What the Hack?

True or False: Scams have reached a crisis point, especially among older adults. The AARP’s Director of Fraud Prevention Kathy Stokes surprised us with the answer: Scammers aren’t ageist at all. In fact, digital natives may be far more susceptible to online crime.

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A gemologist decided to trademark her company, and, of course, there’s a scam for that. Spoof calls are everywhere, homing in on any money due that can be small-time scammed. This episode applies equally for any government application that involves a public notice: Once your information goes live, it could pop up on the radar of a scammer. 

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The isolation caused by the Covid pandemic led to record pet adoptions, and more than usual activity online. It was like chum to sharks for scammers who flooded social media accounts with adoption opportunities for popular breeds. This week’s guest, Holly got in touch with us about her friend Carl who joins us too to talk about his St. Bernard-sized scam. To find out about his parting gift, you have to listen!

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We all got the memo that Social Security numbers are a big part of identity theft, and as more of us take measures to protect against SSN-based crime, scammers found a new favorite tool: your driver’s license. Criminology professor David Maimon discusses all of the above and how Covid made our identities less secure.

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We’ve been hearing a lot about pig butchering, but hadn’t found a great example until we lucked onto Shreya Datta’s story. In this episode we learn about pig butchering from Shreya who was swindled out of more than $450,000 through an elaborate investment scheme where she won like crazy until she lost everything. 

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This week, we’re celebrating our hundredth episode! Featuring listener questions, Adam, Beau and Travis look back on one hundred episodes of scams, hacks, Tin Foil Swans, experts, novices and dad jokes. A special thanks to you listeners. Come back for another 100!

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Charlie Webster hosts the hit podcast “Scamanda,” which takes us on a dark journey of discovery with a young woman who pretended to have cancer to bilk Good Samaritans on GoFundMe. Listen to hear the kinds of scams you can find on all crowd-sourced micro donation sites and how to avoid them.

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Karen Johnson is a catfisher-turned-scam avoidance coach turned–you guessed it–catfishing victim. The scam that got her is a classic, opening the door to a Pandora’s Box of the usual advice about avoiding the most common scams out there. But the thing that really got us thinking is the role AI played in almost every aspect of this week’s show.

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Identity theft is the third certainty in life behind death and taxes, but the way scammers come at you changes all the time. That’s why we invited ITRC head Eva Velasquez to fill us in on the three biggest trends in identity-related crime this year.

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Jen Destefano’s story made national news. Her daughter Brie was abducted and the kidnappers let them speak to each other to prove it. But while they had demands for big money, they didn’t actually have her daughter. Was it a deepfake, a really good actor or a prank taken way too far?  

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