Romance scams are the most expensive form of online dating fraud, and this one plays out like a true crime documentary with two victims instead of one.
Gabby met a man on LinkedIn who was already connected to a former colleague of hers, so she assumed he was real.
Over two years he asked for money, sent it back, and asked again, until the amounts got very large and the money stopped coming back. The photos used to catfish her belong to Brian Haugen, a real man in Los Angeles, and he joins me in studio to explain what a stolen face has cost him.
What You Will Learn This Episode:
- Why a romance scammer sends your money back early on, and what it is actually buying him
- How a scam account uses one shared LinkedIn connection to look completely legitimate
- What to watch for when an online dating match always has a reason they cannot meet you
- Why the amounts start small and climb slowly instead of arriving as one big ask
- The single request that will expose a catfish faster than anything else you can try
- Who the Yahoo Boys are and how an international romance scam operation actually runs
- What happens to the real person whose face gets stolen and used to catfish strangers
- Kurt's red flags for checking on someone you love who is dating a stranger online

Enjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.

Flock cameras sit at the end of ordinary neighborhood streets in thousands of American towns, and one of them read Lindsey Isaacs' license plate wrong. Seven months later, the 23-year-old was surrendering herself on eight felony counts tied to a crash that killed three people. She was nowhere near the accident. She had a receipt, a car with no damage on it, and a vehicle that was not even the same color as the one witnesses described. This true crime story pinned an innocent person to the crime with just a flock camera, a plate number, and the officers who decided that was enough. I sit down with Lindsey to walk through the 13 days she spent in jail, the moment she realized what investigators had actually built their case on, and what mass surveillance on your own street now costs you in privacy.What You Will Learn This Episode:- How flock cameras work, and how one plate read can turn your car into evidence- What a plate reader captures about where you drive, and how long police keep it- Why a receipt and an undamaged car were not enough to stop an arrest- What a time and distance analysis is, and how it finally broke the case open- Why the color of a vehicle matters more than most drivers realize- What happens inside solitary confinement when charges get labeled severe- The safeguard Lindsey says should be required before any plate based arrest- Why "I have nothing to hide" is the wrong way to think about mass surveillance

Enjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.

In August 2005, I flew to New Orleans on a trip with my parents and ended up trapped downtown as Hurricane Katrina came ashore. I got my mom and dad onto the last flight out, then checked back into a hotel that promised it was the "model of hurricane preparedness." Within days, the food was gone, the generators were dying, gunfire echoed through the streets, and nine feet of water surrounded the building. Carlos Amezcua, the KTLA anchor who interviewed me while I was trapped in New Orleans, joins me in studio to walk back through it. What I learned in those days became the Hurricane prep checklist I have used ever since, and I share all of it here.What You Will Learn This Episode:- How to find and save your home's exact GPS coordinates in under a minute, and why rescuers cannot reach you without them- Why your cell tower stops working roughly 48 hours after the power goes out, and what still works after that- What belongs in the Ziploc bag Kurt keeps ready at all times- How to choose an emergency radio that wakes you up before a storm arrives instead of after- Why a hotel or building that says it is prepared can still run out of food and water in days- How to set up Emergency SOS by satellite on your phone before you need it, and the one mistake that keeps it from working- What to keep charged, and where to store the backup power everyone forgets- Why the scams coming after a disaster can do as much damage as the storm

Enjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms.

Voicemail with no missed call? That silent voicemail scam is how criminals confirm your phone number is real, and blocking the number will never stop it. A viewer named Mike started getting empty voicemails from numbers that never rang his phone. He blocked one. Twenty minutes later, another arrived from a different number. Then another. I explain how ringless voicemail works, why every number you block comes back as a new one, and why the call that comes next is the one that can cost you everything.What You Will Learn This Episode:- Why your phone never rings before these voicemails land- How ringless voicemail gets into your inbox without going through your phone- Why blocking the number does absolutely nothing to stop it- What scammers actually learn the second you open that message- How your phone number gets stamped confirmed and sold to worse criminals- The exact iPhone setting that makes unknown callers explain themselves first- What to ask your carrier for by name, because they will not offer it- How to report these calls to the FTC and get your number off broker lists

Enjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.

Jennifer had never even had a speeding ticket. Then she posted on Facebook about the dirty water coming out of taps in Trinidad, Texas, and two police officers showed up at her front door with a felony warrant. 

She was handcuffed in her own front yard and held in the Navarro County Jail for 23 hours. Before the arrest, her post was mass-reported and wiped off Facebook by a group locals call the Cartel of Trinidad. 

The one person inside city hall who stood up and said this had gone too far was the town's judge of 16 years, Judge Bivens. What happened to her next tells you everything about how far a small town will go to keep people quiet.

What You Will Learn This Episode:

• How a small group can get your Facebook post erased in hours, even when everything in it is true

• Why a mom of four with no criminal record was handcuffed in her front yard and jailed for 23 hours

• What happened to the Trinidad judge who refused to go along with the arrest

• How a man holding a protest sign outside city hall ended up in the back of a police car

• Why the city's water clerk lost her job for refusing to sign a statement

• What Judge Bivens says the police chief told her before Jennifer was arrested

• Why families in this Texas town say the tap water is burning their kids

• What Kurt and Judge Bivens would say to Mark Zuckerberg about the takedown that started all of this

  
  

  Enjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.

A phishing email disguised as a party invitation is installing malware on PCs and it arrives from a name you already trust in your inbox. Baby shower. Wedding. Retirement party. These are the emails you've opened a hundred times without a second thought. But this phishing attack hides a remote access tool behind a fake "download invitation" button and one click hands a hacker full control of your computer. I break down exactly what this email scam is hiding, why this malware skips your phone and targets computers only, and how it weaponizes your own contact list to spread to everyone you know. If you already clicked, I'll walk you through how to remove the virus from your PC and whether your computer has been compromised.🔔 Free scam alerts at https://cyberguy.com/subscribeWhat You Will Learn This Episode:- How to spot a phishing email before you click anything- Why the scam email always comes from a name you recognize- What the fake "download invitation" button actually installs- How to check a web address for the fake brand name trick- What to do if you already downloaded the file, and how to remove the virus from your PC- How to know if your PC is hacked after you clicked something you shouldn't have- Why this malware only runs on computers and skips your phone- How scammers use your contact list to send the same email to everyone you know

Enjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.

Humanoid robot fails caught on camera, and these AI robots are not glitching safely in a lab. 

One kicks two men out of an office. One punches a stranger in a crowd with a senior citizen standing feet away. One goes into full freak-out mode while the engineers who built it run for the door, held back by nothing but a crane cable. And one hits a small child in the gut at an outdoor event packed with families. 

I watch all these videos with longtime friend and Emmy-Award-winning TV journalist Lu Parker, who walked out shocked by what she had just seen.

What You Will Learn This Episode:

• Why humanoid robots still in test mode keep ending up in crowds of ordinary people

• What happens when a robot turns on the engineers standing right beside it

• Why the missing off button is the most alarming detail in every one of these clips

• What Lu spotted in the robot's reaction that most viewers scroll right past

• Why Kurt says a friendly food delivery robot could turn on you over something as small as a barking dog

• How close that child at the festival came to something far worse than a bruise

• Why "it's just a demo" stops being a defense the second these machines are near kids

Thank you to Lu Parker for coming on to the show. Please check out her:

Substack: https://luparkermedia.substack.com/

Instagram: @luparkerla

Enjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.

Windows 11 ads, Samsung fridge ads, and pop-ups in your Jeep: you paid for all three devices, so why are they still selling to you?

You own your computer. You own your fridge. You own your car. Yet all three keep interrupting you with ads on screens you already paid for. In this episode, I walk you through an ordinary morning where your own smart devices start selling to you: from the Windows 11 start menu ads and lock screen promotions, to a widget on your Samsung smart fridge, to a pop-up on your dashboard before you've even left the driveway. One of them is even disguised as a warning.

None of it is an accident. And all of it was hidden in the fine print you agreed to. The good news? Today I'll show you exactly how to remove ads from all three devices and take back control of the screens you paid for.

What You Will Learn This Episode:

• How to turn off ads in your Windows 11 start menu and lock screen
• The fake "action advised" alert on your PC that's really a Microsoft sales pitch
• How to stop the ads on your Samsung Family Hub refrigerator (the switch is buried three menus deep)
• Why your car's dashboard started showing pop-ups, and whether they're coming back
• The line in the fine print that makes all of this legal
• How you quietly became the product these companies sell to
• The exact settings to kill ads on your computer, fridge, and car

Enjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.

An audience member named Todd got a text saying he owed the California DMV $160 and his license was about to be suspended.

One problem: he hadn't lived in California for over ten years. So he sent it to Kurt with a simple question, is this real?

What Kurt found hidden inside that one text reveals exactly how the scam works, and the five red flags that give it away before you ever tap the link.

What You Will Learn This Episode:

• How to spot the one detail in the phone number that proves the text is fake

• Why the real DMV will never contact you about a violation by text

• What actually happens in the 48 hours after you fill out that fake form

• The reason replying with a single letter makes everything worse

• How to verify a real DMV notice in under a minute, the safe way

• What to do the moment you realize you tapped a scam link

• How to block, report, and scrub your info so the texts finally stop

Enjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.

Scam calls are emptying retirement accounts faster than ever, and the scammers behind them aren't who you think. This true crime look at financial fraud could protect your retirement and your family's future.Kurt sits down with Darius Kingsley, JPMorgan Chase's head of scam prevention, to pull back the curtain on the global operation behind those calls, and exactly what you can do to stop it.This is not just another scam alert. It's an inside look at organized criminal networks using forced labor compounds in Southeast Asia, psychological manipulation, and bank fraud to target everyday families. And it's happening at record levels right now.Darius reveals how scammers operate, what JPMorgan's fraud alert systems are detecting in real time, and the steps every family should take before a scam call ever comes through. Whether you've already lost money or want to protect someone in retirement you love, this conversation could save a family's future.What You Will Learn in This Episode:- How scammers coach your family member on exactly what to say before they ever walk into the bank- Why that "law enforcement" call might actually be coming from a forced labor compound in Southeast Asia- What bank tellers are secretly trained to watch for that can stop a scam before the money leaves- How to add a trusted contact to your bank account so the bank can alert someone you trust- What red flags signal that a family member is being targeted by scammers right now- Why acting in the first minutes after a scam is critical, and what your very first call should be- How to file a report with the FBI's IC3 and why it matters more than you might think

Enjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.