LA Fire Survivor Faces PayPal Impostor Scam

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[00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam.

[00:00:04] Ellen Rudolph: Said, "Oh, okay, we will refund this money to you. We'll do this to your Wells Fargo account," and so they theoretically were going to refund me the $449 only oops, they made a mistake with the decimal point and it was $44,900.

[00:00:24] Bob: Oh God.

[00:00:25] Ellen Rudolph: And then it was up to me to refund them from my bank account.

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[00:00:39] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.

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[00:00:44] Bob: Earthquakes, floods, fires, car accidents. Disasters like these can really throw your life into chaos. After the initial shock when something terrible happens, there's always a mountain of work to be done. It usually involves paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. After a while, it feels like you'd sign just about anything to get your life back. That makes disaster victims especially vulnerable to criminals. And even more so if it's a high-profile disaster like the Palisades Fire of January 2025.

[00:01:22] Ellen Rudolph: So having experienced a bit of evacuation readiness a year or two earlier and knowing that the Santa Ana winds are incredibly dangerous in the Santa Monica Mountains, I was keeping an eye out and when I you know and I was seeing some smoke from the house and I started to get alerts, and I went, I walked out to the street and that's when I could see the flames and the smoke, and it was like, oh my God, this is it.

[00:02:06] Bob: That's Ellen Rudolph who had just finished walking her dog and minutes later she was literally running away, driving away from the smoke and flames.

[00:02:18] Ellen Rudolph: It's time to keep my head on my shoulders a little bit and grab stuff and split. So I identified the documents that I needed, a safe where we kept some documents. The dog, some dog, medications for both of us, my jewelry that was in just a one little jewelry box. A couple of articles of clothing, 'cause I thought we'd be back in a few days.

[00:02:50] Bob: She wouldn't be back for weeks and in a way she will never really be able to go back to that home. But let's back up a bit. Ellen was initially a reluctant resident of the Los Angeles area. She grew up in the East, in Syracuse, New York, about as far away as you can get from LA in the continental United States.

[00:03:11] Bob: And so when you grow up in Syracuse, you think LA is for the birds, right?

[00:03:14] Ellen Rudolph: Oh, worse than for the birds. I actually, I lived in New York City twice, each time for five years, and the thought of living in LA was preposterous. And I was, I was really good at taking jabs at LA. I never thought it would happen, and I thought I'd be in LA for a few years. It's been 30.

[00:03:43] Bob: And what made you fall in love with it so much?

[00:03:45] Ellen Rudolph: Surely the weather is lovely and it was lovelier 30 years ago than it is now, I would say, and I had two little kids and made friends with neighbors and the public schools were pretty good, and yeah, I just found my way and made it work. Yeah.

[00:04:07] Bob: And there is no arguing with being able to live so close to both the mountains and the ocean at the same time, right?

[00:04:14] Ellen Rudolph: No argument at all. It's just the Santa Ana winds that always freaked me out.

[00:04:22] Bob: Ellen moved to LA with her husband, and when that relationship didn't work out, she turned into a single mom far away from her childhood home. She didn't imagine finding love again until...

[00:04:35] Ellen Rudolph: You know I'm not a terr--, I'm not a very religious person, however, I did join the, or we did join the local uh, synagogue that was you know about two blocks away, and I did make friends with the cantor of the synagogue, a guy named Haim Frankel who was about to celebrate his 40th anniversary of being at that synagogue. And he um, when no one would introduce me to anyone, he introduced me to three guys, and Steve was one of them, and he introduced Steve to three women, and I was one of them, and yeah, and we were together for 26 years.

[00:05:23] Bob: Well what was it about Steve that, that you connected with right away?

[00:05:27] Ellen Rudolph: Well he was absolutely nothing who I thought I was looking for. I thought I was looking for a nice, honest, thoughtful version of my first husband, and no, Steve was, came as a, probably the biggest surprise of my life. He was an extraordinarily kind, thoughtful, funny man. Very intuitive. Very smart, but he loved making me laugh and he made me laugh all the time, and I didn't realize how much I needed that. So he, yeah, he was, I found him, I wanted to resist and I found him irresistible.

[00:06:10] Bob: They made a great life together in the Palisades, but she was always nervous about those wildfires. Still, the Palisades fire was a huge surprise.

[00:06:23] Ellen Rudolph: January is not wildfire season. Wildfire season is like maybe September, October, November, so that was one thing. And yes, we had nearly evacuated a year or two earlier. Part of the Palisades did, we were on a stand-by, uh, you know, get ready to evacuate, but we didn't need to a year or two before, and as I say, as an East Coast girl, whenever the Santa Ana's blew, I got nervous.

[00:06:56] Bob: The morning of the fire, what you were, you were up to when you first had a sense that something's wrong.

[00:07:04] Ellen Rudolph: Yeah. Steve is a, was a golfing fool, and he left very early to go play golf, not far from here, a little 9-hole pitch and putt course that he used to go to. And it was windy, and I went for my usual morning walk with two neighbors and we, the three of us all had our little dogs with us. And by the time I got back it was getting smokey and the wind was raging and starting to see smoke in the Santa Monica Mountains, and our street nestled into the Santa Monica Mountains. And then about a half hour where I was getting messages to evacuate. I, I couldn't see the fire directly from my house, went, walked into the street and there it was, a big plume of smoke and flame.

[00:08:02] Bob: A big, big plume of smoke and flame. It was time to go. Now. The drive to safety was harrowing.

[00:08:12] Ellen Rudolph: And it took about an hour to get out of the Palisades, to get down to Pacific Coast Highway, which is generally 8 to 10 minutes maybe. And it was really, it was raging; and the wind and the flames and the smoke.

[00:08:32] Bob: So they reached safety and wait.

[00:08:36] Bob: Okay, so at what point do you get word that things might be really terrible for your block?

[00:08:44] Ellen Rudolph: We assumed the first night that our house was gone, that our neighborhood was destroyed and ravaged, and then the next day my daughter, who lives in Denver, happened to be on Facebook or was looking around, and she saw a video that was taken by a neighbor who I don't know, but he was on some either in a car or on a motorbike going down my street, and all the houses were gone, but ours was still there.

[00:09:19] Bob: That is crazy.

[00:09:20] Ellen Rudolph: And it was absolutely crazy. And my daughter said, "Mom, the house is still there!" And we couldn't believe it. And so we watched that video a few times.

[00:09:33] Bob: Unfortunately, Steve's son's home was lost to the fire.

[00:09:38] Ellen Rudolph: We live on the mountainside, the north side of Sunset Blvd., and his son lived on the south side. And I could never imagine, I don't think anyone could ever imagine the fire from the mountains crossing Sunset and hitting the neighborhoods south of Sunset. And my stepson's house was actually opposite Palisades High School. And it went up in flames. I think most of his neighbors lost their homes too. So he had to evacuate and many people whose homes I could never have imagined would have ever been threatened, lost their homes.

[00:10:26] Bob: Still through some strange luck, miracle, Steve and Ellen's home still stood, though it certainly must have had serious damage. They wouldn't know how bad for a long time.

[00:10:40] Ellen Rudolph: We weren't actually allowed to come back up to the house, to the neighborhood for three weeks.

[00:10:48] Bob: So you had some sense that the structure was there, but yet you didn't know what was destroyed or whatever for three weeks?

[00:10:53] Ellen Rudolph: Right.

[00:10:54] Bob: But they did get some hints.

[00:10:57] Ellen Rudolph: A friend of my stepson that my, Steve's younger son lives in the San Fernando Valley, he's a journalist, and he managed to get up to the Palisades for reporting. And Alex gave him our address and he walked to the backyard and took some photos. I can't remember if it was video, but he took some photos in through the family room of our house, and it looked like we had gone away for the weekend or something. It was intact. We were in shock. We were absolutely in shock, whereas everything around us was gone and...

[00:11:41] Bob: That's just crazy. Wow.

[00:11:43] Ellen Rudolph: We have, I've now tallied, I think there are about 62 houses on our block, and 6 survived.

[00:11:53] Bob: Wow.

[00:11:54] Ellen Rudolph: Our house all by itself. Literally, all by itself.

[00:11:59] Bob: That's almost spooky.

[00:12:00] Ellen Rudolph: It is, and the wooden fences on either side burned to a crisp. They were gone. The posts for those fences, right outside our bedroom probably not more than 5 feet away, were absolutely blackened. Our windows, most of our windows, which were double pane, cracked the outer pane, but the inner pane held.

[00:12:26] Bob: Hmm. Wow.

[00:12:29] Bob: Still, while the structure stood, they didn't really have their home anymore.

[00:12:35] Ellen Rudolph: So I have come to describe the damage as heat damage not smoke damage, because we had very little environmental toxins, if any, inside the house. I had left all of the windows closed. There were two windows that were open, maybe a quarter of an inch. And the damage that we had was damage to the roof, to the solar panels, to the windows, to some, some of the soft goods, like the carpeting. We needed new insulation. Some of the electrical wiring inside the walls was fried and needed to be replaced. We needed to have all of the walls cleaned and painted with some kind of special primer and then paint after that. We, we needed a new HVAC unit. The exterior needed to re-stuccoed and recovered. Those, yeah, and all of our belongings needed to be removed and remediated, as in cleaned.

[00:13:51] Bob: So after staying at a friend's home for a couple of weeks...

[00:13:56] Ellen Rudolph: We found an apartment to lease in a community called Playa Vista, which was not terribly far from the airport and where quite a few of our neighbors and friends also found refuge. And we were there, we moved in like the 25th of January having evacuated the 7th of January, evacuated to a, an unfurnished apartment, so we had to figure that out. And we didn't have any clothes or any, anything.

[00:14:33] Bob: God. Yeah, wow.

[00:14:35] Bob: And that's when this fast-moving tragedy, well things slow to a crawl.

[00:14:42] Ellen Rudolph: Yes, and it was the remediation company we were referred to immediately, we met with them, they came to the house, they looked at everything, and they were so overwhelmed, they were not able to proceed. And I have a number of valuable textiles and Asian scrolls and a folding screen and artwork that needed sort of special attention that this remediation company couldn't do, so they referred us to the other place, and they said, "We can do it all." So that's what ended up happening, but they didn't come to remove things until July.

[00:15:28] Bob: Their belongings sat there for 6 months which meant complications for the contractors and more delays, but by now Ellen is facing a much deeper tragedy. Steve's been dealing with some hip pain and...

[00:15:44] Ellen Rudolph: By the beginning of March, Steve's left hip started was bothering him a lot. He goes to a series of orthopedists, finally an orthopedic oncologist who delivers the bad news that he has stage 4 lung cancer...

[00:16:04] Bob: Oh God.

[00:16:06] Ellen Rudolph: ... that had metastasized to his hip bones.

[00:16:09] Bob: Oh my God.

[00:16:11] Ellen Rudolph: And so by early April began chemo and immunotherapy treatments through UCLA and, and some other palliative care, some radiation therapy to hopefully enable him to stand without pain and walk without pain, and it, nothing really worked. The lung cancer, I think, was prevented from spreading much, but the hip pain never went away and only got worse, and lots of digestive issues relating to the medications and it was pretty horrible.

[00:16:56] Bob: Sounds so miserable. I'm so sorry.

[00:16:59] Ellen Rudolph: Yeah, so April, May, June, July, August, September, he was in, after having done radiation therapy and some other things and nothing working, one morning he could not stand when he had, I needed to take him for some follow up to the radiation therapy, and we had to call an ambulance and I took him to the hospital and he spent the last, I think, roughly three weeks in the hospital and just decided this ain't living. So that's, yeah, I did get him "home" to the apartment to where I was and where the dog was. So he stopped therapy and like on a Thursday maybe, and Saturday night we managed to get him back to the apartment and he was there for 48 hours and he passed away. It was like a runaway train; it was really unbelievable.

[00:18:15] Bob: Thank God you got him home though.

[00:18:18] Ellen Rudolph: Yeah, I mean and then there's the, the whole concept of that, that I'm still dealing with; what and where is home?

[00:18:26] Bob: What and where is home? Steve passes away in their temporary quarters. Tragedy piled on tragedy. There's now an even bigger pile of things to deal with.

[00:18:41] Bob: You still have to go on with all the other things, all the paperwork and all the insurance adjusters and everything.

[00:18:48] Ellen Rudolph: Yep. Yep. Then I was, yeah, in the middle of dealing with insurance because Steve had taken on a fair amount of that. Yeah, and coping with insurance payments and adjustments and, and financial issues, and credit cards and bank accounts, and death certificates and all of that kind of stuff.

[00:19:15] Bob: And you're right in the middle of it at that point, and then in the middle of all those things a couple of months later you get this crazy email from PayPal?

[00:19:23] Ellen Rudolph: Yep. Yes, I did. And I was in a mode where if something came past the transom, I would do my best to dispense with it as quickly, as expeditiously as I could. And that was, seemed like a good idea at the time.

[00:19:48] Bob: So this, that makes sense to me. You have to fill out a million pieces of paper and the, the more you sign them the more stuff starts, starts to happen, right. So you get this email, what, what did it say?

[00:19:58] Ellen Rudolph: So it said that my PayPal account had been charged $449 and change and if it wasn't my charge, I needed to contact them immediately, hah, and straighten it out. And of course it was not my charge.

[00:20:19] Bob: So she calls the number. Not my charge she says. Oh, sorry, she's told.

[00:20:26] Ellen Rudolph: Said, "Oh, okay, we will refund this money to you. We'll do this to your Wells Fargo account," and so they theoretically were going to refund me the $449 only oops, they made a mistake with the decimal point and it was $44,900.

[00:20:46] Bob: Oh God.

[00:20:48] Ellen Rudolph: And then it was up to me to refund them from my bank account.

[00:20:56] Bob: She clicks on a web page and it does appear there's now an extra $44,900 in her checking account. She's got to refund that cash right away, they tell her. If not, she'll owe a bunch of money in taxes.

[00:21:11] Ellen Rudolph: Exactly, and that rabbit hole, I mean I haven't told very many people about it, and I'm not real comfortable sharing what I did, but I, yeah, it was a nightmarish three-day rabbit hole. Horrific.

[00:21:29] Bob: She's told exactly how to return the money.

[00:21:33] Ellen Rudolph: I went to two banks and I withdrew cash because the cashier's check didn't work, and yes, I handed cash over to couriers.

[00:21:44] Bob: This was a lot of cash, and Ellen wouldn't have had it except for the Palisades fire. Often after a disaster like a fire, insurance companies send money to victims, but it's meant to immediately be signed over to some other business, the contractor or the mortgage holder. And that's where this cash came from. It was meant to help rebuild Ellen's home, the home that she now has to rebuild all alone.

[00:22:10] Ellen Rudolph: Yes, it was, and because, you know, things were so chaotic with um, Steve's death, and the fact that because we had a mortgage on the house...

[00:22:22] Bob: But the money didn't go to refund an erroneous PayPal credit. The money was stolen by criminals.

[00:22:29] Bob: Do you remember when you realized that it was a crime, it was a scam?

[00:22:35] Ellen Rudolph: Um, well maybe I was too busy in the rabbit hole for the first two days. The third day was when it was like holy, yeah, no, this was absolutely wrong and yeah, and it was $38,000 that I lost.

[00:22:56] Bob: Ellen doesn't know what to do so she called the cantor from the synagogue.

[00:23:01] Ellen Rudolph: And that was on a Saturday, and then the next day, Sunday, I sent a text to the cantor of my synagogue, who was the person who introduced Steve and me, who officiated at our wedding, who officiated at his celebration of life, and I said, this is, I've just been scammed out of $38,000, and he called me back very quickly. He's an amazing guy. And he said, uh, "I'm going to do everything I can to make you whole. Steve would want me to do this." And... "Did you get any kind of relief check from the synagogue for the fire?" And I said, "I don't think so." So he followed up and I had not received anything, and he said, "I can get you $10,000 to start with." And I said, "That would be an enormous help." And then he said, "And I have some contacts with GoFundMe, and we can set up a GoFundMe for you." And I said, "Okay."

[00:24:16] Bob: And then she's persuaded to talk with local media about what happened.

[00:24:20] Ellen Rudolph: And I ended up being interviewed by four local TV stations; KTLA, KCBS, KABC, KNBC, by a local radio station, and the LA Times did a, an article on me as well and it was like, do I really want to be famous for this?

[00:24:45] Bob: Yeah, of course.

[00:24:46] Ellen Rudolph: Is this how I want my 15 minutes of fame?

[00:24:50] Bob: But thanks to the generosity of strangers...

[00:24:54] Bob: Fairly quickly you end up, they raised enough money to replace what was stolen, right?

[00:24:59] Ellen Rudolph: Yes, it was extraordinary, and one of the last contributions totally blew my mind. There were several from people I have never known before, never heard of before, and a very sizeable one. The largest donation came from a woman, is it okay to say her name?

[00:25:20] Bob: Sure.

[00:25:20] Ellen Rudolph: Okay, a woman named Jamie Tierney, who I'd never met before. She was a recent Palisadian who had bought a home and remodeled it and it was her dream home, and she had lived in it for just a few months and it was destroyed. And the thought of the time and money to rebuild it was just too much for her, so she moved elsewhere. She saw, maybe one of the newsclips, I'm not quite sure, and she donated $4500.

[00:26:01] Bob: Wow.

[00:26:04] Ellen Rudolph: And I went looking for her, and we did ultimately meet for coffee and I thanked her and yeah, amazing. But she said that, that my story was just too compelling for her, you know she couldn't imagine losing a home or being evacuated from it and losing a, you know a mate and going through all of this. And I was just astonished with her generosity. Incredible, honestly.

[00:26:39] Bob: That's, that's very beautiful.

[00:26:40] Ellen Rudolph: Yeah.

[00:26:41] Bob: So again, you know there's, there's, there's amazing things that come out of these horrible things, there really are.

[00:26:46] Ellen Rudolph: Yes.

[00:26:48] Bob: The experience has left Ellen with a lot of scars though.

[00:26:52] Ellen Rudolph: It's been a crash course in shame and how to manage that, and what to share and what not to share, and how vulnerable to be and all of that jazz.

[00:27:04] Bob: And the shame, the criminals use that shame because if people talk about this more openly, I think we'd all know more about it, and so the silence and the shame around it only makes things better for the criminals.

[00:27:16] Ellen Rudolph: Absolutely. No question about it. And I've also, more recently, uh, had a, a very interesting group session with um, some members of my synagogue uh talking about the concept of shame. And why we feel shame and what to do about it and how to work through it or purge it. Very, very helpful because for me, this last thing, this scam was, as I said earlier, a crash course in shame.

[00:27:50] Bob: Hmm. What was helpful about the discussion?

[00:27:55] Ellen Rudolph: Um, just that um, being vulnerable um, you know is a way to connect with people and it, it took me a while to accept that I was a victim, to call, I'm not used to calling myself or thinking of myself as a victim. There are too many people in the public and in politics who claim to be victims and so I have a kneejerk reaction against that, and yet I was victimized. I was a victim. And at my most vulnerable, and it was not my fault despite my, I hesitate to use the word collusion, my participation in it made me no less a victim.

[00:28:43] Bob: There is no one who wouldn't look at this situation and say, you lost your home, you lost your husband. There's noth--, you have zero fault for this. But yet, I would imagine you're the only one who sees it that way, and I hope over time that you forgive yourself.

[00:28:58] Ellen Rudolph: Yeah, I've gotten much better at it, much better.

[00:29:02] Bob: And we often say these criminals steal so much more than money, and gosh that's so, so true in Ellen's case, because she still has so much to recover from. Now her big life update is, the week we interviewed her, she was able to move back into her restored home in the Palisades almost a year and a half after the fire. But as I'm sure you realize, moving back in without Steve, well, that's pretty hard.

[00:29:29] Bob: Your home right now is pretty empty, right?

[00:29:31] Ellen Rudolph: It's been an out-of-body, surreal experience to move back to a house that is, that looks so different. All of my belongings, they brought everything back, they, the movers are going to come back one more day next week to unpack more boxes, and yes, I'm, to be here without Steve is quite bizarre and sad and yeah, it's, it's very challenging. I'm, I actually had decided several months ago that since I would be moving back alone and since I have almost no neighbors, the closest, there are, I'm the fourth occupant of a house on this block of 62 houses. And the closest neighbors I have are four doors down, and they both...

[00:30:32] Bob: That's so weird.

[00:30:33] Ellen Rudolph: It's very weird. They bought one of the houses that was still standing and they moved in a couple of months ago. The house next-door is being rebuilt and there's somebody out there doing a little property survey, and that's what my dog is barking at. Should we wait?

[00:30:52] Bob: No, I don't mind the barking, honestly.

[00:30:55] Ellen Rudolph: Okay

[00:30:56] Bob: What's your dog's name?

[00:30:57] Ellen Rudolph: He has a ridiculous name. He was a rescue, and his name is Dave.

[00:31:02] Bob: (laughs) Dave the Rescue, sure.

[00:31:04] Ellen Rudolph: Dave the Rescue, and Steve used to, when I would, sometimes when the windows were open and I would shout at him, "Dave, shut up!" Steve would say, "You might not want to let the neighbors hear you saying, 'Dave, shut up.'" And he was right, of course, about so many things. Yeah, people across the street whose house was being enlarged, it's a family with four kids that was halfway, over halfway built that was destroyed and it's now more than halfway built again. So I will have neighbors, and I'm doing my best to connect with everybody I can. I'm doing okay, but it's very bizarre, very bizarre.

[00:31:52] Bob: You know, and I just have...

[00:31:53] Ellen Rudolph: And a little scary.

[00:31:53] Bob: I just have to say what I'm sure everyone will think which is, you've been through so much, and boy, does life owe you some good luck right now.

[00:32:01] Ellen Rudolph: Yeah.

[00:32:03] Bob: What do you hope that people learn listening to your story?

[00:32:08] Ellen Rudolph: I guess with respect to scams, as I said earlier, do not, don't leap to try and fix it. Take your time. Sit back. Talk to people. Do not jump. And check it out thoroughly. And so that's the first thing. Trust your gut a bit and that's what I would tell anyone and everyone who receives some kind of notification like this. Don't go it alone. Call your family, call your friend. Make them wait. It's not urgent.

[00:32:52] Bob: But now it makes sense, of course, check things out carefully. But one of the reasons that I think your story is so important is because you were incredibly vulnerable, particularly because I know how hard it is to deal with insurance after a disaster like this, and there's papers and papers and signing, so I don't know that it's realistic honestly. You know what I mean? I think the point that is important to make is when there's a disaster or something else like that in your life, you are really vulnerable, right?

[00:33:18] Ellen Rudolph: Extremely. Yeah, never been more vulnerable in my whole life. And I thought my divorce was the bar, and until, until the scam happened, I believed that, and then with the scam, it was like no, no. This is way worse than my divorce. Way, way worse. Exponentially.

[00:33:40] Bob: After a disaster or anything that shakes your world like a divorce or fire, you can be incredibly vulnerable. And we want to stress that point. So to help us with that is Andrew Belcher. He's the Chief of the Investigation Division of the California Department of Insurance. They get a lot of complaints from consumers, especially after disasters like fires or floods. And he took Ellen's story personally.

[00:34:07] Andrew Gulcher: Wonderful that she was made whole, horrible how all of this happened, and I think this hits home to me a little bit because of this particular scam that happened to her, it actually happened to a close family member of mine within the last 6 months.

[00:34:19] Bob: Oh wow.

[00:34:20] Andrew Gulcher: Where they had some sort of in to get contact with, in this case for her, a PayPal account, and it was similar to that in my situation, and worked a conversation into being able to get into their computer through a remote application, which the scam revolves around; sometimes it's PayPal, sometimes it's postal service, sometimes it's Bank of America, but it's things that they believe a lot of people would have. And so yeah, for her to have that happen, and having it know the details of what happened in my family, is you, you feel really bad because of the circumstance they may find themselves in.

[00:34:58] Bob: The actual mechanisms for the theft here are not as important to us for this story as the fact that this poor woman had been through hell, and you know when you have a fire there's insurance and payments lying around, all these papers, you have to sign papers constantly, and all you want to do is get the papers out of the way so somebody fixes your home. And so she was in that mode, and I think that made her far more vulnerable than the average consumer, don't you think?

[00:35:23] Andrew Gulcher: Absolutely. I think that's the premise of the scammers is they can very easily send out a lot of these dealers to find somebody where most of them are met in vain for them, unfortunately. But then there are always going to be some that resonate with somebody in terms of I am now maybe more susceptible like having a little bit of a weakened immune system where you might be more vulnerable to those kind of things, and when you look at what happened between Palisades and Eaton Fire, you know, some 15,000 structures were damaged or destroyed. We set up 9 disaster assistance centers and we had many Ellen's coming in to talk to us because they had lost everything, and they came in and they say, I don't even know who my insurance company is. I think what's important is for people to not be impulsive, and that's hard when people are in shock, 'cause that's literally what was happening to people is they're in shock on something that they could not fathom. And like you said, if you haven't been through those things before, or seen those things before, it's hard to imagine really being, not having any idea what to do. And so when somebody comes in the suggestion can be a lot to push them in a direction.

[00:36:40] Bob: One common scam in the aftermath of a disaster is a criminal arrives and says they can get repairs started quickly, much more quickly than the insurance company can only because they have special access to construction workers or raw materials, if the victim pays upfront. And then the criminal just takes off with the money.

[00:37:01] Andrew Gulcher: You don't know the status of your home. It's three weeks before you can go back and look, and there are so many unknowns, and it doesn't take much for a scammer to figure out who was living in those areas. You can put in an address in Google, and you can pretty quickly find out who may be associated with that, and then go from there to making phone calls to somebody, 'cause a lot of people's information and contact information is out there. And they can then you know do things where people may feel vulnerable whether it's the PayPal thing for her, or just hey, I'm a public adjuster. I found out from a friend that you got this place. I can talk to you about trying to get back in there. I can do all these things. Immediately after, it can be a very vulnerable time for somebody who's been displaced just waiting to see if their property is okay.

[00:37:51] Bob: And, and the contractors, illegal contractors show up too, right, and say, oh, I'll fix your roof right now, or they...

[00:37:57] Andrew Gulcher: Yes.

[00:37:57] Bob: ... even cite damage that doesn't really exist, right?

[00:38:00] Andrew Gulcher: Yeah, absolutely. They come in. They will, the earlier they can get in, the more they can inflate things. Oftentimes the public adjusters that are not good, or even unlicensed public adjusters coming in from another state, they're a public adjuster in Florida and then they come here and they say, "Oh, I'm a public adjuster and this is my contractor. We're ready to go right now. All we need is a deposit." That's a big one. Just give us a little money to hold our time, uh $5000 and we're going to be in here Tuesday to start clearing your lot. And they'll make them sign paperwork as if it's real, and then you know they write a check for $5000 and those people are never seen again.

[00:38:41] Bob: I used to cover weather disasters for NBC News, so I went to a lot of hurricane zones after in the aftermath, and I if, again, if people haven't been through this, one of the first things you find out is, okay, so your home is damaged, but it's going to be three months before we can get the wood, the delays are enormous. So if somebody walks up and says, you know what, I've got a special connection, we can get you going next week. That, that would be incredibly appetizing to a consumer, right?

[00:39:07] Andrew Gulcher: Absolutely. Lumber isn't cheap, and sometimes it's in short supply. They will say those things. They're, the scammers will say anything to try to get, engage people in terms of that sense of urgency. Hey, get me, I've only got this limited supply of lumber. I've only got this limited amount of roofing after this hailstorm or tornado; I can make this happen for you. And then that makes people more vulnerable because that sense of urgency of trying to get to normal.

[00:39:35] Bob: So this is an old story, right? When there's some kind of natural disaster or a disaster of any kind, um, criminals, scammers rush into that space and try to take advantage of people, right?

[00:39:47] Andrew Gulcher: Yes. They know there's money involved because of the damage to homes or the complete loss of homes. There are many consumers, maybe people live in those areas got what we would call the full policy limits on an insurance policy. And just to keep it simple, maybe the house, the total value of the insurance is, you know, $2 million, and that includes rebuild, that includes all those costs. The companies sometimes were just writing a check and handing a $2 million check to the consumer and saying, our business here is concluded. You're, we're shutting you know, but they've got $2 million, but now they don't, they just have a plot of land. That can be challenging for people to navigate a windfall in the same way that sometimes you know people get a windfall from an estate. And looking at where to do that that there are people that look at obituaries, they look for people from the Palisades or Eaton fire, any other natural disaster, and say, I can help you with that money you had. I can help you invest it. You can buy an annuity and it's very safe, or I've got an investment where you can get a great return on your money and it's very safe. But you have to act now. So a lot of it is the inducement of the urgency that sometimes people want to grab, get a great deal and an opportunity, and at the same time a lot of these can be tied with unfortunate events, disaster, or loss of a family member and she had both in this case.

[00:41:16] Bob: And, and for people who haven't been through this, it, it can sound amazing to suddenly get a check for $2 million, but that's not really your money, especially, I mean even in a normal circumstances it might be hard to start over with a plot of land and get a home with all your stuff in it back for some amount of money. But after a disaster, everything costs more and there's delays and so you don't really even own that money, right?

[00:41:39] Andrew Gulcher: I would agree with that. You would have to assume that they're already relocated somewhere, right, so they're in a temporary living area having just bought new clothes and maybe even a new computer. A lot of people leave their laptops at home and all they have is their, the tele-, or cellphone. So you're right. So that, whatever fictitious $2 million is going to go by pretty quick, especially when you look at, well if you're looking to rebuild, there's all kinds of costs in getting architecture and building permits, and the responsibility to, to clear the land that's already there of, of the remains of the home. And some of that, especially in the Eaton fire, I think it was the Army Corps of Engineers actually had to come in and do it on behalf of consumers because there was homes were so old they had asbestos in the pipes.

[00:42:28] Bob: Oh God, yeah. Sure.

[00:42:29] Andrew Gulcher: So there's a lot of costs. So you're spot on with the fact that it sounds like a windfall, but it really isn't.

[00:42:35] Bob: And, and so if someone is persuaded, invest this money while you're waiting around for your new home or whatnot, that could be a disaster, right?

[00:42:43] Andrew Gulcher: Yeah, especially because you know a lot of times, we're unable to get the money back. A lot of times the money is spent by these scammers. They go through it really quickly. And it can be a long time before someone realizes that they were scammed.

[00:42:58] Bob: Public adjusters, if you're unfamiliar with the term, are hired by disaster victims as advocates to counterbalance the adjuster sent by insurance companies who place a value on the claim.

[00:43:10] Andrew Gulcher: You have a fire in your kitchen, and I'm not talking you burned the dinner, which I'm good at, that's, there's smoke. And maybe you're at a room, a room very far away from your kitchen, you walk in and you say, I swear I still smell smoke, right, because smoke carries. Fortunately the department has advocated, and we've got some new laws passed for smoke damage, because it's an intangible. It's not like I see a stain, or I see a hole in the wall. It's, I smell something, right. The same thing with like mold. If there's a water leak in your home, they can fix that, but then you may always be thinking, did the water get behind the floorboard in this room and it's causing mold? And so a public adjuster in theory would be somebody who would take a wider view of the damage that was incurred on a given event, or a public adjuster may be more conservative in their estimate because they're working for the insurance company.

[00:44:11] Bob: So a public adjuster can really help a victim. But some public adjusters demand 20% or more of the insurance payout. And others don't have the proper licenses. So victims should take great care when signing up with a public adjuster.

[00:44:27] Andrew Gulcher: And so if they see public adjuster and contractor working in tandem, that is beyond just, I found you as a contractor, or you're one of five contractors that I use; that can be a red flag. That people should read things before they sign, before hiring a public adjuster or contractor, go to the state department websites and check their license number. Those are all very good things to do and don't make those decisions right away. Create that pause for yourself.

[00:44:55] Bob: Sure. Okay, so after a disaster, and I know this is the hardest time for pretty much any human being, but we want to try to help. After a disaster, what kind of things could consumers do to scam-proof themselves?

[00:45:09] Andrew Gulcher: I think slowing down their decision-making, and bringing in people that they trust that are outside of industry, meaning outside of the insurance industry or outside of the public adjusters and say, I'm thinking about making this decision, how can I be more informed about it? Googling, "should I hire a public adjuster" is a good start. Calling the Department of Insurance for public adjusters or contractors. Check their license. Check to see if there's any action against their license, if they've had bad even Yelp reviews or how do they look, are there things that maybe give me even more pause to make a decision? I think the number one thing is people feel rushed or pressured and most scammers are looking to apply some urgency of, I'm only going to be here for a little bit. Or this deal is only going to last. Those are things that scammers are looking to apply after a disaster, where people are feeling vulnerable because of that sense they want some normalcy.

[00:46:16] Bob: So I know you can only speak for the California Department of Insurance, but, but just generally, ev--, every state has an agency like that, right? And so if somebody is confused about something, what should they do? They should call you, right?

[00:46:30] Andrew Gulcher: Absolutely. The Department phone number, 1-800-927-4375, we actually have a chat feature and they can obviously email to reach out. I think telling people, one, don't make a quick decision, but also, there's a second part of that is really important, is to reach out to somebody that they trust, that isn't in that same sense of urgency to make the decision that can provide a counterpoint to maybe what's going on. Certainly reaching out to government offices if you're going to be hiring a contractor. I'm almost 100% certain that Contractors State License Board in California has a similar, we can help you in talking about what your rights are, what they can ask for, what they can't ask for. Same thing for the Department of Insurance. We're happy to answer questions. We want to be there. We, so absolutely create the pause, write down the information, take anything that they want to give you in terms of information or contact information. You can accept that, be polite and say, I'm not making a decision today. And that's a pretty good policy for a lot of things in life. Just, I'm not making that decision today, and then sleeping on it and like you said, reach out to the Department of Insurance. Reach out to that other government entity. It doesn't have to be a state agency. County agencies in the United States are all very good at responding to consumers that have questions that, hey, I'm afraid I'm going to be a victim here. Can you tell me what I don't know.

[00:47:58] Bob: Tell me what I don't know. That's a great place to start a question with a government agency. Okay, speaking of things we don't know. What happens when Andy's family member was hit by that PayPal scam? Well fortunately, the criminal was unable to get their hacking tools installed on the victim's computer.

[00:48:45] Andrew Gulcher: And they're actually on the phone with the scammer for over an hour. And then, then when they started asking for larger and larger amounts of money to fix whatever it was, that was supposed to be not working, that's when my family member sort of decided, I need to call somebody else, and they actually ended up calling me. And then we were able to, fortunately I was close driving time for that because I couldn't call her bank, call and say, hey, I'm the relative of so and so. They're not going to believe you. So it was one of those things where I went back, loaded them in my car and we went to the bank in person and then we were able to put some safeguards in place for that for monitoring to also put me on the account so I could help monitor.

[00:49:00] Bob: It's nice to have an Andy in the family.

[00:49:03] Andrew Gulcher: (chuckles) Some would say. So my, my sister might be a little jealous but uh, or have other things to say about it, but yeah, it, sometimes it's good because, because you know, because you know what to do, but bad because you know how many bad people are out there.

[00:49:13] Bob: Yeah, it can be discouraging. But I, I kid, but I don't kid. It's, I think it's one of the things that we talk about a lot on the podcast is how important it is to have somebody you can reach out to in any moment where you feel like things are weird or off. It's always good to have a, a second person, a second pair of eyes and people should play the role of Andy in their families. And one thing I think all the time, the person who's in the middle of this disaster, they're in no condition to make good choices like this. Shock is the right word for it. Oftentimes you hear people say, can I do anything to help? The thing you can do to help is to stay in touch and make sure that none of these kinds of things are happening. If you can be that third party, outside friend to, to just be a sounding board when contract deals come up or whatnot. That's a really great service to provide for friends, for someone else who's been in, in a disaster, I think.

[00:49:57] Andrew Gulcher: Yeah, I think that's when friends and family need to be checking very regularly on them and asking them the question, has anybody approached you about the repairs? Has anybody asked or approached you about what, about the money? Oh yes, this nice person came by and this sounded really good and I was thinking about it. That can start the conversation, so I think a good point of making sure you're engaged with your friends and family that have gone through or are going through a disaster to, to help at be a sounding board for them and ask those questions about money. People are often hesitant to ask--, talk about money with friends and family. But hey, the house is damaged, really how about going, thinking about going to repair this? What has your insurance company adjuster said? Have you talked to any contractors? Have they been around here asking or leaving flyers or those kind of things. And that can maybe help create some pause and the opportunity for someone who is thinking about those things that they may now feel like they can talk about it where maybe somebody's who's in a sense of, in a mode of get things done, didn't have that opportunity for someone to ask about those things.

[00:51:03] Bob: So, look out for each other especially after a disaster. Before we go, I wanted to check in with Ellen one more time to see how she's doing. And I think it's fair to say that she's trying to be very Zen about it all.

[00:51:19] Ellen Rudolph: Just it's going to take a long time to, to accept this new reality, and one of the things I struggled with just before moving back was two main concepts. One was the concept of returning. What does it mean to return to a house that is very different, to a house without my dear, beloved husband, to a community that doesn't exist in the same way, and where I have almost no neighbors that is, a community that's undergoing tremendous upheaval and change. And I learned through a meditation, guided meditation app that a better framing is, instead of returning, I have arrived. And this was from a meditation app called Happier, and an instructor whose teacher was Thich Nhat Hanh, a very well-known Vietnamese Zen Buddhist Master who died a year or two ago, and he evidently summed up his, his life's teachings with the sentence, "I have arrived. I am home." And the, so for me, I've reframed, I'm, I haven't returned, I have arrived, and where is home? Home is where, wherever I am. It's inside of me.

[00:52:55] Bob: That's very beautiful.

[00:52:56] Ellen Rudolph: And so with those, with that reframing, I feel, and if I can continue to remind myself about that, it helps me um, put one foot in front of the other. Okay, and Bob, the other thing I guess I want...

[00:53:11] Bob: Please.

[00:53:12] Ellen Rudolph: ... to say.

[00:53:12] Bob: Yeah.

[00:53:13] Ellen Rudolph: Is that I, I've been aware because I am an AARP member of how much time and effort the organization is making to keep people safe, to keep people from getting scammed, to educate, and I applaud you in those efforts, truly.

[00:53:35] Bob: That's a really nice thing to say. Thank you very much.

[00:53:38] Ellen Rudolph: Absolutely. I mean it.

[00:53:39] Bob: Yeah, we all care a lot, and there's a whole lot of people here who do. So thank you.

[00:53:44] Ellen Rudolph: You're welcome. Take care, everybody.

[00:53:47] Bob: For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:54:00] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you're not alone. Call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next. Our email address at The Perfect Scam is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org, and we want to hear from you. If you've been the victim of a scam or you know someone who has, and you'd like us to tell their story, write to us. That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; Researcher, Becky Dodson; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; and our Audio Engineer and Sound Designer, Julio Gonzalez. Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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