This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered.

This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal counseling, professional service, or any advice.

You should seek the services.

Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.

The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional legal advice.

The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted sources and references.

However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard the elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to a scam.

Let's talk about scams.

It's the must listen show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and their loved ones from scams.

Every Tuesday am Pacific time on K four HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose, and her guests will provide valuable insights and practical tips on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams.

And now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski.

Good Morning, everybody, Welcome, to let's talk about scams.

My name is Brian Watson and I have the pleasure of filling in for Joyce Petrowski this week and for the next two weeks as well.

I am a community.

Outreach specialist for Rose Resources Outreach to safeguard the elderly, and we are in the prevention business.

We want to prevent people from being scammed.

We run in a circle of people that see the terrible effects of people losing their money and it affects them emotionally, physically, financially, and are extremely passionate about people being protected from these nasty scammers that are out there.

So today's episode is sometimes we have to intervene and let me start out with this question.

How many of you out there have seen the show What Would You Do?

On ABC.

It's a show hosted by John Quinonez.

It's been on for a very very long time, and they put people in like scenarios.

It's one of those shows with hidden cameras and they'll set up in a restaurant or grocery store or out on the street and they use actors and they set up these scenarios to put people in an awkward situation.

A lot of them are very common.

Is like someone being mean, like a mom being mean to her kids, or an employer being very mean to an employee.

At a grocery store.

Or sometimes it's a bullying episode where someone's being bullied and they want to see if someone will intervene.

I watched one recently where they set up in a diner, a little coffee shop diner, and these people were put water on the ground and were pretending to slip and fall, and they were trying to get the patrons, the customers, to you know, back up their story and lie to the owners of the restaurant.

So it's a fun show.

It's it's also very awkward because they show the people debating whether to intervene or to step in.

But they play off these scenarios and it's really a case steady on human nature.

At what point would we intervene or do we just stick to ourselves because there's a risk, you know, if you intervene, things could go bad, right, the safest thing a lot of times is not to do anything.

So it's a great show.

It's been on for a very long time because.

It's entertaining, but it also gives us a view into you know how we work as human beings.

So I had a recent experience that could have been an episode of what would you do?

And actually, if the hidden cameras had come out, I would have been like, yep, you got me.

I could see that.

So this is what happened.

This was sometime last fall.

I accompanied my mother to a doctor's appointment.

And it was a very small waiting room and everyone's like tightly packed in chairs, and you could kind of hear everything, so.

You just try to mind your own business.

But there was a gentleman sitting across from me, and he's on his cell phone and he called a phone number.

You could tell.

He said, this is so and so, and I'm returning a phone call about a purchase.

And I started listening, even though I was trying not to.

But he's on his cell phone in a small waiting room, and I could hear what's going on.

And about a minute into his call, I jumped up out of my chair.

I looked at him and his wife and I said, you're being scammed.

And then I looked at the wife.

I said, your husband is being scammed.

You need to hang up the phone.

And they were both a little surprised and he hung up the phone.

Now, just because I do scam prevention for a living, this is not normal for me.

And in fact, in two years of working part time for Rose, this is the first time I've ever interrupted a scam.

Phone call in progress.

But this is what happened.

This potential victim in this case received a voicemail saying that his credit card had been used to purchase a very expensive video game system from a big box store.

And the what they want to do is they want to confirm that it's legitimate.

Well, of course it's not legitimate because this person didn't buy it.

But the whole thing's a scam.

And they say, sir, you know your credit card is going to be charged like eight hundred nine hundred dollars if do you want to reverse it?

Oh, yeah, I didn't buy that.

I didn't buy that.

And what they do is they start walking you through providing all your personal information.

So in this case, they first asked for his mailing address, so they need that for credit cards, and then eventually they get to the point, you know, the billing ip code, your billing addressed.

Then they asked for your credit card number to confirm and y'll ask for everything.

And when I heard this gentleman sitting in the waiting room providing his mailing address for his credit card, I knew he was being scammed, so I had to intervene.

So I knew about this scam because my mother received two of these phone calls the prior weekend, and she told me about those two phone calls.

And then, remember, one of the things that Joyce and I talk about all the time is having a phone a friend.

So when my mom gets a scam email, scam phone call, or anything, she lets me know one because I'm in the fraud prevention business, but two, I'm her son and I help, you know, keep an eye out for her.

My dad's the same way.

He forwards me emails.

He asks me I'm his phone a friend as well.

So what if I was wrong and this man was not being scammed, Well, he could have yelled at me and said mind your own dang business.

His wife could have yelled at me.

I could have everybody in this waiting room could have been looking at me and thinking, who's this guy that needs to mind his own business?

And I would have been stuck there waiting until my mom got called and it would have been very uncomfortable.

I mean, I could have gotten kicked out of the office if I was wrong.

Maybe it you know, it could not have been It could have ended really well.

But here's the point, and that's the title of the show today.

Sometimes we have to intervene, and in this case it was the right thing.

I took a chance and it all worked out.

So this particular scam about a fake charge, it's very effective on people who I like to call rule followers.

What is a rule follower?

Well, a rule follower is a law abiding citizen who always tries to do the right thing.

And just they're just good people.

And the problem is, rule followers get in trouble by scammers because if you're a procrastinator and you're a deadbeat and you don't follow the rules of civilization, it's hard to get you in a scam.

But rule followers are very susceptible to being scammed.

So what else do rule followers do?

Well?

Rule followers pay their bills on time a lot of times.

Even early rule followers put their shopping carts in those corrals at the grocery store.

Rule followers clean up their table at a fasthood restaurant.

They don't leave a mess.

Okay.

I love rule followers.

I'm a rule follower.

My wife's a rule follower, and it's just you know.

So that's why this scam works.

You know, scammers rely on rule followers to return phone calls.

So you know, you see your phone, you had a voicemail.

Oh okay, this is a big box store and you ordered a six hundred, eight hundred dollars gaming system.

Call us if you don't want it.

Well, what's a rule follow We're going to do.

A rule follower is going to call these the number back on the number provided, trusting that it's the big box store.

And that's how it works.

It's a normal human reaction to say I didn't buy that gaming system.

All right, So how do you prevent getting scammed in this thing?

You need to keep your wits and you need to resist the urge to respond immediately.

Joyce and I always talk about time is your friend.

Okay.

When we show our anatomy of a scam infographic, right in the middle of it is urgency.

The scammers want you to react quickly and move quickly, not to to anybody else, not think about it.

Okay, we want to do everything very slow and methodical when it comes to scammers.

So if you get a call or voicemail about a large purchase somewhere, and like I said, it could be a video gaming system at a big box store.

Or my dad recently got an email claiming to be Norton and they were going to charge him five hundred dollars for three years of some service.

You if they call you, you hang up the phone.

If you get a voicemail, don't use the number that they provide, Okay, just delete that email.

What you do is you contact the store directly through a verified number.

So you you go to the company's website, the legitimate website that you found on your own, and you find their contact or you could go to the store itself, okay, but never ever ever use the number provided by the scammer.

Okay.

That's the clue, you know, Like I've talked about before, if it's your bank that's claiming to call you about something, you pull out your ATM card, your debit card, flip it over and call the number on the back.

So, because that's the deal.

If you use the number provided by the scam or, you are falling right into their trap.

So here's the deal.

We have to have a healthy level of skepticism when it comes to every email or text message or voicemail that comes in.

You have to react slowly and methodically to prevent being scammed.

And you know, never be afraid to contact a trusted friend or a family member.

You don't have to react right away.

Call up your son, your daughter, your brother, your sister, a neighbor and just say, hey, I got this scary voicemail that said I bought this expensive product.

I don't know it's legitimate or not, so react really slowly.

That's that's the key.

So please share this information today.

This scam is very common and it's cheap and easy to do, so share this video.

Please go to our Facebook page.

We are on Facebook Roseadvocacy dot Org.

Just follow us and you get these these tips that we send out.

If you're on LinkedIn, I'm a big LinkedIn fan.

We're on LinkedIn as well.

And the big thing that we do, and I talk about this every week when I close out the episode, is sign up for our monthly email.

Go to Roseadvocacy dot Org.

It's scrolling across the bottom of the screen right now and right on that front page, you can sign up for our monthly newsletter.

All we need is your name in your email, very simple, and you will get an email once a month, and then we also send something out on Tuesday mornings.

It's a very abbreviated version and it's just good tips.

And then when you get these emails, share it with your friends, and then even better, have them sign up and then have their friends sign up.

These scammers are relentless.

And the thing that bothers me the most about being in the scam prevention business is people do not have the same urgency that I have and the Joyce has, and the members of our board and the members of our advisory committee have when it comes to scams.

We see it every single day, and so many people aren't just are not doing enough.

So it minimums sign up for our monthly email like it's free, and if you don't like it, you can cancel it and we won't be offended.

But I know you won't cancel it because it's just good information.

Get your neighbors, your friends, family, everyone to sign up.

And because that's what I've learned being in law enforcement and being in the nonprofit world.

The last couple of years is these scammers aren't going anywhere or anywhere soon.

And these scams keep repeating, and then they come up with new ones, and they're very good.

They sound legitimate, and people fall victim every day.

And like I said at the beginning of the show, today, we are passionate about preventing people from being scammed.

I would love to put myself out of a job.

If we were that successful and there are no more scammers, I would have to find another part time job.

But I just know it's not going to happen because it's too profitable.

On August fifth, next week, we are going to do a review of phishing and smishing.

So emails and text messages meant to trick you.

These are the most common ones that we're going to see, and it's just a good time to go back to the basics and review fishing and smishing.

And I'm gonna have some examples to put on the screen next week of all the latest ones that I've seen that I've either received myself, or I've seen online or my dad has sent me.

So please join us.

Next Tuesday morning and we're gonna talk phishing and smishing, all right, Thanks, for listening.

Be safe out there, be very leary of every email, text message that you receive, and don't be scared, but just be empowered and don't call for scams.

All right, thanks for listening.

We'll see everybody, see you all next week.

Well that's all the knowledge for this episode.

Tune in every Tuesday at eight am Pacific time on kfour HD Radio at KFOURHD dot com as Joyce explores a variety of knowledge.

So you have the power to make scam protection your healthy habit, and until then, feel free to reach out to Joyce and let's talk about scams.