23:54] Falsely stating that there is a warrant out where the person answering the phone's arrest
[00:23:58] due to a failure to appear.
[00:24:00] The scammers then threatened immediate arrest and less the victim pays a sum of money
[00:24:04] from the police.
[00:24:07] The scammers not only posed as a police officer, but he manipulated the caller
[00:24:12] ID to show the verification of the win coming from the police department.
[00:24:16] This guy was really good.
[00:24:20] He knew his stuff and told him.
[00:24:22] He could easily spot a scammer.
[00:24:24] The 71 year old had already been evicted twice,
[00:24:27] losing nearly $1,500.
[00:24:28] But this time when a call came in,
[00:24:30] he thought for sure it was legitimate.
[00:24:33] He said he's a semester staff on agony says you have definitely won $600,000.
[00:24:39] In public is clearing house.
[00:24:40] The real convincer, the crook said within minutes,
[00:24:43] he would get a call from a major Mike Kavasik,
[00:24:46] verifying the information.
[00:24:47] Sure enough, St. Pete police's number popped up on his caller ID
[00:24:51] and a man claiming to be the major confirmed,
[00:24:54] Floyd was now hundreds of thousands of dollars richer.
[00:24:57] All he needed to do was pay a fee of $1,500.
[00:25:00] By purchasing these pre-paid cards.
[00:25:03] A warning from Wang and Dot Police,
[00:25:05] a man here coming to cops after sending nude photos
[00:25:08] to a stranger online.
[00:25:10] It was a trap.
[00:25:11] It's called sex stores shouldn't.
[00:25:13] Police here say a person posing as a woman.
[00:25:15] Frended this person on social media.
[00:25:17] Gained his trust.
[00:25:19] Got him to send compromising private photos
[00:25:22] and then was immediately threatened that
[00:25:24] if he did not pay up.
[00:25:25] The photos go public.
[00:25:27] They're praying on the kindness of strangers
[00:25:29] posing a stranded motorist in need of assistance.
[00:25:33] But this is all an act to get your money.
[00:25:36] We first told you about this scam back in April 2018
[00:25:39] and one year later,
[00:25:41] the OPP says it's gotten bigger
[00:25:42] and it spread beyond just a GTA.
[00:25:46] Dear listener,
[00:25:47] I'm talking about you.
[00:25:50] Now I'm not going to get all cheesy
[00:25:51] and tell you that listening to scams
[00:25:53] and condesers your best protection
[00:25:54] or to watch your nightly news every day.
[00:25:58] But we get warnings from law enforcement
[00:25:59] all the time about scams happening in our communities.
[00:26:03] We just need to listen.
[00:26:06] What I ask if you used to be scammerware
[00:26:08] if something seems wrong,
[00:26:11] it probably is.
[00:26:12] When that happens,
[00:26:14] check them out before acting.
[00:26:17] Scammers want to rush a mark
[00:26:18] into turning over money quickly.
[00:26:20] If they want payment in gift cards,
[00:26:22] walk away,
[00:26:24] hang up or do whatever you must
[00:26:25] put distance between you and the scammer.
[00:26:28] Especially if they want to stay on the phone with you.
[00:26:32] Rarely does anything require an immediate response,
[00:26:35] including learning that a relative
[00:26:36] has been in a car accident and needs money
[00:26:39] or even if they've kidnapped someone you care about
[00:26:41] and you hear what you think is their voice on the phone.
[00:26:45] That one minute that you take the thing
[00:26:47] through could easily save you thousands of dollars.
[00:26:50] There's no need to be afraid of everyone.
[00:26:54] The vast majority of us are good people,
[00:26:56] but being scammerware will help you spot the bad ones.
[00:27:04] If you enjoy scams in cons,
[00:27:07] tell your friends and encourage them to listen.
[00:27:10] And please give us a five star rating
[00:27:11] wherever you listen.
[00:27:13] Your ratings really do make a difference.
[00:27:16] Lastly, I'd be grateful if you'd support
[00:27:18] the show via Patreon.
[00:27:21] Your support will help the podcast grow
[00:27:22] to the next level.
[00:27:24] Just go to patreon.com and search for scams
[00:27:27] and cons or use the link in the show notes.
[00:27:31] Thanks for listening.