How Social Engineering Turns Panic Into Cash Loss

Drew Thomas  0:34  
Okay, so welcome back to another episode of Bank Chats, a 2 Cents episode of Bank Chats. I am, of course, your host, Drew Thomas, and with me, my co-host, my executive producer, my editor, my thumbnail creator, my transcriptionist, Jeff Matevish.

Jeff Matevish  0:49  
I like that list. It's getting longer, longer, longer.

Drew Thomas  0:54  
It is, and, and mine is still just Dancing Monkey. So, so without, without Jeff, this this episode this podcast would not, would not exist. So yeah, so what where, where you where do we?

Jeff Matevish  1:10  
Okay.

Drew Thomas  1:12  
Try that again.

Jeff Matevish  1:13  
Okay.

Drew Thomas  1:14  
Dancing Monkey needs a drink of water. Where are we starting? What are we doing today?

Jeff Matevish  1:18  
Today we, so last week was National Social Engineering Day.

Drew Thomas  1:26  
Ah, okay, August 6th.

Jeff Matevish  1:28  
August 6th was National Social Engineering Day. I have trouble saying that once, let alone five times fast. But so we thought it would be interesting to, to talk about some social engineering tactics that, that scammers may implement to try to take you for your money. Yeah, with some real-life scenarios that yeah Drew had found.

Drew and Jeff  1:49  
Yeah, so you're right. We, we have definitely talked about scams in the past, and it bears repeating. There is. Because they're constantly changing. One, one good reason.

Drew Thomas  1:49  
Yeah, for sure, they are constantly changing, and this is a relatively new one compared to anything we've talked about in the past.

Jeff Matevish  1:55  
Yeah.

Drew Thomas  2:12  
Similar elements to some, but, but definitely a unique twist on some of the things we've talked about before.

Jeff Matevish  2:18  
And elaborate, not, not necessarily just you know, a scammer trying to take a couple dollars from you or whatever. Yeah, there's, there's multiple parties involved, multiple steps, multiple possible multiple days. Yeah.

Drew Thomas  2:30  
Absolutely. So, but this, this was interesting. So, I follow a guy on social media. His name is Doc Compton, and maybe, maybe we can put a little clip of, of him, you know, in in this at some point.

Doc Compton  2:45  
Hello.

Scammer  2:46  
Hello.

Doc Compton  2:47  
Yes.

Scammer  2:50  
This is Adam from Geek Squad. How can I help you today?

Doc Compton  2:53  
Well, hi Adam, I have received an email from you this morning.

Scammer  2:58  
Okay. Okay. So, can you please tell me like what kind of computer you are using right now? It's an apple?

Doc Compton  3:05  
It's a laptop.

Scammer  3:06  
Windows computer?

Doc Compton  3:07  
That's what I was saying. It's a laptop.

Scammer  3:09  
Yeah, it's a Windows?

Doc Compton  3:11  
It's yeah, laptop.

Scammer  3:12  
It's a Windows?

Doc Compton  3:13  
It's one of those you can fold up, you know, for easy storage or whatever. You carry it in your briefcase and stuff.

Scammer  3:22  
Yeah, click on that. Open the new tab.

Doc Compton  3:24  
There's a whole bunch of buttons come out of that and God almighty. It's got new tab, new window, new incognito window, your Chrome passwords and autofill, history, downloads, bookmarks and lists, but he taught us that there's a plus sign up there at the top of the screen, and if you click on that, it opens up a new Googler. I don't know if you knew that. Yeah, you don't have to hit them three dots and run through that big old long list. What now?

Doc Compton  4:02  
What? I didn't catch all that.

Drew Thomas  4:05  
He's a, a consumer advocate, and he works basically. I think he's in Texas, but he does a lot of social media about scamming. And what he does is he basically scams the scammer. Okay, he'll get these robocalls, these scam calls, and then he'll try to keep them on the line as long as possible. Usually, trying to make sure that they don't, you know, scam anybody else while he's because they he figures if they're on with him, they can't be scamming somebody else at the same time.

Jeff Matevish  4:38  
And hopefully scaring them into maybe shutting down their operation or whatever too. Yeah.

Drew Thomas  4:42  
Yeah. I don't know that he's, he's, he's definitely made them angry.

Jeff Matevish  4:46  
Okay, I've seen, I've seen other, I've seen other YouTubers or social media influencers that do that. They'll, they'll scam the scammer to the point where that, that their, their, their hope is that, that scammer shuts down their operation. Like to the point where he'll, he'll zoom in on the person. Like if this is a digital scam, yeah, he'll zoom in on the, the person's location on Google Maps, and then he'll enable the person's camera and show him himself, and like wow, like, like, like get into the scammer's head enough that they hope that it shuts down the operation. Yeah, yeah.

Drew Thomas  5:19  
Yeah. I mean, it's. I hope that's true. I hope. I hope it works at least for some of them. I mean, because it feels like they are just never ending. The faucet just never gets turned off. Yeah.

Jeff Matevish  5:29  
You stop one, and another one pops up. Yeah. Yeah.

Drew Thomas  5:32  
So, anyway, so he, this Doc Compton that he shared a video, and this is the video that we're going to work on today. He shared a video of a young woman who was recently taken advantage of, and I think that this video may have made the rounds. So, some of our listeners or watchers may have seen it, but I think it, it bears breaking it down because it's a really, I hesitate to use the word good because you never want somebody to be taken advantage of as far as scams, but it's, it's a, it's a good example of how this social engineering can work on someone, and you'll hear her in her own words tell you not only what happened but how it made her feel and what she was thinking at the time.

Jeff Matevish  6:19  
Okay.

Drew Thomas  6:21  
So, I just want to go through this. It's about a nine-minute video. I don't want to just play the video from start to finish because there's a lot to unpack. So, what I want to do is I want to play little clips, and then you and I can come back in and we can kind of talk about that clip and what, what she says and what's going on at the moment. Maybe reinforce some things for people, and then we'll, we'll continue on. Does that sound fair?

Jeff Matevish  6:40  
Yeah, yeah. I have not seen the video in totality, so this is new to me too. I know a little bit of a gist of, of what the video entails, but yeah, yeah.

Drew Thomas  6:47  
So, let me play the first part of it, and then, and yeah, and then we'll go from there.

Keira  6:55  
Hey, internet. My name's Keira, and I can't say it out loud because it makes me ill. But I was scammed for a large amount of money, and I feel so dumb. I feel there are a lot of emotions. This was about 24 hours ago, and I'm still settling in, and I'm still trying to figure out what happened to me, but I just want to put this out here because I do not want this to happen to anybody else because it is not recoverable. This wasn't a digital scam. This wasn't something that I can just tell my bank, hey, this I didn't do this and I get it back. This was so like I was dumb. I was dumb. You need to like think, like I had a moment of dumbness, and they got me for my life savings.

Drew Thomas  7:53  
Okay, so like I said, lots to unpack here. But basically, I think that first part just expresses how a lot of people feel when it comes to scams or being scammed. You somehow feel like it's your fault. The, the, the scammer has a fantastic ability in, in a lot of cases to make you feel, even though you are the victim, as though you've done something wrong. And...

Jeff Matevish  8:21  
That social engineering, yeah.

Drew Thomas  8:22  
Yeah. yeah. And this notion that you know she says you know how dumb she is, and says she's not dumb, she's not dumb. And, and if and if, if, if you or someone you know has been a victim of one of these scams, please you're not dumb. Please don't take it that way. These scams are literally designed. It is their job. These, these scammers make it their occupation to find a way to separate you from your money in an illegal way.

Jeff Matevish  8:54  
Yep, they're really good at it. I mean, this is one example, but that, that scammer probably scammed 1,000 people's, other like 1,000 other people like her, and she just unfortunately bit you know the, the, the bait you know.

Drew Thomas  9:09  
Yeah. I mean, absolutely. So, that's the first part, and you're going to hear her. She, she, she beats herself up pretty good, which is unfortunate. But let's I want to, I want to play the next, the next part here and let her start telling you what happened and then we'll, we'll go from there, so.

Keira  9:29  
Yesterday I get a call from my bank and it was my bank's number. I googled the number. I am like going like in my head, like yes, that like back and forth, like is my bank? Is it a scam? Is I finally like tell myself like this is real. I googled the number. This guy seems legit. Like he's not asking you for any of my information. He's telling me that there's been fraudulent activity on my card and asking me if I am aware of a charge in Texas. I say no. I'm not in Texas. I'm, I'm in Colorado, so that like that's happened to me before. And normally the next step is like they freeze my card, and then I get sent a new one.

Drew Thomas  10:12  
Okay, so I think that you know working for a bank, I think that we've experienced that before. We, we get fraud calls every single day into our call center. People calling to say that their card has been compromised or something has happened. But and, and we as a bank, I mean, she did the right thing, right? She, she, she listened to what everybody said and told her about don't always necessarily trust the caller ID.

Jeff Matevish  10:41  
Yeah, she said she googled the, the phone number and it was her bank's phone number. Right. She probably didn't in the moment, she was probably panicking and she didn't hang up and, and call the, the, the number back by physically dialing that number to ensure that it was her bank that she was calling. She assumed that it was the same phone number, didn't know it was spoofed, right? And that's a big thing right now.

Drew Thomas  11:04  
Yeah, that's so. Phone number spoofing is definitely a thing. We've, we've gotten very accustomed since the '90s of just trusting that whatever pops up on the screen on your phone is where the number's calling coming from, right? That was the whole concept of caller IDs. You could see who was calling you before you answered the phone. Obviously, that is no longer a reliable way to know who's on the other end of the line.

Jeff Matevish  11:27  
Right. Right. Right, right. The other, the other part that I noted was that they didn't ask for information, which may have led her to, to put her guard down because we, we, we, we preach quite often that you know your bank's never going to ask for your PIN or your password or anything like that, and, and this scammer knows that yeah they didn't ask for personal information other than her location, so she was not giving out her personal information at all.

Drew Thomas  11:57  
Well, and which is different than, not only that they didn't even ask her for where she was, she volunteered it. Right, they just said where the transaction occurred.

Jeff Matevish  12:04  
Right, that's, that's a good point.

Drew Thomas  12:06  
And she said, no, no, no, that's not me. So, so far, this sounds really...

Jeff Matevish  12:11  
Legitimate. Yeah.

Drew Thomas  12:12  
Right. Pretty normal, right? Yeah, and that's the one thing that I think that people do have to keep in mind is that it's not just us. It's not just our bank. It's not just this podcast. It's not just your bank, your credit union. There are, you know, nonprofit organizations, government organizations, so many people trying to put out information about how to avoid being scammed. Guess who also hears all that? The scammers, right? Yeah, right.

Jeff Matevish  12:42  
So, so they're engineering their, their, their tactics to, to circumvent those situations. Yeah.

Drew Thomas  12:48  
Right. So, now you know they're, they're actually bringing this up to her as though, hey, I'm, I'm the good guy telling you you're being scammed. Yeah, let's try to you know.

Jeff Matevish  12:58  
Yeah, that's a good point.

Drew Thomas  12:59  
Yeah. All right. So, let me, let me play the next, the next part here.

Keira  13:04  
He said, okay, I need to transfer you to our fraud department. They are going to bring you through the next steps. And I, okay, cool. So, I get transferred. It's like a new number. I'm thinking it's real at this time, so I don't like Google this new next number. I'm just listening, and she's telling me that actually I'm, I'm a victim of identity theft, and that there's somebody in the bank using my ID or all the information on my ID to make a withdrawal of all of my money, and so I'm at this point starting to really panic. I...

Drew Thomas  13:41  
Okay, so now she's panicked, right? So, we tell people that all the time. You know, the, the idea behind a lot of these scams is to get you worked up, get you into that fight or flight mentality where you're not thinking straight.

Jeff Matevish  13:55  
Yep.

Drew Thomas  13:56  
You're just reacting. Yep, that's where they want you. Yep, right, and they've got her there now.

Jeff Matevish  14:00  
There was something dire. Yes. Yeah.

Drew Thomas  14:02  
Yeah. I saw you writing down. What did you write down?

Jeff Matevish  14:06  
First thing that I noted was transfer to the fraud department. New phone number. So, a lot of these scammers are trying to show that this is a big corporation. It's not just a one, a one pony show. One person is not behind this entire scam by, by transferring the person from one phone or one, one department to another shows that this might be a legitimate phone call and this is some a true scam yeah, yeah.

Drew Thomas  14:35  
Yeah plus it's a way for them to get her off of whatever number was being spoofed and onto somebody else, right, right, right.

Jeff Matevish  14:41  
Right, yeah, and that, that someone in the bank was, was in on it.

Drew Thomas  14:46  
Yeah, so now we're combining, right? So, now we're combining scams. These scammers are now taking elements of different scams and merging them into one. So, there was that, there's always that thing we tell people about where people come in and they say that their bank, they're, they're, they're told, and you're going to hear this. They're told, you know, like go into the bank. The bank can't be trusted, right? Yep. Yeah. And you know, we've, we've, we've heard so many stories like that. You're going to hear what happens. It's, it's pretty crazy. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. Anything else on that section that we should cover before we move on?

Jeff Matevish  15:21  
That's what I had written. Okay, yeah, all right.

Keira  15:26  
So, she tells me that it's identity theft, and that this person is obviously not me on the cameras, but they just want me to come to a branch to just figure this all out and like do something. So, I start driving to a branch because when they had called me, I was walking out of the grocery store. So, I was already in my car, and I said, and I'm thinking like my money's being stolen. So, I'm like, yeah, I'm on my way right now.

Drew Thomas  15:59  
Yeah, I'd be on my way right now too.

Jeff Matevish  16:00  
Yeah, but there is no place for her to go, so they need to stop her somehow. Probably, right?

Drew Thomas  16:06  
Well, no, I actually no. The, the here's the crazy thing. Somehow, and I don't know if they, I don't know if it was through like their location services or something like that. They actually knew approximately where she was. They, they actually bring up and say, oh, you must be going to this branch.

Jeff Matevish  16:23  
Oh, right. Okay.

Drew Thomas  16:25  
So, now that could be one of those things where maybe...

Jeff Matevish  16:27  
There's not that many branches. Right. Maybe it's a small town. They know where she lives.

Drew Thomas  16:30  
They know where she lives, so they assume that this is the branch she's going to. Right. Yeah. So, maybe it's not literally seeing where her phone's located. It might just be something of like, okay, well, I know you live in town X. Right. Town X only has one branch in this particular bank.

Jeff Matevish  16:44  
Right. But they need to stop her from going to that branch because she's going to get to that branch, and there's, I mean, that, that scammer is not going to be at that branch.

Drew Thomas  16:53  
No, the scammer is not going to be at that branch. But I think that you're going to be surprised at what happens next. Okay. Yeah. Let me go ahead and, let me go ahead and scrub ahead here. Let's see.

Drew Thomas  17:09  
Here we go.

Keira  17:11  
She tells me that this branch is under investigation, and that I need you to go in there and try and withdraw X amount of cash, but the teller should not let you do it. So, we need to just make sure that the teller's not in on it. And in order to do that, we just need to make sure she's not willing to give you any cash. And part of this is making sense to me. I'm like, okay, I guess. Like, and obviously every time I speak this or like, like this is all this has been on my mind for 24 hours. Like I can't live it down, and obviously, when this person's telling me all this, I'm in a state of panic, thinking like my is being like stolen, and I need to do this in order to keep my safe stuff, stuff safe. And yes, it's dumb, but that was my mindset in that moment.

Jeff Matevish  17:58  
Okay, so okay.

Drew Thomas  18:01  
So, she's, she's going to the branch, and now they've set it up so that when she gets to the branch, she's already suspicious and mistrustful of the people that are about to try to help her.

Jeff Matevish  18:12  
Yes, so when they, when they try to stop her because they're not, she's not giving a good answer as to why she's withdrawing all of her life savings, she's assuming that that's what they're going to do. She's already preconditioned to know that.

Drew Thomas  18:26  
She's preconditioned that whoever's about to help try to help her on the other end of that teller line is the enemy.

Jeff Matevish  18:32  
Yes.

Drew Thomas  18:32  
Right. Because they've said the teller might be in on it, right? So, you know, here's what's they're going to try to tell you not to withdraw the money.

Jeff Matevish  18:42  
Yeah.

Drew Thomas  18:42  
It's yeah. All right. Well, let me do the next part here.

Keira  18:47  
She tells me go in there, keep me on the phone, put me in your pocket or purse or whatever. This lady is very kind. American accent. Not that, that wouldn't make her not kind, but that was just I think like when you think scam, you're thinking you're going to get something, somebody foreign, or possibly like some sort of accent, or you can tell in some way, or it sounds like a call center. Like no, none of those red flags were happening, and...

Jeff Matevish  19:12  
So yeah, I think that, that is definitely a common misconception. Usually, you think of scams as, as an overseas yeah thing, and it's not always. I mean, there's, there's you know scams that that happen on, on U.S. territory all the time.

Drew Thomas  19:26  
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's the it's, it's become, it's become a joke to talk about the Nigerian prince that needs you to send him money, right? Right. These scams have gotten so much more sophisticated since those days. The, that, that is almost quaint when you talk about scams that were facilitated in that way, you know, 20 years ago.

Jeff Matevish  19:53  
Yeah, yeah.

Drew Thomas  19:54  
These people are way, way, way better than that.

Jeff Matevish  19:57  
Yeah, and it's she had said that the, the, the scammer wanted her to stay on the line with, with him or her whoever the scammer is during this, this transaction during this encounter and that's probably so that they can adapt their tactic to sure what the teller is saying yeah.

Drew Thomas  20:19  
Yeah, yeah keep me in your pocket, right? You know, I'm on your side. I need to be able to hear what's going on, right? Right.

Jeff Matevish  20:26  
Because my, my, my script is going to change based on what that teller says. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Drew Thomas  20:32  
Yeah, all right.

Keira  20:35  
She tells me, okay, go to go in the bank and withdraw, and you are now part of this investigation, so just try and grab as much detail as you can. She goes, I understand this is an emotional situation. You are a victim of identity theft. Please take this seriously. You're a victim. And she, they got me. And long story short, I don't know. They had me convinced that the cash I pulled out was fraudulent cash, and that I needed a carrier to pick it up. Somebody needed to drive to my house, and a courier was to pick it up because that's fraudulent cash. And if I were to touch it, I am now part of the FBI. And obviously, every time I say this, I want to shake my head empty and like bang my head against the table because how stupid could I be?

Jeff Matevish  21:24  
You see that all the time in like crime shows and movies and stuff, where you know you can't tamper with the evidence, right? Yeah, that. So, yeah, and, and, and the scammer is giving like her authority. Like you're, you're, you're, you're in charge of, of taking note of you know what, what the teller looks like and, and every, every yeah every detail you can remember yeah you, you now have responsibility which takes your mind off and you're part of this.

Drew Thomas  21:48  
You're helping right you're, they're, they're convincing her that she's aiding yes in the capture of a fraudster.

Jeff Matevish  21:55  
Right but it's taking her mind off of what's actually happening more and giving her something else to concentrate on.

Drew Thomas  22:02  
Yeah, absolutely true. So, you know, we all, you know, I'm sure that there are people in the, in this world that would disagree with me, but I tend to still believe that on an individual level, most people are still good people.

Jeff Matevish  22:15  
Sure.

Drew Thomas  22:16  
People want to be helpful. Yes, yeah. People want to do the right thing, and they, so when you start saying, hey, listen, not only are we trying to help you, but you can help us.

Jeff Matevish  22:27  
Yeah, and you can help other people not be not fall victim to whatever scam this bank you know is, is trying to pull. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah.

Keira  22:35  
And I even like said to myself and told this woman on the phone, I'm not giving money over to a courier until I have, I have replaced money. Like, what do you mean? Like, I'm like arguing with her, and they are so persistent. And she was so like, she was like, well, if this like, and I'm thinking like, well, if this was a scam, like, they'd probably just give up at this point because I've called them scammers multiple times at this point. I'm telling them like, you're scamming me. Why would I do this? They got me. They got me. So...

Jeff Matevish  23:02  
You're not going to intimidate the scammer.

Drew Thomas  23:05  
No, and that's the thing. Like she's, and but it's, it's a reassuring, right? She says like it's I I've called them scammers. Why wouldn't they give up by now? Right, right. So, obviously they're not. You know they, they must not be scammers because I've called them out on it and they haven't hung up.

Jeff Matevish  23:20  
Because you've followed their instructions to this point.

Drew Thomas  23:22  
Yeah, yeah. It's...

Jeff Matevish  23:27  
But I mean, at least she's leery. Was not going to give up her, her, her money to the courier.

Drew Thomas  23:34  
That, that was, that was the, that was the goal. We'll see what happens. Okay.

Keira  23:40  
Anyway, long story short, I take all of my cash that I withdraw, and I gave it to a U.S. Bank courier that was parked outside of my residence. I did that. I did that. I did that.

Drew Thomas  23:58  
Yeah. So, now, now it's no wonder she feels so, so taken advantage of and so, so dumb.

Jeff Matevish  24:07  
Physically handed over right her entire life savings.

Drew Thomas  24:09  
Right. So, it wasn't like it was a stolen credit card where somebody racked up a bunch of fraudulent charges or...

Jeff Matevish  24:16  
She was hacked or something right.

Drew Thomas  24:18  
Or her debit card where they liquidated her checking account or something like that, or she wasn't even convinced to wire money somewhere else or something like that. They, she literally took cash.

Jeff Matevish  24:29  
Yeah.

Drew Thomas  24:30  
And handed it to the person that was scamming her.

Jeff Matevish  24:33  
Which is why she said that it was not recoverable. Because I mean, there's it's not a digital transaction. She had cash, physical cash that she handed over.

Drew Thomas  24:43  
Yeah, and um, and, and, and again, I, I, I, I feel like I have to keep saying this. I understand how she feels. She feels dumb. She feels stupid for being taken advantage of. But again, when you are in that state, when you're in a state of panic, when you're in a state of confusion, this girl was out just getting groceries. Yeah. She wasn't expecting any of this to land on her.

Jeff Matevish  25:16  
Things lined up too perfectly in in her mind, or and...

Drew Thomas  25:19  
Perfectly enough. Yeah. Yes.

Jeff Matevish  25:21  
Yes. It made sense at the time, yeah.

Drew Thomas  25:23  
Yeah. Even when she questioned it, she was able to dismiss those concerns because, in her mind, the cost of not complying was bigger than the potential that it was frau.

Jeff Matevish  25:36  
Right. I mean, how, so how did this person know that I made this trans or I didn't make this transaction where I live and where how does this person know where I live? How does this person know where I bank? Yeah, you know.

Drew Thomas  25:49  
Yeah, I mean it's I don't know. All right, go next one here.

Keira  25:54  
23 years of age, I am aware of these scams, and I'm so stupid. That's like the, the grief I'm going through. Like I can't even say the number. Like I can't put myself through that embarrassment. But just know I've been saving it for a long time, and it was my nest egg, and it was possibly going to get me some sort of property, so I don't have to rent anymore. Like I've worked for that for almost 10 years now. I've worked since I was 15 years old, and it's just taken away from me. But it wasn't. I gave it to them, and that's the part that rips me to shreds. So, I'm just posting this so people can see it and not do it.

Drew Thomas  26:38  
Okay. So, again, I know she's beating herself up, but the thing that caught my ear in that was I know about these scams. Yeah, she, I mean, I know she's saying I know these happen. I'm 23, I'm constantly being barraged with this information. The information that we're giving people right now, she has heard. Right, and yet.

Jeff Matevish  27:01  
And I took 23.

Drew Thomas  27:02  
Yeah.

Jeff Matevish  27:03  
She's young, and we oftentimes we preach, you know, or we, we, we emphasize older, older adults being taken advantage of. But this could happen to anyone, any age, and also these scammers don't care that they destroyed your life. They don't care that you can't buy a house now, or you, you your entire life savings, everything that you've worked for, for the 23 years that you've been alive is now in their pockets. They don't care.

Drew Thomas  27:30  
Yeah, and that, that is one of the things that I think is very hard for me to wrap my brain around. And I'm not trying to I'm not trying to virtue signal or anything else, you know, whatever the current term is, it's just one of those. I just can't imagine doing that to anybody. No, I, I feel bad if I cut somebody off in traffic. You know, I, I cannot imagine purposefully planning a scheme to, to steal money from somebody. I don't care if they're 23. I don't care if they're 93. Yeah, I just I can't I just can't wrap my brain around that idea that they can do this every single day, and they sleep fine. Yeah, you know, absolutely crazy. All right, we have two, two more clips, two more clips that I want to share with you as, as she wraps this up, and then, and then we can wrap this up too, so.

Keira  28:24  
But if your bank calls you, hang up and call your bank, just please.

Drew Thomas  28:32  
Okay, so you mentioned that.

Jeff Matevish  28:34  
Yeah, yeah, right. Absolutely true. Yes,

Drew Thomas  28:38  
you know that that is that is definitely something you know. Again, with the caller ID, you know, yes, it may look like it's your bank. It may come up with the right number. It may come up with the right name. Don't trust it. Yeah, you know. I mean, I, I hate to say it that way because I'm, I'm I generally don't like to be a mistrustful person, but I don't know. It's hard, and we have, you know, we have had people who have called us and said, "I got a text message from you saying that there was fraud on my account. Is this true? You know, that is okay. Yeah, we don't mind. Yeah, yeah. It's not a bother. It's not a concern. Yes, you might think to yourself, oh man, you know they just sent me a text message, and now I'm calling and bothering them and asking them whether it's true or not true. Call. Yep. Call. Call. Call. If you're not, if you're not sure, call. Yep. Yep. There's nothing wrong with that. Right.

Jeff Matevish  29:34  
Before you give your information out. Yes. Yeah.

Drew Thomas  29:37  
Yeah. Yeah. On, one more here. Skip ahead a bit.

Keira  29:50  
Be careful and protect your things. Protect, protect yourself.

Drew Thomas  29:57  
Yeah. So, I mean, I. I think it. I, I kept that last clip because us saying it is, is, is just as true, but looking at the, the looking at that poor woman's face and what she was dealing with and the, the, the grief and the frustration and the disappointment and the embarrassment of how she felt about being taken-it's just-and again, she knew. She said she knew.

Jeff Matevish  29:57  
Yeah.

Drew Thomas  30:29  
You know about these kinds of things. I will tell you that since this video was posted, there were some very kind-hearted people who reached out to her in the comment section, I guess, of her video, encouraged her to possibly set up something like a GoFundMe or something along those lines.

Jeff Matevish  30:53  
Recoup some of that stuff that she lost.

Drew Thomas  30:55  
Yeah, and there were some people who donated to try to help her, you know, recover some of what she had given away, and while that is very admirable, there were also people who came back and said, oh, you're just scamming these people now. Yeah, right.

Jeff Matevish  31:12  
I guess you never know. I mean, you could put on a show and say you, you had this scam happen to you. I mean, that'd be that's very elaborate if that's that would be true. But yeah.

Drew Thomas  31:21  
Yeah, and this is again just my gut reaction. But having a, having a daughter that is around her age, seeing how she reacted, some of the, the emotional what's the word I'm looking for? The emotional tics, expressions. It's natural. Yeah, it feels very natural. It feels, and I get angry because it feels like in a way I'm, I'm, I'm looking at somebody that's my daughter's age or like I see her in and in this in this young woman. It's, it's very, very frustrating as a to see somebody go through that, right? You know. So, do I believe that she was concocting this in order to try to extract? No, I, I don't believe that. Yeah. If I did believe that, I wouldn't have shared it with the with, with this program.

Jeff Matevish  32:18  
Sure. Yeah.

Drew Thomas  32:19  
Because as an example of what not to do, or, or whatever, but...

Jeff Matevish  32:25  
If nothing else, it's a, it's a real life example of something that does happen daily. I mean, to people.

Drew Thomas  32:32  
So, I don't know. Maybe this resonated with, with, with you better than, than just Jeff and I sitting here saying, hey, don't get scammed. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's just as true when we say it as opposed to when she says it. It's just as true when we have people that are guests here that are cybersecurity professionals, FBI, Saint Francis University, the people that we've had that have come in and talked about scams and stuff-it's just as true when they tell you to be cautious and aware. But sometimes when you see what somebody who literally just had this happen to them goes through, I don't know. Maybe, maybe it'll, maybe it'll click.

Jeff Matevish  32:56  
And this is just one example, one scenario. I mean, every scam is not going to be like this, you know. Right. This one was a bank. The next one, it could be a you know government agency. It you know it could be your grandmother is in the hospital, and we need money to for surgery. You know. Yeah. It could be anything.

Drew Thomas  33:38  
Yeah.

Jeff Matevish  33:39  
But it's all social engineering. It's all getting you to, to react. There's usually some, some degree of like what's the word I'm looking for? Urgency, yeah, to some degree. But yeah, it's all, all, all to pull at your heart heartstrings to get you to act now. Yeah, without thinking.

Drew Thomas  33:59  
And while this wasn't necessarily, I, I don't want to, I don't want to make assumptions about what happened to this person, and she did not specify anything relating to her location or anything. What you share on social media is incredibly advantageous to a scammer. True. Yeah. So, you know, be aware. You know, when you, I hate to be the, the chicken little that is you know saying you know just shut down everything. Like I don't think that's realistic in today's world.

Jeff Matevish  34:36  
But everything you post, yeah, is could, could be used. You know, we've used the example before of you know, don't make your passwords to your bank account your dog's name, and especially if you post a picture of your dog on your, on your Facebook page with the caption. Yes, right.

Drew Thomas  34:53  
Right. This is Rufus. He's 24 years old. You know.

Jeff Matevish  34:56  
He loves his house on 123 Main Street, and yeah.

Drew Thomas  35:00  
I mean, you know, yes, we, we try to make light and we try to make jokes, but but it's true.

Jeff Matevish  35:05  
That's the information that, that these gamers are using, and like we said, you know, they may try this 1,000 times, and it may not work on, on 999 of them, and that 1,000th one that you put your information out too much of it, and they were able to grab it and use it against you. You know, they only need one.

Drew Thomas  35:21  
Yeah, and, and you do have to wonder again, we talked about her saying you know her location and leaving the grocery store, and I'm just on the way to the bank. Like they knew enough, for whatever reason, however they knew, they knew enough to know to either know or make a really, really strong guess as to what branch she was about to go to, to her bank, yeah. What bank name it was, right? And she does say that name, and that's, that's nothing against that bank. Obviously, that, that bank is just like any other bank in this country is, is, is beholden to these kinds of you know potential scams. Yeah. So, you know, yeah, it's just please be careful. That's I guess that's all we can really say is just please, please be careful. And it may feel like 30 seconds in that kind of a situation is an eternity. Matter of fact, you know what? Let's do this. I'm going to do this. Okay, I'm going to watch. Here's 30 seconds. Ready? Here's 30 seconds. That's 15. That's 30 seconds. Okay, so actually, no, that's 30 seconds. Sorry, that's 30. So, it seems like a long time when you have that silence. Yeah, right. But 30 seconds is not that long. To but it's enough time. It's enough time for you to stop and think. Right. Even if you have to tell a white lie to the person on the other line, if you think that it's legit, if you think it might be your bank, make something up. If she was coming out of the grocery store, say, hey, listen, I got to put you on hold for just one second. I'm loading groceries in the back of my car, right? Yep. And just take half that. Take 15 seconds. Think, does this make sense? Is it something that lines up logically?

Jeff Matevish  37:35  
Yeah.

Drew Thomas  37:35  
Sometimes that 15 or 30 seconds is really all you need.

Jeff Matevish  37:39  
Yeah. Yeah.

Drew Thomas  37:39  
To save sometimes hours, weeks, months of headache and heartbreak. So, yeah. Anyway, that was, that was my that was my offering for this this whole.

Jeff Matevish  37:56  
I think that was that was a very good, very good example of something that can happen to anyone.

Drew Thomas  38:01  
Yeah. All right. Stay safe out there. Keep the shiny side up.

Jeff Matevish  38:05  
Stay safe. This podcast focuses on having valuable conversations on various topics related to banking and financial health. The podcast is grounded in having open conversations with professionals and experts, with the goal of helping to take some of the mystery out of financial and related topics, as learning about financial products and services can help you make more informed financial decisions. Please keep in mind that the information contained within this podcast and any resources available for download from our website or other resources relating to Bank Chats is not intended and should not be understood or interpreted to be financial advice. The hosts, guests, and production staff of Bank Chats expressly recommend that you seek advice from a trusted financial professional before making financial decisions. The hosts of Bank Chats are not attorneys, accountants, or financial advisors, and the program is simply intended as one source of information. The podcast is not a substitute for a financial professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. Thank you for listening. Please check out our full library of episodes, which can be found on the ameriserv.com website. You can also download or stream the podcast from your favorite podcast app.