[00:00:00] In this week's news, a potential victim got wise to the scammer on the phone and recorded
[00:00:17] part of the call.
[00:00:18] We'll let you listen in.
[00:00:20] And to Sandy A. Goleman, who was scammed out of $147,000, got her money back, but her
[00:00:26] family had to raise a ruckus with the bank to get it.
[00:00:30] But we start with the story of a man who sold the New Yorker hotel.
[00:00:34] He was indicted because he didn't own the building.
[00:00:36] The New York Post said Mickey Barretto was charged with several counts of falsifying property
[00:00:41] records claiming that between 2019 and 2003, he claimed ownership of the art deco landmark.
[00:00:49] Prosecutors say he demanded that tenants pay rent.
[00:00:52] The Post reported that Barretto's scam started after a one-night stay at the hotel in June
[00:00:57] 2018.
[00:00:59] He allegedly told the hotel that he wanted to enter a lease agreement through New York's
[00:01:03] rent stabilization law.
[00:01:06] The hotel was not interested, and its owners, the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification
[00:01:11] of World Christianity, sent Barretto packing.
[00:01:14] Barretto turned to the civil court where the judge ordered the hotel to let him back
[00:01:19] in.
[00:01:20] Barretto was awarded a year-free rent at the historic hotel tower.
[00:01:25] His luck ran out in 2019 when he tried to claim ownership.
[00:01:29] Barretto convinced clerks at the city's Department of Finance that Judge Jack Stoller's orders
[00:01:34] to let him back into the hotel actually meant he was now the owner of the 189,000,000
[00:01:39] 43-story hotel.
[00:01:42] Prosecutors say Barretto demanded rent from one of the hotel's tenants, registered the
[00:01:46] building under his name, and demanded that the hotel's bank turn over its accounts
[00:01:50] to him.
[00:01:51] Barretto also allegedly contacted the New Yorker hotel's franchiseer, Windom, and attempted
[00:01:57] to get it to transfer the franchise to him.
[00:02:01] He's entered a plea of not guilty before the court.
[00:02:03] Apparently his scam has room for improvement.
[00:02:07] A WTOP radio reporter in Washington, D.C., almost got scammed.
[00:02:12] The radio station reported that one of its sports and traffic reporters got a phone call
[00:02:16] claiming he owed a fee to the police, and he needed to come to the station to handle
[00:02:20] it.
[00:02:21] The reporter said, quote, he said he was from law enforcement.
[00:02:25] I even heard police radios in the background.
[00:02:28] And he simply said that we have two jury violations in your name.
[00:02:32] You need to come to Germantown to the Montgomery County Sheriff's office and clear this up for
[00:02:37] a fee of just over $1,000, and he named invoice numbers and a juror number.
[00:02:42] End quote.
[00:02:43] The reporter, Steve Drescher, caught on quickly, was taken aback by how real it sounded.
[00:02:49] The sheriff's office said many such calls have been made around the county.
[00:02:54] In Australia, a potential victim got a phone call from a scammer pretending to be from
[00:02:59] the National Australian Bank, known to most as the NAB.
[00:03:03] Yahoo, Finance and Australia said the caller knew his potential victims personal details
[00:03:08] and told them they had been an attempted transaction on the account in New Zealand.
[00:03:13] You also claim to have sent him a text message from an AB.
[00:03:17] When the scammer called, the potential victim had a tape recorder running.
[00:03:21] Yeah, well, I'll call that if it goes out then so be it, but I'm not going to be talking
[00:03:26] to somebody on private about some secret code, sorry.
[00:03:30] No, sir.
[00:03:31] It's something that I have sent you just to complain.
[00:03:33] It's a two-factor authentication.
[00:03:35] Okay?
[00:03:36] This is AI generated.
[00:03:39] Yeah, that's right.
[00:03:41] Exactly.
[00:03:42] So I said that too.
[00:03:43] As soon as I said I sent it, you'll receive a text message from that correct?
[00:03:47] Yes.
[00:03:48] Exactly, sir.
[00:03:49] So it's impossible if I didn't work for this institution for me to send you text messages
[00:03:55] on the government gateway.
[00:03:56] So if you click on that text message and if you scroll up, you will be able to see that
[00:04:00] you've received previous texts on there before.
[00:04:02] But it's not something that you haven't received from us.
[00:04:06] Yeah.
[00:04:07] All right, mate.
[00:04:08] Exactly.
[00:04:09] So if you just go ahead and pop on to that text message or I'm going to do that.
[00:04:11] No, I'm not going to do it until I speak to somebody from that that I actually call.
[00:04:16] That you're actually called?
[00:04:17] Okay, sir.
[00:04:18] So what I'm going to go ahead is I'm going to go ahead and try to stop this payment, but
[00:04:22] if it does go ahead and leave the account and of course we will be live or for this
[00:04:25] payment, okay?
[00:04:27] Okay, I love you.
[00:04:28] Bye-bye.
[00:04:29] Thanks, mate.
[00:04:30] Fortunately it was the phone that went click and not the mouse.
[00:04:35] This is scams and cons news.
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[00:06:21] CBS San Francisco set a band sold fake investments in real estate and businesses.
[00:06:26] The television station said local prosecutors who said the man convinced four people to
[00:06:31] transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars to his personal accounts, never invested
[00:06:36] the cash, or returned it to investors who requested refunds.
[00:06:40] The man faces charges of grand theft, securities fraud, identity theft, passing fraudulent checks,
[00:06:48] filing a false document along with white collar or taking enhancements.
[00:06:52] He's believed to have taken more than $2.3 million from his four victims.
[00:06:58] Would you fall for a scam that asked you to pay $65,000 in gold bars?
[00:07:03] The St. Louis Boussérie area man did?
[00:07:06] Samuel V said the man got a call from someone pretending to be an FBI agent who told him
[00:07:11] that his identity was stolen and there was a warrant for his arrest.
[00:07:16] To stay out of trouble he'd have to pay a large amount of money.
[00:07:19] When the so-called agent came to the house to pick up the gold, the man got suspicious,
[00:07:25] refused to pay and took a photo of the fake agent's rental car.
[00:07:29] That gave police a lead to chase.
[00:07:31] We were able to identify a person and through rental car agreements and investigations,
[00:07:38] we were able to determine a person that we thought it might be.
[00:07:42] Police charge-tomand believed to be from Alabama and authorities there hoped to pick him up.
[00:07:48] If you find yourself at an intersection in Illinois and encounter individual soliciting
[00:07:53] funds for a family member's funeral, they could be a scam.
[00:07:58] Officials come in various forms and could be challenging to discern from genuine situations.
[00:08:03] Police say a warning was shared on the next door app by an individual in Rockford, warning
[00:08:08] of another scam tactic involving individuals parading with posters seeking donations
[00:08:14] for a supposed funeral.
[00:08:16] Indugene Oregon, KECI says a scammer, posing as an animal services official, is targeting
[00:08:23] people who have posted about lost pets.
[00:08:26] The official demands payment for emergency medical care when in fact the pet has not been found.
[00:08:32] Police say scammers got their information from posters and adds place to round the community.
[00:08:37] They say Jack Richardson from Lane County Animal Services has found their pet but it's injured.
[00:08:43] They then demand payment for emergency medical treatment via cash app.
[00:08:48] Now Lane County Animal Services say they would never withhold emergency medical care
[00:08:53] for any animal, nor demand payment via cash app, gift cards, money orders or any other
[00:08:58] app.
[00:08:59] They also do not contact owners via text message.
[00:09:03] This is scamming continues.
[00:09:14] Let me introduce you to Barry Clue, an authorized financial advisor from New Zealand and a
[00:09:19] very special kind of stain on humanity.
[00:09:22] He was a very knowledgeable young guy.
[00:09:25] He was a registered financial advisor.
[00:09:27] Type a guy that was being over backwards to help you.
[00:09:30] You could be forgiven for thinking that Barry sounds like a great guy and you'd be right.
[00:09:35] Well, right up until the point when you're wrong.
[00:09:37] There was all bit dishes.
[00:09:39] You stole from my son who has a disability.
[00:09:41] I trust him neither, no.
[00:09:43] He died believing that we're all taking care of.
[00:09:46] A psychopath is somebody who lacks empathy, acts impulsively.
[00:09:51] I think there's a strong case that Barry might be all of those things actually.
[00:09:54] To find out how Barry Clue stole over $15 million from 81 victims, subscribe to Clueless,
[00:10:00] the long con.
[00:10:01] That's Clueless, spelled K-L-O-O-G-H-L-E-S.
[00:10:06] It's not often the victims get their money back after a scam, but it happened in San Diego
[00:10:14] where a woman recovered $147,000 from a scammer who talked her out of the money.
[00:10:21] The savings were from the sale of her home.
[00:10:23] She and her husband moved to be closer to their children, then he became ill and moved
[00:10:28] into a care facility.
[00:10:30] You know I thought I was doing the right thing and it turned out disastrous.
[00:10:37] Sergio Flores at NBC's Seven in San Diego explained how the scam was run.
[00:10:43] So let's break down how it played out based on the official notification emails she received
[00:10:47] from Wells Fargo.
[00:10:49] After she gave the caller her banking information at 127, her password was changed.
[00:10:54] Four minutes later, digital wire services were added to her account.
[00:10:57] Six minutes after that, a recipient with a name Wendell Henry was set up.
[00:11:02] Judith transferred $49,000 to that account and get this.
[00:11:06] She tells me she didn't see the name Wendell Henry, but her own name she later found out
[00:11:11] that was a nickname given to the account.
[00:11:14] And my name was on there and I clicked on Judith Anderson and we sent the wire.
[00:11:21] And there was another one.
[00:11:23] She sent two more transfers the same way and Judith says each time the caller
[00:11:27] amped up the pressure, he kept telling me, okay, you've got one minute.
[00:11:31] You've got one minute left to do this.
[00:11:34] And as the fourth transfer was being processed, the whole thing just became too much
[00:11:38] since Judith and she hung up.
[00:11:40] It appeared the money was gone, but the television station asked Wells Fargo why internal controls
[00:11:46] were in place to protect customers.
[00:11:48] Wells Fargo waffled saying it was an industry-wide concern and declined to help.
[00:11:53] Later, Wells Fargo reimbursed the woman for the loss.
[00:11:57] It could be because the daughter took the story to the television station and social media
[00:12:02] where millions of people responded.
[00:12:05] When we first saw the first 49,000 go back into the account on a Thursday, my brother was
[00:12:12] the first one that saw it and Wells Fargo hadn't reached out to us yet.
[00:12:16] So we weren't sure it was happening and we both said should we tell mom maybe of this
[00:12:20] yet?
[00:12:21] And I said let's just wait for the morning and just see what happens.
[00:12:25] And then by the next morning as when Wells Fargo called and gave us, gave me the news that
[00:12:31] they were going to be refunding all of it and I was traveling so you can imagine, I
[00:12:38] wanted to be with mom and person the teller but we ended up facetiming her and telling
[00:12:43] her the news and we were just elated.
[00:12:47] Tracy looked back on her experience.
[00:12:49] Well, I knew we needed to just make a lot of noise.
[00:12:52] I wasn't gonna let it rest and so I told mom, let's reach out to the news and just get
[00:13:00] a little buzz going about it and of course it wasn't easy and she was embarrassed and
[00:13:06] said people are gonna call me dumb.
[00:13:08] And I feel so stupid that it even got to that point but I really felt like the word
[00:13:16] needed our intention of putting that word out was to try to help other people.
[00:13:20] Lots of people said, oh do a go fund me.
[00:13:23] We want to support and I was really adamant from the beginning that we weren't going
[00:13:27] to raise money from family at friends that I felt well Fargo needed to make it right
[00:13:32] but yeah, just get in the word out there but it wasn't easy for her.
[00:13:37] This is Scams and Cons news.
[00:13:41] Scams and cons is a member of the Evergreen Podcast Network.
[00:13:45] Love this is Dr. Grande, the host of True Crime Psychology and Personality.
[00:13:50] On my podcast I explore and explain the pathology behind some of the most horrendous crimes and
[00:13:56] those who commit them.
[00:13:57] We discuss topics like narcissism, psychopathy, sociopathy and anti-social personality disorder
[00:14:04] from a scientifically informed perspective.
[00:14:07] What is a narcissist?
[00:14:09] How do you spot a sociopath?
[00:14:11] What science can you look for to protect yourself from these dangerous personalities?
[00:14:15] It's not just about the stories but also the science and psychology behind them.
[00:14:21] So if you're interested in True Crime or Mental Health I'd encourage you to give my show
[00:14:24] a listen wherever you get podcasts.