Oil Tycoon Con Artist Steals More Than Hearts

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

[00:00:03] Whitney Kirkpatrick: He was an oil and gas man, the cowboy hats, the boots.   He boasted about having so much money, living this lavish lifestyle.

[00:00:12] Whitney Kirkpatrick: At night I would get these notifications on my phone, "$500 has just been withdrawn from your bank account." When he snapped and snatched the picture out of my hand, the southern drawl went away, it was shocking.

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[00:00:30] Welcome back to The Perfect Scam, I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.  Whitney Kirkpatrick is a young, recent nursing school graduate in Dallas who sets up an online dating profile on a whim and...gets swept off her feet by a cowboy-hat wearing man named Greg. He has a Texas-sized personality and, it seems, a bank account to boost. At just 25, he's an oil tycoon, he runs his own company, he's running for political office, he takes her to New York City for New year's Eve! Even Whitney's parents like Greg. His ambition is so strong he throws himself a birthday party that's a mock presidential inauguration!  But even as romance fills the air, Whitney's bank accounts are mysteriously emptied by a criminal hacking into her accounts. And one day, while Whitney is in the shower, there's a loud bang at the door -- it seems, someone is looking for Greg.  This is part 1 of a two-part episode about a man with a very tall tale and a very dark past.  It's one of our favorite stories, so we've plucked it from the archives as we work on future episodes of The Perfect Scam.

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[00:01:48] Bob: Hearing about an old flame can be a strange feeling, maybe it's charming. You learn that the first girl you ever kissed on the lips 20 years ago or so just gave birth to twins, or maybe it makes you a little mad. What? They started dating one week after we broke up? Or maybe it gives you a glimmer of hope. Wait? He's single again? But nothing can compare to the feeling Whitney Kirkpatrick had recently when she heard about an old flame. Her ex-boyfriend was recently accused of a gruesome murder.

[00:02:23] Whitney Kirkpatrick: I got a Facebook message from someone who a long time ago, you know, you have so many Facebook friends, you forget you're friends with people, and I got a message from this person, and they said, "Hey um, did you hear about Greg?" And I said, "No, I, I haven't, what's going on?" And they said, "Well he's been arrested." And they sent me a link. And the link showed that he'd been arrested for murder.

[00:02:49] Bob: How did a bright successful young woman like Whitney get involved with someone who would eventually be accused of murder? Well, as you might imagine, that's quite a story. Whitney told me she didn’t get a sense Greg was a violent person although he did show he was capable of committing a most outlandish, elaborate, incredible crime while they were dating. Whitney and her mom, Claudia, remember the whole thing like it was yesterday. Whitney was a recent college graduate at the time, a nurse just starting out near her childhood home in Dallas, and her mom was very proud of her. Claudia is also a nurse.

[00:03:26] Claudia Kirkpatrick: I grew up in Miami, Florida. I went to nursing school in Miami, and at the time that I graduated my roommate was an intern from Ft. Worth. And when her internship was completed, it was like I, I think I'd rather move to Texas than try and find a different roommate. So I did move to Texas. That was 1983, and I've been here every since. Five years after I moved here I was working in the emergency room and the, one of the nurses that I worked with said, "I have a Christmas gift for you." And I said, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know we were exchanging gifts." And she said, "Oh, it's just my brother's phone number." So I called her brother. Six months later we were married, and now we've been married 38 years. Two kids and...

[00:04:30] Bob: That is quite the Christmas gift, wow.

[00:04:32] Claudia Kirkpatrick: It's the Christmas gift that keeps on giving. Yeah. We got two kids, um, our daughter is a, has a Doctorate of Nurse Practitioner, and she's over at Parkland in Dallas, and our son is Director of Marketing for the Arts Community Alliance in Dallas, and they're doing very well. So we've been very blessed.

[00:04:54] Bob: Well, Whitney is a very, very impressive woman. I talked to her for a long time the other day, but I did not realize that she basically followed in your footsteps. That must make you feel good.

[00:05:04] Claudia Kirkpatrick: You know, it does...

[00:05:06] Bob: Whitney is just fresh out of school, working overnight shifts, beginning a life of following Mom's career path when Greg comes into her life.

[00:05:16] Whitney Kirkpatrick: So, oh gosh, I had just graduated college. I was a new nurse, and my friends and I were like, man, what do we do now that we're not in school anymore? We've dedicated our lives to school, and we're like, oh yeah, we date. So we all got, just for fun, you know, online dating profiles. And of course we weren't ready to pay money for them, you know, so we were uh, we did the cheap sites, the free ones. So I was on there not for anything serious but just, just for fun, and uh eventually Gregory messaged me and we, we started talking on the phone, and I wasn't exactly attracted to him.

[00:05:53] Bob: But Gregory is persistent. He has amazing ambition and amazing stories to tell and the stories he tells check out.

[00:06:02] Whitney Kirkpatrick: But he boasted about having so much money, lots and lots and lots of money and living this lavish lifestyle which, of course, immediately you're skeptical because this person is telling me that they're 25 years old at the time, and that they were CEO of such and such company, so on and so forth. I own horses, I, I own a ranch. I'm friends with Rick Perry who's the, who was at the time the governor, I hung out with George Bush and things like that. And it didn't make sense. I was like, this can't be. But when you go and google it, you know, as I'm telling my friends all this stuff, they're googling it, and they're finding stuff on the internet.

[00:06:40] Bob: Even Whitney's friends are entranced by Greg's resume.

[00:06:43] Whitney Kirkpatrick: We just felt that the internet was, was validation enough, and we're like, hey, here's this company's website, here are all these employees, here's all these Google reviews about his company, about how great he is, and how the coworkers are so excited and love working there and love working for him. Here's these articles we found about supposedly when he was in high school and won all these awards and you know, most up and coming student, stuff like that.

[00:07:07] Bob: So her friends say, go for it.

[00:07:09] Whitney Kirkpatrick: I was like, fine, we can go out and besides my friends were like hey, he's rich. You should go for it. And you know as 23 and 24-year-olds, you know, that was our mindset at the time, fairly immature.

[00:07:21] Bob: Still, Whitney is cautious. She takes things pretty slowly.

[00:07:26] Whitney Kirkpatrick: Yeah, so you exchange messages back and forth for however long, and eventually you say, well here is my number, you can text or call. You start off texting back and forth. It's just, you know, "Hey, how's your day going?" so on and so forth. And then it eventually gets to the time when it's like, "Hey, can we, can we talk on the phone? Could I have your phone number?" And so...

[00:07:47] Bob: So how long do you think was it between your first message from him, because you said you weren't even necessarily attracted, and when he talked you into a phone call. How long did that take?

[00:07:56] Whitney Kirkpatrick: Probably two weeks before I gave him my phone number, but this is two weeks of him messaging me daily. And we talked on the phone, um, probably for another couple of weeks in the evenings, when I was available in the evenings. And we would just chitchat for hours actually. I remember one time we stayed up talking till about 3 o'clock in the morning.

[00:08:16] Bob: And then, something fantastic happens during the phone call.

[00:08:20] Whitney Kirkpatrick: One time while we were on the phone, he was in the midsentence and said, "Oh my gosh, hold on. There's been an accident. I'm going to go check it out." So I'm on hold waiting to see how this accident is, is going, and he comes back after you know, about 15 minutes, and he said, um, "I need to, I need to hang up with you. I need to call the police." And I said, "Okay, no problem." So he hangs up and calls me back about 30 minutes later and he's like, "Hey, you won't believe it." And he goes on to tell me the story about how he pulls up on a car, a SUV that is flipped over, and that there's a woman and a baby inside. And he tells the, this story so dramatic, how he first heard the woman, and the woman was barely conscious, and then how he, all of a sudden hears the cry of a baby, and knows that he needs to save this child and, and on and on and on. So, eventually, supposedly he keeps the woman awake and until the authorities get there. And that he felt like he saved this woman's life, and he just had to tell me this, this story. So of course I'm like wow, amazing, you know. I guess he was trying to sell me a, a, a valiant, noble act and to impress me. But eventually...

[00:09:32] Bob: Did it work?

[00:09:33] Whitney Kirkpatrick: I guess, yes. It worked, and um, we did, we did eventually go out on a date.

[00:09:37] Bob: So, she finally agrees to meet Greg in person. And he, well, he lays on the charm really thick.

[00:09:45] Whitney Kirkpatrick: I remember it was to a fancy Italian restaurant. I can't remember the name, but he actually had the waiter bring me this like ginormous bouquet. I don't even know how many roses were in it. It was more than a dozen. But it was very elaborate where they played music at your table, I got handed this huge bouquet that didn't even fit on the table. I didn't have anywhere to set it, so they had to take it back to keep it out of the way of our, our meal. Um, he wanted to take me on a ride. He kept talking about his car. He's like, well, you know, my Mercedes is outside, and you know, I'd like to take you, you know we'll even get dessert somewhere else, and I had already told myself that I was only going to do a dinner. And um, so I did not go with him that evening in his personal vehicle. I went, I went back home.

[00:10:33] Bob: Whitney leaves dinner that night alone, but spends a lot of time thinking about this man and the gigantic bouquet of flowers that didn't even fit on the dinner table. Greg told her that night that he made his money like everyone else does in Texas, he struck it rich through oil.

[00:10:49] Whitney Kirkpatrick: There were these extravagant companies that he was this, he was an oil and gas man, the cowboy hats, the boots, apparently, he was a very cowboy, Texas-y type thing, um, this oil and gas business, and he sure did talk the talk and walk that walk and dress the part.

[00:11:04] Bob: He says he has important friends too, even though he comes from humble beginnings. He makes sure no one forgets he's a cowboy.

[00:11:13] Whitney Kirkpatrick: It was almost like, because this is a very large Black man that you wouldn't expect to sound so down south cowboy-ish, especially when he tells you his story about how he grew up in um, South Dallas in the projects. You wouldn't expect him to um, sound like that. He portrayed himself as this huge Republican and how he loved being one of few Black Republicans.

[00:11:41] Bob: Still, as time goes by, the smooth-talking, cowboy hat wearing man with the never-ending swagger really starts to grow on Whitney.

[00:11:49] Whitney Kirkpatrick: He was a great conversationalist, and he, he talked me into going out again. The more time went on, the more he grew on me al--, also so to speak. Um, and I think that at that time being 23 or 24, I was wowed by the extravagance and things like that. That's what eventually I think won me over was hey, he's not so bad. He's really, really nice, and we do really fun things. And all my friends by this time had been wooed by him as well with the uh fancy meals and expensive parties and such. So everybody liked him, um, and the more he was around the more they liked him. So even my parents, by the time he met my parents... so my parents even liked him.

[00:12:31] Bob: Claudia, Whitney's mom, definitely finds him charming.

[00:12:35] Claudia Kirkpatrick: When we met Greg, he, he came across as a little boisterous, very friendly, um, quite charming, quite, just a nice young man that had done well for himself. You know, that was the way he came across. He came across as knowledgeable, and of course he, he pulled up in a, a really nice car for our first meeting, and he was fairly well-dressed if I remember correctly, he had on some scuffed boots, but everybody wears scuffed boots in Texas, so didn't think anything of that, but uh, he, it just seemed like a nice young man who was very friendly, kind of outgoing, and very engaging. He came across as a people person. Someone that you wouldn't have any suspicions of. Um, he basically sold himself to us. Very friendly, very engaging, just a charming young man who could talk to people. You know, he seemed to be more experienced in the world than Whitney. I mean he, he seemed to be on a path the way he spoke of himself on a path to accomplish things.

[00:13:59] Bob: After Whitney gets that kind of approval from Mom and Dad, things progress until the holidays roll around. That's when things get much more serious during a most romantic date in New York City on New Year's Eve.

[00:14:13] Bob: You go on several of these extravagant dates where he lavishes you with flowers and expensive dinners and such. Um, at what point did you, and I'm sure you, you and your friends thought this was sort of fun at first, but what, at what point did you start to think, I really like this guy. This could really turn into something.

[00:14:32] Whitney Kirkpatrick: Hmm, that's a very good question. I would say probably around the time we went to New York City, this was after we had sat courtside at some Mavericks games out here, and he had taken me on a gondola ride with one of those Italian men that, that serenades you while you're riding down the, the body of water, and that he had met my parents, and everything was going really well, and we decided to go to New York City for New Year's Eve, and it was very last minute. Um, he's like, "Hey, let's just, let's just go." And my brother actually came too, and so I thought that was really sweet that he brought my brother along as well. And so that, that right there kind of made me think, you know, wow, he's willing to incorporate my family too, the people that I love, too, and do this nice, nice trip for us. So the trip was great actually. Um, we had one of those uh car services that, that picks you up, you know the uh, they hold up the sign with your name on it and you think you're special, and you get in the car with the driver. So we were driving all around New York, staying at, of course, really nice hotels, and the party was actually underground. You had to have special access, special passwords, I mean I felt, it was like in a cave underground but with like a bar and a stage and I mean you never would have known it was there. It was like some backdoor entrance like on a movie. So I remember having a really good time out in New York and thinking, yeah, I could, I could do this. You know this is, this is nice. This type of lifestyle is great. I was getting gifts all along the way. And he was sharing the experiences with my family too. And my father even thanked him, you know, like thank you for taking my kids to New York and for them to have that experience.

[00:16:25] Bob: Had you been to New York before?

[00:16:26] Whitney Kirkpatrick: No, I hadn't been to New York before.

[00:16:29] Bob: I can't imagine anything more romantic than getting whisked off your feet on New Year's Eve to a special, secret party, you know, right, there was the midnight kiss, all those things, right?

[00:16:39] Whitney Kirkpatrick: Oh yeah, I mean it was the countdown, there was confetti, balloons. We, of course, had table service, our own VIP table. So you know there was plenty of food, drinks. I mean it was, I felt like I was in a music video. It was a really, really great time. One of the better times I've had on, on New Year's Eve, and I got to have my brother there too. I still have the pictures, um, from, from us from that evening. And I went, I remember coming back home and telling all my friends about it, and I talked about it for weeks, and my parents thought it was, was great that we got to have that experience even. So it was wonderful. It was really, really wonderful.

[00:17:21] Bob: As winter turns to spring, things seem great with Greg. And Whitney's living a fun-loving life of a young professional. But then there's this strange problem with her checking account.

[00:17:33] Whitney Kirkpatrick: Yeah, yeah, so I was a nurse at the time working nightshift, and at night I would get these notifications on my phone, "$500 has just been withdrawn from your bank account," you know, like how you go to your bank and you withdraw, it pops up on your phone. And I'm like, I'm at work! How am I withdrawing $500 right now, you know, and I worked nights. Before I got off at 7 am, there were two more notifications for $500 apiece at different ATMs that night, so within a 6-hour timeframe, from midnight to 6 am, this person went to three different ATMs, withdrew the max limit from each ATM around town that night. So $1500 overnight was gone.

[00:18:18] Bob: $1500 is a lot of money to a young nurse. How would this happen? Because Whitney's schedule is difficult, it's not easy working with the bank to solve this mystery. Greg helps with the investigation. He helps a lot.

[00:18:32] Whitney Kirkpatrick: So, of course, I get off work in the morning, and he would always meet me for breakfast at my um, apartment, because he didn't need to be at work until whenever because, you know, he's the boss. So he would bring me breakfast, meet me at my apartment, which was not far from the hospital, and of course, the first thing I tell him is, I'm missing money out of my bank account. So I pull it up on my computer and I'm showing him, you know, these, these withdrawals and, and looking at the addresses of these ATMs and they're all about, they're all over Dallas. And I was like, who took this money? And he was like, "Ah, we need to go to the bank. You need to file for... you know what, I'll handle that for you. I'll file this police report and help you go to the bank." He was right there at my side at the bank and pretending to be the protective boyfriend that's sticking up for his, his girlfriend, you know, "Well where is my, my girl's money? Um, we need to see the video footage of, of this, this happening. I know the ATMs have cameras. You can just show us this..." demanding and, and, and banging his fist on the table, causing a scene. All of this extravagance, all, and I'm sitting there thinking, well wow, he's really sticking up for me. He's handling this. So (sigh) you know, he, eventually the next day says, "Hey, I took it upon myself to file a police report for you through my buddy that I know at the Dallas Police Department. So here you go." And it's this piece of paper with the DPD logo on it, and you know, this case reference number with the details. Each address of the ATM, and I'm sitting here thinking, wow, I've got a legitimate police report. And I thanked him for it, and you know I was sitting here thinking I had this helpful person.

[00:20:13] Bob: The bank ends up coming back to Whitney with bad news.

[00:20:16] Whitney Kirkpatrick: Through the investigation they found out that hey, whoever did it punched in your pin, so they had your card and your pin. You're saying your card wasn't lost. We can shut it down and uh give you a brand new card number, you can, you can start over with a new pin and everything which I, at that point, just changed banks, because in my mind, I blamed it on the bank. I was upset with the bank that they wouldn't let me see the video footage. They claimed that their ATM uh video cameras weren't working, or some of them didn't have cameras.

[00:20:47] Bob: The banks says because the criminal used her pin, it must have somehow been her fault. So she is out $1500. And then there's another surprise annoyance, her car gets in a fender bender. Greg is there when she finds it.

[00:21:01] Whitney Kirkpatrick: I come out to my car and he's with me, and he's like, "Oh my gosh, what happened to your car?" And there's this huge dent in it. And I'm like, "Someone must have hit me." And it's in the exact same parking spot I had left it. So I'm sitting here thinking someone hit it in the parking garage.

[00:21:17] Bob: Whitney writes off the $1500 and the car dent is minor annoyances, she's busy learning her craft and enjoying her relationship with Greg anyway. So is the family. Mom gets to see Greg every week or so. He's always charming and ambitious. He says he plans to run for President someday, but at the moment, he says he's running for city council locally. And then there's this strange conversation about that.

[00:21:42] Whitney Kirkpatrick: Some smaller city council type of position, nothing too major, nothing higher government level, but still, he had a campaign website. He had signs. He had people that he had paid to campaign for him outside the, the voting booths and things like that. And when my parents went to see if he was actually on the ballot, um, he was not on the ballot. And so my father said, "Hey, you know, I looked up the district you said you're running in, and I don't see you on the ballot."

[00:22:15] Bob: Greg is shocked, angry. He even starts to cry, Whitney says. Greg makes a quick phone call, does quite a bit of yelling, then he comes back to the family and blames this mistake on a campaign worker.

[00:22:27] Whitney Kirkpatrick: His campaign manager stabbed him in the back, took his campaign funds, and never turned in his paperwork to have his name on the ballot, and that his man had betrayed him, and he had done all this work, and never got the paperwork turned in and, and now he can't find his campaign manager who had escaped with all these funds. And my parents and I were just like, "Wow, I can't believe someone did that to you, that's so horrible."

[00:22:54] Bob: Still, things keep moving quickly in their relationship, and that spring, Greg says he wants to buy a house. A house, wow! Whitney isn't quite ready for that. But she is there for Greg.

[00:23:07] Whitney Kirkpatrick: Approaching spring, it's starting to warm up outside, and he wants to buy a house, and not just any house, a million-dollar home. And so he's talking about going and looking at houses, taking me with him all over the place saying we should move in together into this big, big house. And I'm skeptical 'cause at the time, I'm like, I'm, you know, 24 years old and I'm not looking to, to do this level of seriousness yet, you know cohabitating. I wasn't, I wasn't there yet. So I went and looked with him, and I was like, well this is going to be your house, so I'm, I'm just here for moral support. And he eventually purchased a house.

[00:23:52] Bob: And he wants to become more imbedded in the community. So he tries to join a country club with Whitney.

[00:23:58] Whitney Kirkpatrick: For some reason, the next thing on his mind was this house, this big, pretty house, and the country club. And when we went to The Four Seasons, he shooed me away when it was time to discuss money. He said, you know, "Hey, this is men's talk," you know. "Let me, let me talk to the guys here about, about the prices of the membership."

[00:24:16] Bob: The Four Seasons membership doesn't work out; Greg would go on to join another club instead, but at about this time something else strange happens. Whitney starts getting calls from creditors.

[00:24:28] Whitney Kirkpatrick: So, I, like I mentioned, worked nights, and I started getting harassing phone calls from what they um, announced themselves to be was the credit card companies. And they would call me at night, and this is like the weirdest thing. I'm like, first, how do you get my, my work phone number? And why are you calling at 2 am, so I'm an ICU nurse, and I'm begging with these people to stop calling, because at this point, I'm thinking I'm going to get in trouble. I explain to them as nice as I can, I say, "Look, I'm an ICU nurse. I take care of very, very critical, sick people, and I can't sit here on the phone with you and talk to you about these credit cards that I don't know exist." You know I; I hadn't been out of college that long. I had one personal credit card. I said, "Sir, I, I purchased my textbooks on it in college, and I haven't used it since. I don’t know about this." And he's like, "You've been purchasing tickets to Mavs games. You've been purchasing plane tickets. You've been purchasing mattresses and TVs. Where's all this going? When are you going to pay your bill?" I said, "I haven't, I don't know what you're talking about. I did not buy those things."

[00:26:32] Bob: Almost as quickly as the calls from credit card companies begin, they stop. So Whitney breathes a sigh of relief as the workplace interruptions are over. Meanwhile, Greg suddenly becomes more interested in going to the private club than almost anything, including her. She starts to wonder about that.

[00:25:50] Whitney Kirkpatrick: And he's just chumming it up with everybody there, the president, all these members, and again, these are people that are retired mostly, they're 40s, 50s and up, and here we are, these two young Black professionals that are coming into this country club that was primarily um, middle-aged Caucasian people, and he just ate it up. He was just the, the life of the party, they just, they loved him. They, they loved him. He went far more than I ever cared to go. Um, I would go up there to have dinner sometimes, and he would have been there all day um, golfing, and meeting people and, and talking to who, God knows who about, about what, probably telling them that he could invest their money, or to come talk to his company, or, or whatever, because he probably saw a room full of money is what he saw.

[00:26:43] Bob: In fact, Greg is there so much that Whitney starts to wonder if he's neglecting his business.

[00:26:49] Whitney Kirkpatrick: He went to that country club every day, to the point where I was like, "You're not even going to work anymore. Are you working? Because you're at the country club every day all day," and he would deflect by just getting angry and saying, "Well it's my money. I can do what I want. I'm sorry, you don't like the country club, but I do. I'm enjoying myself," so he would just kind of go on about that, and, and make me feel bad by saying things like, "Well, you've still got that nice pretty purse" or "I just took you here" or you know, he said "You wanted to go to this restaurant, I took you there. Why do you care what I do all day?"

[00:27:21] Bob: That got on her nerves a bit. But there is one incident that nags at Whitney even more. The one time she sees Greg get mad and the strange thing that happens to his southern accent.

[00:27:34] Whitney Kirkpatrick: I had found a picture of a little girl that looked just like him. I'm talking like if he had had a daughter, that that would be him. Carbon copy, and I said, "Oh my gosh, who is this little girl?" And when he snapped and snatched the picture out of my hand, the southern drawl went away, and the South Dallas came out. Uh, and I just looked like, huh? I, I had never heard him, heard him speak like that before, and uh, it was shocking. And then he went, he saw the look on my face, and went right back to the, the southern drawl. So that right there was very odd.

[00:28:13] Bob: And there is one thing that bothers Mom too. Not only is Greg always ambitious, always on the go, he seems to never sleep.

[00:28:22] Claudia Kirkpatrick: He just never stopped, and I'd say to Whitney, and she said, you know, she thought it was odd that he never slept. I said, "What do you mean, he doesn't sleep?" She said, "He, he never sleeps. He may lay down, but his eyes are open." And I said, "Well, that sounds like fear to me."

[00:28:43] Bob: What is Greg afraid of? And what happened to his accent? As Whitney starts thinking more about these things, Greg's birthday arrives. His ambition fully unleashed, Greg actually throw himself a large birthday party. Well it was more than a large birthday party. It was an inauguration, and yes, that is what it sounds like.

[00:29:07] Whitney Kirkpatrick: Like I said, he um, liked politics, so he had this thing about wanting to be President, and the whole theme of this party was uh, Greg as President. And so he had a podium and everything. It looked like an inauguration, the setup, same setup you would have at an inauguration is what he set up at this place he rented out for his, his birthday. They had a presidential seal on the podium. He stood up and gave this birthday speech. He got dropped off in a limo and walked in, and they played the, the presidential entrance song. There was a balloon release, and he just wanted to, to eat it up, I guess, uh and, and have that really awesome, of course my friends loved it. He bought out the bar, everybody got free drinks, there was plenty of food and it was just this elaborate, just, he was just living a dream.

[00:30:02] Bob: He pretended to be inaugurated as President?

[00:30:06] Whitney Kirkpatrick: Right. Yes. Yes.

[00:30:09] Bob: The home, the girl, the country club, the fake inauguration. Greg seems truly on top of the world until one day...

[00:30:19] Whitney Kirkpatrick: While I'm in the shower, I hear the loudest bang on the door that I've ever heard. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And I immediately turn off the water, wrap up in a towel. I peak my head out the door and say, "Oh my gosh! What is going on?" He is at the door looking through the peephole, and he just said, "It's going to be okay." And I was like, "What's going to be okay?"

[00:30:43] Bob: What's going to be okay? Well, that's next week on The Perfect Scam.

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[00:30:54] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you are 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, Haley Nelson; 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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