[00:00:00] Our brains not only reward us for being trusted, but also for being trustworthy.
[00:00:07] We genuinely enjoy behaving in a trustworthy manner.
[00:00:10] We don't want to breach others' trust.
[00:00:12] We want to reciprocate, to do right by others.
[00:00:27] Anyone can be scammed and you're no exception. They are trust, fear and greed. As you heard from Anna Bockler at his TED Talk in Germany, we are naturally inclined to trust. In fact, we must trust each other for society to function. And as any Wall Street trader will tell you, fear and greed have the power to move financial
[00:01:43] markets around the world.
[00:01:47] Fear makes us worry if our armpits smell fresh. Here's A.I. Kevin reading from the article a list of motivators the authors believe are important in cultivating a mark. It was striking how some scam victims kept their decision to respond private and avoided speaking about it with family members or friends. It was almost as if with some part being drawn into the scam, whilst non-victims include many people who discard scams without giving them a second glance. From the victim interviews, it was clear that some people viewed responding to a scam as taking a long odds gamble.
[00:04:20] They recognized that there was something wrong with the science underlying that hasn't been really good about it. And so in some ways, that's what led me to write this book. As a scientist, I really wanted to work on correcting a lot of the misconceptions that
[00:05:42] are out there to empower people to make better even if it cost me a moment to kind of build a reputation and to build social bonds in the long term. And depending upon the situation, which decision you choose can change from moment to moment. And you can think about it, if my friend Meng loans me money in the moment, if I don't pay
[00:07:02] him back, well, I'm ahead.
[00:07:03] I've profited in the short term.
[00:07:05] The long term is probably a poor decision because he's not going to give me money again He has a friend who's a lawyer, and the lawyer says all they have to do is hold the money for 30 days, and if no one claims it, they can split it three ways. Once again, she must accept as now there are three people who know the secret. The question becomes, who will hold the money?
[00:08:21] These three strangers don't know if they can trust was misplaced, and it cost her $6,000. Greed was also involved, so let's move on to that second way of becoming a con artist
[00:09:40] sucker.
[00:09:44] Bernie Madoff traded on the greed of the powerful would do. He wrote a book about it.
[00:11:01] Banking giant Wells Fargo has also repeatedly proven itself to be selfish.
[00:11:05] Here's NBC News. Fargo's new CEO called the bank's past conduct reprehensible and wholly inconsistent with its values and promised to ensure that nothing like this happens again. But tonight's fine does not clear individual executives from further investigation and the Federal Reserve continues to ban Wells Fargo from growing any bigger until it's reorganized
[00:12:20] the company to prevent this abuse from repeating itself.
[00:12:24] This wasn't Wells Fargo's first tango with the law. email employees and convinced borrowers to buy auto insurance they didn't need. Oh, and in 2018, the company discovered that its business banking group had improperly altered documents about business clients in 2017 and early 2018. Oopsie! Then there's a new kind of scam, one that involves artificial intelligence.
[00:13:42] Here's Jennifer DiSafano before a Senate investigating committee. Help me, help me, help me. She begged and pleaded as the phone was taken from her. A threatening and vulgar man took the call over. Listen here, I have your daughter. You call anybody, you call the police. I'm gonna pop her stomach so full of drugs, I'm gonna have my way with her. I'm gonna drop her in Mexico and you'll never see your daughter again. Fear doesn't get much more real than that. The next few minutes were every parent's worst nightmare.
[00:15:02] I was fortunate to have a couple of moms there
[00:15:04] who knew me well and they instantly went to action. in a van with a bag over my head with $50,000 in cash to be transported to my daughter. If I didn't have all the money, then we were both going to be dead. I was shocked. At that point in time, the second mom came back to me and she had located my husband who had found Bree resting safely in bed. She came to me and told me that Brianna was safe, but I did not believe her because I had just spoken to my daughter and I was very sure of her
[00:16:23] voice and I was very sure of her cries. the voice on the phone was her daughter. The scammers created that illusion by artificially imitating her daughter's voice. Greed was not a factor because the power of fear was overwhelming.
[00:17:43] Now I'm not about to tell you to into motion. If you find yourself in a situation where you question trustworthiness, are motivated by greed or paralyzed by fear, remember those three R's. Regain control, respond, and react. The ability to think clearly coming to life on this weekly true horror show. Disturbed is not for the faint of heart. It's an exploration of real, unadulterated horror sourced from everyday people. Each episode is a descent into the macabre, where we narrate stories that will leave you
[00:20:23] on the edge of your seat and crawling in your skin.