This Job Scam is Suddenly Everywhere

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[00:00:02] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam.

[00:00:05] I believed I had a job. I worked, okay? Not only they stole my time and my dignity, they stole my money and I tried to save myself and I couldn't. This world has created a monster.

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[00:00:25] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan. If you've been online looking for a job lately, and maybe even if you haven't, you've probably been hit by invitations to join something we've started calling task scams. In the past 12 to 24 months, task scams have come out of nowhere to become the single biggest scam facing job seekers. They've quadrupled in size just in the past year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. So that's why we're bringing you this story today as soon as we could, because at their heart, these crimes attack human nature in a systematic way that probably wouldn't have been possible until recently, and clearly this particular kind of job scam is working for the criminals. Why? Because they have gamified their scams. We'll show you what we mean. Meet Dorothy from Georgia, a woman who has spent a lot of time recently looking for a part-time job.

[00:01:26] Dorothy: I do have some issues like everybody else, and I've been looking for a job for about 2, 3 years, so I have applied in all known job platforms. But anyway, a long story short, yes, I applied, I couldn't find anything according to what I needed...

[00:01:43] Bob: It was one rejection after another after another. You probably know how that feels. But finally, Dorothy gets a message that sounds hopeful. "Are you still looking for a part-time remote job?"

[00:01:58] Dorothy: Yes, I am. And then they said, "Okay, we'll forward you to a person to give me more details."

[00:02:08] Bob: So Dorothy connects with the company. She has a lot of questions.

[00:02:13] Dorothy: I asked, I said, "Is it online? And is it with training?" And they said, "Yes," and then I said, "How much is it paying?" And they said, "It's paid per day, $50, but you're also being paid during training." And I'm like, okay.

[00:02:29] Bob: Okay, so $50 a day, that sounds pretty good, right?

[00:02:31] Dorothy: Yeah, in all reality, earning $50 a day for a whole week is not bad, and besides, I can't physically, I cannot work a whole week. So I said two, three days a week, I work one day, I rest the other, and so on. That's like 150, 300, 600 a month. Okay, I can pay a bill here and there, and I said okay, it's doable, you know.

[00:02:55] Bob: Dorothy gets transferred to a trainer and mentor.

[00:03:00] Dorothy: So when I got the mentor and I asked questions, what am I supposed to do at home? It's simple. You go check merchants accounts to make sure, apps for the merchants accounts, to make sure there are no errors and whoever comes after you like a client, they don't get errors, they move on forward. Okay.

[00:03:20] Bob: So you were essentially testing apps, is that right?

[00:03:22] Dorothy: Yes. I was supposed to test apps.

[00:03:25] Bob: Dorothy is told she will put new smartphone apps through their paces as a tester, a job, by the way, she has done before.

[00:03:35] Dorothy: And that was to me very familiar because decades ago I actually was one of the techs that will check games, like back in late 1980s, beginning 1990s, I would stay at a home, go to a vendor, pick up 10 games, and stay it at home. That's how I put myself through education actually.

[00:04:00] Bob: This was back in the old Atari days, right?

[00:04:02] Dorothy: Yep, all the Atari games, yeah, I picked up 10 games at home and stayed and played them and found the errors and make a list by pen and paper and said, okay, that section, it glitches, that section doesn't go to the next page. And they didn't pay much, but I would report those same games, and they'll pay me per game and I take my money and the next week they ask me; do you want a new set? Sometimes I take, sometimes I wouldn't because I would have quizzes and finals and stuff. And so they'll all come in next week.

[00:04:33] Bob: So given her positive experience as a tester in the past, Dorothy is excited by this opportunity.

[00:04:40] Dorothy: Everybody's on the computer, on the phone, on the apps. The banks, everybody. And I was like, okay, alright, this is something new to learn. Okay. I will do that.

[00:04:50] Bob: So Dorothy is set up on the company's platform. She's given a list of tasks to perform. Her trainer shows her how. The tasks come in buckets of 20, that's considered one job and she has to do two jobs a day, well three if she's an overachiever. The work is a bit tedious, but otherwise $50 a day is $50 a day, and all through weeks of training she can see her pay balance adding up in the company system. There is one thing that annoys her about the training, however.

[00:05:24] Dorothy: There was a question, actually, that it didn't trigger me, it offended me. So I didn't answer it, but I brushed it off. For first two weeks she kept asking me, "How old are you? How old are you?" And I'm like, what's that got anything to do with you? But I didn't want to get into that discussion.

[00:05:42] Bob: And there's one other thing; the company's accounting of her wages is a bit unusual. Yes, she is piling up wages, deposits into her account that she'll be able to withdraw at some point, but despite her earnings, those don't count toward a minimum requirement she has to have in her account every day. She can't start work without a $100 balance and that's wiped out every day. So at some point during training she's told she'll have to start depositing money into her work account. But still, after her training she's racked up a tidy balance in that account where her wages just keep adding up.

[00:06:24] Bob: So by the end of your training, six weeks, what do you have? A couple, about a couple of thousand dollars in there?

[00:06:30] Dorothy: Yep. Yeah, I had about $2500 in there, yeah.

[00:06:35] Bob: At this point, Dorothy learns that if she completes more tasks, she'll have the opportunity to earn bonuses, but in order to have that opportunity, she'll need to satisfy a much higher minimum balance. They need her to level up. Kind of like reaching the next level in a video game. At first, Dorothy says she's not interested.

[00:06:58] Dorothy: Again, in the end my job was to check those apps were working, okay. By the time I got to the big amount and everything else, they said that I graduated to VIP Level 2, I was supposed to get to VIP Level 4. When I was getting to VIP Level 4 and made enough money to check actual, as a checker for the apps, I made enough money, I said, "My pure thing was to actually have a job remote at home. I'm not looking into making thousands of money," and then I said, "I am satisfied with $50 a day." And they were like, "Wait. We were trying to pay you more and you want to stop at $50 a day?" And I goes, "Yes. I'm satisfied with that. It's all I need." I said, "I cannot work every single day. I cannot work a whole day," and I said, "That's all I need and that's all I want."

[00:07:51] Bob: But at this point, Dorothy has been working for weeks cramming all these tasks into her day, and it's making her kind of frantic because if she doesn't complete the day's tasks, she risks losing that whole day's income.

[00:08:06] Dorothy: After a while, they're not friends anymore to you. They're like the mentors are angry. "You're not doing your job. It's 9 o'clock, we're closing and closing in two minutes because you have to play from 9 am to 9 pm and these are only two hours. And if you cannot do two hours in a matter of 12 hours, what's wrong with you?" And all this kind of stuff.

[00:08:23] Bob: And they keep pressuring her to level up.

[00:08:27] Dorothy: Right, what happened is that they start blocking my money. I couldn't even taken them out unless I put more, 'cause I couldn't finish my tasks. There were two jobs I had, a minimum of two jobs to finish a day. So two jobs of 20, making it a total of 40, okay. So when you were close to let's say 2 or 3 of them, they were blocking not having enough. So let's say my account was 2500. Two or three steps before I was to finish my past day would come an account or an, or a merchant's account that the transaction would be 4800. I couldn't satisfy that, so I had to put money in the balance to satisfy the 4800. So the difference between 25 to 48, to move on forward to the task to get to the 40 so I can unlock my money and get them out.

[00:09:20] Bob: So this is confusing. So you have this balance and you, in order for you to succeed at your job that day, you have to finish this task. For some reason you have to buy the task? You have to pay for the right to take on the task?

[00:09:33] Dorothy: You have to pay in order to move forward.

[00:09:38] Bob: It sounds confusing because it is confusing. And in this case, they tell her in order to work on that $4800 task, she needs $4800 in her account and since she only has $2500, she'll have to kick in another $2300 or so before she can even start work, or she risks losing everything she's earned so far.

[00:10:03] Bob: So it's, you tested video games a long time ago. This to me sounds like a video game.

[00:10:08] Dorothy: Yeah. Yep.

[00:10:10] Bob: But you have, you have points and you're trying to get to another level in order to...

[00:10:12] Dorothy: Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:15] Bob: But the points are your money though.

[00:10:17] Dorothy: Exactly.

[00:10:18] Bob: And this kind of thing keeps happening. Take on this job for a big bonus, but first, make a deposit, but you'd better finish or else you'll lose everything you earned today. It's all making Dorothy exhausted and a little crazed. The initial payments, well she sends those through bank wires, but eventually...

[00:10:37] Dorothy: Then they moved me to crypto, then they moved me to Phantom Wallet, and when they started moving me like this, I said, "Wait, are we doing crypto?" I said, "You guys are doing crypto, so I cannot do crypto, I know nothing about it." And he goes, "Don't worry, we'll teach you." Everything was don't worry, we'll teach you.

[00:10:57] Bob: Don't worry, we'll teach you. That's what they keep telling her. So at this point, in order to fund her work account she starts making crypto deposits. She's not very comfortable with that, but...

[00:11:11] Dorothy: But being already for 6 to 8 weeks and they're doing the same thing, your psyche's changed and you're so frantic, so tired, so everything moving so fast that you're not even thinking about it anymore. You're believing them. You go, okay, this is moving forward. I can put it and at the end of the day they're giving money back, so you, they already gain your trust and you're moving forward blindly.

[00:11:37] Bob: Moving forward blindly. Just to make sure that she at least can keep the money she's made, but at this point, a really big job comes up. They say she'll need to invest more of her own money, a lot more.

[00:11:52] Dorothy: They'd been pressing me to send that $80,000, and I told them I don't have the money anymore. So they start being my friends again asking me to sell my house, sell my car, sending me friends as loan sharks and trying to send me friends as the loaners, trying to send me friends in the real estate to help me sell my car.

[00:12:11] Bob: They wanted her to take out a loan on her home, or to sell her car to raise the $80,000 for that one big job. And that's when Dorothy throws in the towel.

[00:12:25] Dorothy: But and when I saw that I'm at the end of the road, and finally I can grasp my money back, they blocked it again, and they asked for 80,000. And I said, "This has got to stop right here."

[00:12:36] Bob: This has got to stop right here. So Dorothy stops depositing money and they won't let her withdraw any of her earnings. So they keep going back and forth for a while. At first, they tell her she can't have a penny of her money unless she sends all $80,000, but...

[00:12:56] Dorothy: But the thing is that they were trying to find ways to me. They negotiated down, Mr. Sullivan, from $80,000 to $3,000.

[00:13:07] Bob: Wow.

[00:13:08] Dorothy: Okay, for me to send them the money.

[00:13:11] Bob: But at this point, Dorothy knows she's a victim of a scam but even then she says, she makes two smaller deposits just hoping against hope that they will release her earnings to her.

[00:13:24] Dorothy: Yeah, yeah, so the last two transactions that I did, I was conscious about that I'd actually fallen into a scam. I was clearly conscious of falling into a scam. My mind, I was hoping that I can get the last transactions of closing the task, and I was truly hoped to God that I could save myself and take my money out.

[00:13:44] Bob: God.

[00:13:45] Dorothy: Which, of course, that didn't happen.

[00:13:48] Bob: In the end, Dorothy realizes she has had most of her life savings stolen from her. Over these few months she sent $28,000 to these criminals, and it's all been stolen, basically everything she had.

[00:14:06] Dorothy: So I kept talking to them as long as I could after I decided this is bad, this is really bad. I went through feelings where I wanted to throw myself off the bridge because these are my life savings, okay...

[00:14:19] Bob: Oh my god. But what, try to explain to someone what that moment is like when you realize you're not, just not getting that money back?

[00:14:25] Dorothy: I can start crying right now and I am very close; I'm fighting to fight back my tears. It's devastating. Because that was the last money I had saved. Ten years ago, I moved into this house from another house. It was my last proceeds from my life literally, I'm not exaggerating. My son has loans to graduate next year from school. I need medical procedures. I have lost a quarter of my teeth out of my mouth because of a bone disease, not because I have (inaudible) dentures. My teeth are actually falling because the bones are not holding them. I need a roof, and I need windows. Those are the four major things I need in my life. $30,000 that I have left, and I lost this 28 would have not been enough for one single thing that I needed to cover one of those four. Now I got nothing left. I was left with 2000. I had a friend that she was kind and says, "I cannot even pay my bills for next month." I had a friend that was kind enough to lend me $2000. I don't know how I'm going to pay her back, but she pulled me through another month. So stay and think about it, okay. In December, I went already in June and July I went and sold blood or plasma, okay, I made $800 to pull me through bills. Then I cannot go immediately. I'm not allowed. I'll go back in December to pull me through bills. But this is what's going on. I was distraught, I was going, literally I, people think I'm joking. I was going to throw myself in front of a car, but that would not solve anything, only make more damage. Okay, fine. I'm staying fighting every day.

[00:16:06] Bob: Now is a good time to remind you that if you or someone you love is in a really desperate place, you can call or text 988 and get immediate help from caring professionals. Dorothy, in her distraught state, goes to law enforcement and goes to her bank looking for help. But...

[00:16:27] Dorothy: I tried to find help with the police. They will not even listen. Sheriff took a report and said, we're not going to do anything, we cannot help you. Don't go to GBI. GBI will not do anything unless they get a report from an official report. Nobody's doing an official report. FBI, the same thing, okay? The only luck I had, and I'm trying, hold on, I need to find them and give me a minute.

[00:16:56] Bob: But she does get an offer of help from, well, from criminals, maybe the same ones, trying to take one more bite of the apple. She gets a call; it's part of what's called a recovery scam; a person who offers to get her money back if she pays an upfront fee.

[00:17:15] Dorothy: He gave me a phone number and the name of that person, scammer, to go and talk to him for 10%, just three again, $3000 of what I lost, okay, so I can get my money back.

[00:17:29] Bob: Oh, I hope you didn't do any of that, right?

[00:17:31] Dorothy: Of course, not.

[00:17:33] Bob: Recovery scams are widespread now. It's critical to know anyone who promises to get your stolen money back for a fee is lying. We'll talk more about recovery scams in a moment. Fortunately, Dorothy doesn't participate. But she does wish that along the way one of her financial institutions had told her that they were already suspicious of her transactions.

[00:18:00] Dorothy: Actually of the one or two transactions to PayPal, to Cash App, it was being blocked. At one point it was even blocked to crypto. But they were not telling me why it was being blocked. If they would have told me, hey, our users, we are blocking your transactions because this, we believe, is being fraudulent, or we believe something, okay? It would have been a belt to me like, hey, wait a minute, something is going on. But they were just simply blocking it.

[00:18:32] Bob: Feeling abandoned by just about everyone, law enforcement, financial institutions, Dorothy speaks to a reporter who tells her story on the local news, and even then she gets more abuse. And when we talked about this, I have to say, Dorothy made an impassioned plea for change and, well I think you just have to hear her out.

[00:18:54] Dorothy: I tried to put it on Nextdoor, people bashed me and say, "You were stupid, you should have not fallen for this." And I said, "I believed I had a job." You're looking for two years for a job. I worked, okay? Not only did they stole my time and my dignity, they stole my money, and I tried to save myself and I couldn't. This world has created a monster, the internet. It's a good tool, but it fall in the hands of the wrong people and they're using it in as bad. I said, "Your time is going to come. You think you're smart, but you're not because they're changing the game constantly." And I said, "I'm 58, almost 60 on a disability," and I said, "The people that are in their 80s, or in their 90s, they didn't lose as quote-unquote little as I did, they lost more. Okay? And it's changing so much that you don't know how and when it's going to hit you and nobody's helping you." The authorities are only looking for killers, that's it. You're dead, somebody kills you, they will look for that, but for somebody that dos, does like an internet crime, nobody's looking for them. There's sick people out there, they're scamming hundreds that they call users. Hundreds of victims are out there; they lost more than I did. It doesn't matter; you're the same like I am. It doesn't matter, we're all in the same thing. Nobody's there to protect you, not police, not the sheriff, not FBI, not Georgia, GBI, or whatever they call it, nobody. I put my data on the FB3, or whatever that's called, okay? I have the internet addresses. I have the html programming. I have the phone number. I have the screenshots. Where has it gone? Nowhere. No, nobody's, I mean I'm not, one thing is to come and tell me back, Dorothy, okay, we're doing this or give me a report. But they going and patting themselves on the shoulders, yeah, we called this and this and that. They're not doing anything to block these people. Facebook, Instagram, it or whatever it's there, they're leaving this account open. When I go and say, hey, even F, FB3 or whatever that's called, they have accounts, they're all scammers. I tried to get to lawyers to go and how do you call, to go and have a case opened. They says, we cannot open because you don't have a name. You don't have an address. You don't have a business. So why is Facebook and Instagram and everybody leaving those accounts alive and making believe that they're helping people? This is a path where basically every step is a mine. Everybody step that you don't know who to believe anymore, and you don't know what to do. You think you're doing something good to save yourself, and you're not. This is wrong. This is wrong. I couldn't even tell my son the real story, I just gently told it, I says, "Hey listen, I made a mistake." I said, "I made a mistake. I believed in something wrong." I said, "My problem is that I'm still believe in miracles, and it's bad. I believed in something good; I tried to do something good," and I said, "We going to fall into some very hard times. You might have to pay your loans." "Okay, Mom, okay, that's alright." I haven't told him how much. If I would tell him how much, he's probably going to just drop his school and go to get a job. I don't want him to drop his schooling in his last year of graduating. He should graduate next year in, in summer. And he's got two good degrees. I'm going to part from him so he can have his own life and not worry about the mistake that his old mom, disabled mom has done trying to do a good life. I came here as an immigrant, and I work hard, and then I, can I even call them scammers? These are not people. They have no heart. And I talked to them and I said, "Watch out. Watch out because the will of life turns. You're young, you're taking advantage of people, but you'll get to my age and you'll see how that is." They said, "Okay. I'll wait; I'll wait." But this has to go out because you believe you have a job and you where everybody, everything moves on the internet. Everything moves on this computer; everything moves on the phone. People don't have any more of a relationship face-to-face. Nobody comes to your door anymore to ask you, "Hey, are you alive?" Everybody sends you a text. "Are you okay?" That's it. It's done. We separate, we work out of the house, shopping for everything comes electronically, we have no more relationship, and that actually opens the door to a lot of harm. And now we lose money. Now we lose money and dignity for some of the people like me. But what are we going to lose in the future? Who's going to protect you in the future? Now nobody protects anybody, and they say that they're trying to protect us, but give it 10 years, give it 10 years and it's going to be very bad. I'm sorry.

[00:23:59] Bob: No, don't be sorry. I couldn't say it any better than you just did. You are right, there's nothing but mines out there.

[00:24:07] Bob: Nothing but mines out there. I think that says it all. One big part of the task scam is the psychology of rewards. Just like video games and a lot of apps, software designers have figured out how to play with our psychology to keep us coming back for more. That technique just works even if you know it's being used. That's why you compulsively check email. There's also something called sunk cost pressure here. No one wants to give up on money they've already spent. And then there's that near miss phenomenon like the slot machines when you almost get three cherries to line up so you give the slots another spin. Criminals are now using a mixture of all these tactics, all that leveling up and so on. This is all part of what we call gamification. But mainly they are creating that tantalizing feeling that right around the corner things will work out and all this psychological attack is coming at you when you're exhausted.

[00:25:11] Bob: You're in the middle of this and they speed it up and they speed it up and they play with their psychology. Can you talk a little bit more about how that felt?

[00:25:19] Dorothy: Very insecure and incapable. And going back to the question that I told you in the beginning, they were asking me how old are you, how old are you? And I think that was a two-sided question. I think they were trying to find out how old I was either to see how easy it was I to be manipulated, if you're older you have more money, how much more they could get from me. If I was older, how insecure I was to see how fast they could they make me move to keep in line. So I think that they're playing a lot on insecurity, on slow moving, so that in turn makes you feel very small, like you don't know what you're doing. You're trying to learn; you're trying to keep up. Then you want to give up. Then it's, wait, why should I give up? I was somebody, I was something.

[00:26:19] Bob: And despite her grave losses, things could have been worse.

[00:26:25] Dorothy: What if I was doing a home equity line on the house and got $500,000 and sent it to these people? What if? Okay? So these emotions, it's, in the beginning it's wait, I'm learning something new, so you're excited. Oh my god, I'm advancing. Then it's, wait, I'm not capable. What's going on? Am I that old? Okay, I'm not old, it's my, I'm ill, I'm sick. I'm disabled. But wait, I've got to push forward. I just cannot be stagnant. Oh wait, I made a mistake. Ah, what is my son going to think about me? What are my friends going to think about me? You're washed out already. You're middle-aged. You go bury yourself already. So it's so mixed, so everything. You then wake up angry, then you wake up sad. Then the doctor says, oh, you're depressed. No, I'm not depressed. This is what's happening. A pill is not going to help me. So it's like, what do you do? You just stay and spin on your own feet and it's okay, all this starts in your brain, they that eats at you, and then they eat at you physically.

[00:27:27] Bob: Going public with her story, that Nextdoor experience, that was painful for Dorothy, but something else interesting happened when she talked openly about what happened to her.

[00:27:37] Dorothy: In my desperation I came in contact with find out about three of my friends. They also have been scammed of jobs. Years back. And people think that hey, I have a degree. Hey, I'm smart. It's not going to touch me. One of my friends is a Ph Doctor of Psychology. She'll remain nameless. But my point is that she has a PhD and she's a psychology doctor, very good, very dear, okay? And that happened to her, also a job scam about 10 years ago. And I said, why didn't, we were friends at that time. We've been friends for 20 years, and I said, "Why wouldn't you come and talk to me? Why didn't you tell me anything?" She said, "You couldn't have helped me with anything." And I said, "I could have listened. I could have been your shoulder." And she says, "Yeah, but you could have not helped me." And I said, "But you know what, you could have helped me. I would have known. I would have been aware. I would have been thinking, now you could have saved me now." And she got quiet and goes, "Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry." If people would share their hardship they actually go through, maybe they don't receive help, and this is why I'm doing this now.

[00:28:59] Bob: This is why I'm doing this right now. Like Dorothy, we at The Perfect Scam tell these stories for just that reason so you'll know what's going on and hopefully share these stories so when you or someone else you know comes into contact with one of these situations, you'll remember Dorothy and know what to do. We'll hear a bit more from Dorothy, understand how she's doing now in a moment, but first to help with understanding and avoiding task scams, we have Christine Kieffer here. She's from FINRA, the investing regulator where she is Senior Director with FINRA's Office of Investor Education.

[00:29:36] Christine Kieffer: Dorothy's story is unfortunately all too common. All of us have a need for love, a need for employment, a need for financial stability, and the fraudsters were just looking to take advantage of these very basic needs.

[00:29:53] Bob: One key element of this scam and unfortunately, many scams today, is that early money, the early payouts which appear to legitimize the job or the investment. That's a change, a dangerous one.

[00:30:09] Christine Kieffer: When a fraudster gives you something first, in the case of Dorothy, that they gave her a job, they actually, she saw income. She received income from this job, from her contributions. They're lulling us into believing that it is true, and I do think that some of the fraud prevention literature is saturated with a you never pay for something upfront, and the fraudsters are very flexible and adaptable. The scammers know to adapt their tactics, often before we know what our new prevention strategy should be. And so when they are fulfilling their half of the fantasy upfront, it brings our defenses down and makes us less likely to believe that it's a scam, and therefore, yeah, they're playing a long game. They're really investing in this knowing that they're going to take much more than they initially gave.

 [00:31:09] Bob: But even more important is the way these criminals played with Dorothy's psychology.

[00:31:15] Christine Kieffer: It's very common for scammers to play on our emotions, and in particular, to try to lull us into overlooking red flags that we might on any given day recognize as red flags. But when we're in an emotional state or we're in need; in Dorothy's case she was in need of em--, flexible employment because of her disability. They, they capture us into this dream that they've created for us that we can have that employment, that it can be flexible, and that it can solve all of her financial needs. And then they lull us into going along with the scam. But really, they're just playing on our emotions the whole time.

[00:31:57] Bob: And there's that tantalizing sense that maybe just right around the corner is the brass ring, right? That happens to a lot of people, right?

[00:32:05] Christine Kieffer: Absolutely. The brass ring around the corner is a really common tactic, and the fraudsters are playing on something called the sunk cost fallacy in some context. The sunk cost fallacy is when a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or a course of action because they've already invested in some way in it. And in Dorothy's case, she was achieving some income, she had already invested her time, her energy, she was getting wrapped up and had been lulled into believing that this was a legitimate job, and then she invested some, they wanted her to invest some money to unlock the next level, and because she had been lulled into believing that this was a legitimate job opportunity, and had seen some success and seen some gains, she was less likely to recognize the red flags, and then when she sunk some money into that job, it was even harder to walk away because she didn't want to lose what she had already committed.

[00:33:07] Bob: And there's that sense again that just, if I just do this one more time, I'll get a, I'll get a bunch of money. Does that happen in investing psychology?

[00:33:16] Christine Kieffer: In consumer psychology in general, people have proven to have a false sense of probability and statistics. And we believe, for instance, that when you flip a quarter, that if it shows up as tails a handful of times, then there must, the next one coming must be a heads. And in fact, the probability is the same each time. And this applies also in the situation that Dorothy was in in that she had some successes but the bigger success was right around the corner and they tantalized her and lead her with something we might call a phantom rich, but this fantasy, essentially, that they've built in her mind that the next achievement is right around the corner and they're playing on that psychology and our inability to really compute probability because we desire the positive. We desire that next thing that they have told us is right around the corner. And we would be, we're enticed to believe that because we want to believe it to be true.

[00:34:22] Bob: Did you call that a phantom rich?

[00:34:24] Dorothy: Phantom rich. Yeah, in some of the research that we've done with AARP in fact, the FINRA Foundation has identified some persuasion tactics that fraudsters use to keep us from discovering the scams that they're perpetrating. For instance, a phantom rich is this idea that this scam, this thing that they're tan--, that they're dangling, could be true. In the case of Dorothy, it's that the next rich is the better riches, the higher paying is right around the corner. In the case of an investment scam, it might be that there's an opportunity for an investment return with low risk and high reward. This is one of many tactics that we've identified in our research. Another is source credibility. The scammers in Dorothy's case held themselves out to be a legitimate company, they showed her some success which helped to build their credibility. And credibility in and of itself is just a shortcut to trust. They were trying to shortcut Dorothy's trust that they were legitimate so that they could go for an even bigger steal. Another tactic that fraudsters often dangle is this concept of reciprocity. That they do something for us and therefore we should do something greater in return. And we learn this as children that we're supposed to, for instance, if we're invited, if our child's invited to a birthday party, or when we're a child we're invited to a birthday party, we feel like we need to invite that person, or we're told by our parents we need to invite that person to our party. That's reciprocity. And we do this in all sorts of ways in our social graces for our friendships and our work, but the fraudsters know that and they manipulate that. In the case of Dorothy, they provided her with a job opportunity with the flexibility that she needed. She was out seeking a job and this job fit that bill. They probably offered charisma and flexibility and were kind to her, and they said, "Oh, you're doing such a great job." These are all forms of reciprocity where when someone is nice to us, when they open doors for us and give us opportunities, we want to show them the same kind of respect in return.

[00:36:47] Bob: We've already mentioned recovery scams in this episode, but it's really important to point them out again because they are insidious.

[00:36:55] Christine Kieffer: Recovery scams are incredibly prevalent today. We're finding that oftentimes it's the same criminal operations that are operating the front-end scam as well as the recovery scam. And even in the initial scam, fraudsters are playing on our emotion, but when it comes to a recovery scam, the emotions are that much stronger. Typically we're in a situation where we might not have told anybody that we've lost the money, and we're trying to make it up in silent and in secret. We're also in an emotional state where it's possible that we've given away, and in Dorothy's case, had stolen in her scam a large portion of her liquid assets in terms of the money that she had available. And so you're in this sort of dire state of financial need, and that plays on our emotions. And the recovery scams are there to capitalize on that emotional instability and that emotional moment to leverage us to take even more risk.

[00:38:02] Bob: But perhaps no tactic is more powerful than silence. And we all play a part in that. You heard what happened when Dorothy came forward to warn others about task scams.

[00:38:14] Christine Kieffer: Scams thrive on secrecy. Often at the initial outset of a scam the purported bad actors will tell their future victim, their potential victim, not to tell anyone else. It happened probably in Dorothy's case; it certainly happens in investment scams. Secrecy is like fuel to the fire of the scam. And unfortunately, that same secrecy adds to the feeling of blame and shame that victims often feel. FINRA Foundation research has shown that over a third of victims of scams blame themselves for their losses. And this is different than other types of crimes. When you think about burglary or assault, there may be some situations where a victim says I shouldn't have, and maybe they feel some sense of responsibility. They feel like they shouldn't have done something to make themselves available, but for the most part, we recognize that they did not invite that opportunity. In the case of a scam, our society, and even our own internal processes says to us, I engaged. I participated. I overlooked red flags. Maybe they even knew there was something fishy, but they wanted to believe it to be true. And in doing so, there's a strong sense of blame inside of the victims, and it's fueled by this secrecy that they've kept, so they never told anybody, they feel completely responsible for what has happened. And our society reinforces that and it's, it's really time that we move past that sense of victim blaming and empower victims to move forward and to speak up.

[00:40:03] Bob: There's something about that, that those words, keep a secret, that that's a big red flag.

[00:40:07] Christine Kieffer: Secrecy is a huge red flag. When it comes to money, when it comes to a job, when it comes to even investing, secrets are not your friend, and so we need to recognize that secrecy is certainly a red flag. Some other red flags to consider is a sense of urgency when you can't actually validate or verify information very easily, it's easier today than ever to imposter. And so validation, verification is so important, and depending upon what it is, an employment, check with the state employment agency and find out, do they have a license to hire individuals. Or when it comes to investing, you can check to see if the investment is registered with the SEC or the professional selling an investment is registered with FINRA. So verifying information as best you can, and sometimes it's just doing an internet search. I like to tell individuals to add the word scam or fraud to the end of their search. So when we search for a restaurant to go to for dinner, we'll say restaurant reviews, or restaurant negative reviews. And it brings up two different search results when you add the word negative to when you just say restaurant reviews. And the same thing applies to any opportunity where you think that there could be any scam scenario. In the case of a job, she could do an internet search on this particular company, but not just on the company with the term fraud, scam, negative, because it brings up a different search history and different search results. And those might be eliciting red flags that you otherwise wouldn't have seen.

[00:41:48] Bob: What is it that you really want people to leave hearing you on this podcast learning?

[00:41:54] Christine Kieffer: We used to be in a time period where we said, trust but verify. And I would like to, I think we're in a new environment now, and when we look at AI, artificial intelligence, and we look at the ease at which, um, technology provides for the criminals to imposter something legitimate, it's important for us to maybe take the new frame of reference that we need to be skeptical at the outset. So I like to say, distrust and to verify. That's not to say distrust everything in your life, but first enter with a sense of skepticism. Now Dorothy might have had some skepticism about this job. I know it fulfilled a need for her and they lulled her into believing it to be true because of the initial gains. Just talking aloud to someone else, telling someone else about your experience, or before you even engage, can sometimes be the most protective step you can take.

[00:42:55] Bob: I want to stop there because I just think this is so important. Whatever solicitation you get for, for anything; love, money, work, talk to someone else before you act. Someone you trust. Someone outside the situation. A friend, a clergy member, AARP, me, just talk to someone.

[00:43:18] Christine Kieffer: When we talk to someone else, it has three protective benefits. One, that other person might have, might be familiar with that particular scam, that scenario, and they might be able to help you recognize red flags right away. Two, it, it actually takes us out of that emotional moment because the emotions are high only for a little while, and the fraudsters want to keep us in that emotional state. But when we stop and pause and take a timeout, we remove the emotion, and we get back to our more rational brain. And three, when we say something out loud, the red flags are that much fishier. We see them, we recognize them. Things feel very different when we mull them over in our head, but when we use our voice and use our words and put it together, it sounds very different, and so I always say to individuals that they should tell someone else, particularly if they're being told to keep a secret.

[00:44:14] Bob: That's why it's so important that people have safe places to tell their stories. We hope The Perfect Scam is one of them, but you can also be that place. You can be the person in your friend or family group who's easy to talk to, who listens without judgment, who makes it known that no matter what's going on, you'll hear out the people you love without blaming them or saying something that makes them feel more pain.

[00:44:40] Christine Kieffer: The FINRA Foundation and the AARP did some research a handful of years ago to study the practice of victim blaming in the context of financial fraud. And we looked to other types of situations like burglary and sexual assault and others where we've made great progress with society in terms of shifting the blame to the criminals that are perpetrating these actions. And there's a lot of work that needs to be done in the financial fraud space in that regard. Victims telling their story and having safe spaces to tell their story is a great first step, but we also need to be, and we are, working with law enforcement and adult protective services groups and nonprofits and social services and victims and family members to help everyone rally and realize that the perpetrators are the true criminals here. And the victim is truly the victim. And we can empower them to be a survivor, but they have been victimized by that criminal. Fraudsters are incredibly skilled and sophisticated in the use of persuasion and influence tactics. You are not to blame, but you are responsible for your recovery, and it's important that you reach out, tell friends and family that you trust, that you know, that can identify with your situation and help you move forward. And if you don't have that, you could contact, there's some support groups, AARP Fraud Watch Network is one where you can start to recover. What's most important is that you don't respond to unsolicited offers to help you in the future. Dorothy was pursued by recovery operation scammers, and she recognized the red flags and stepped back and did not engage. And when you work with someone else and have support, you can do the same.

[00:46:40] Bob: Dorothy is still figuring out what to do about her teeth, her roof, her windows, her son's college loans. But she also can't stop thinking about what happened to her.

[00:46:53] Dorothy: So as, and I was thinking, if by to a miracle of God, I would face one of these people. What will I do? First, I thought I would strangle them, then I thought I would slap, then I think I would just look at them and say why? Why? Why are you doing this? If you, as a scammer, use this brain that's so intelligent and to create this program to scam people of money, such a magnitude, why don't you get a programming job and work for NASA or something and get money the legal way? 'Cause you could make this thousands of money that you're are scamming from somebody in this magnitude like peanuts. Easy. It just doesn't make any sense to me. It really doesn't.

[00:47:41] Bob: I don't know. I'm really sorry about all of this. People are going to want to know, how are you doing today after all of this?

[00:47:48] Dorothy: Not well. I don't sleep well. I try to keep calm in our house because of my schoolwork and my son's schoolwork and used to wake up at 5. I go to bed at 8. I'm telling you I am, but I don't think I'm falling asleep like maybe 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm fidgeting on the phone trying to find solutions. I fell asleep, I wanted to because my body is exhausted. I wake up at 3, 4. I'm trying to stay in bed at 5. About 11, I'm crashing literally. I try to keep busy making a meal. I, thank God, have two dogs. They look at me sometimes, my god, Mom, what are you doing? I didn't smoke for 40 years. I picked up smoking. It's not a good habit, but I don't know what to do, just not to explode or crash. I am trying not to think, trying to relive it all over, my credit card debt. I'm thankful for the food pantries, I really am. And just throughout the days I pray, I look at the trees, I am blessed with the land in the back of my house, and talk to the squirrels. Don't call me crazy, but that's what I need to do to just, and I count the days until my son is literally graduating, so I can shake his hand. He's taller than I am, so I cannot give him a hug anymore.

[00:49:21] Bob: (chuckles)

[00:49:23] Dorothy: Yes, so I can shake his hand and say congratulations, my son, now go, go do your life and I will pray to God on finding a Section 8 so I can move and just keep on moving because I get, I literally don't know what I'm going to do. I was just talking to a friend of mine yesterday. I says, "I'm just 58 and I pray to God I get to 65 so I can get some relief because I lost everything." And now I'm selling everything I can out of the house. I cannot sell to whatever the value is, $5 and people are happy to get something at $5 and I'm happy I have $5 for gas. And I'm good. I am, sorry for crying, but I am good.

[00:50:07] Bob: Don't be sorry. Well what do you want people to remember after they hear your story?

[00:50:15] Dorothy: Be diligent. Be diligent and check everything, and don't believe anything. I hope, I think that was my biggest mistake. I hope there's a relief. I hope, I believe in miracles. I, I... If somebody contacts you, even for a job that you've been waiting for, check. I, I don't ... If you get a job, check that job on the licenses. Don't believe the license that you see. One thing that I did after the fact, I checked with the Georgia, god, how's it called? Where you check business licenses, okay. This job was actually created on Maine, okay? It took a long time, but Maine answered and they said, this job, this company doesn't exist. The IP addresses came from California and Arizona. California answered after Maine. They said it doesn't exist in Georgia. And so then the third, Louisiana, the slowest. Arizona never answered. But anyway, if they say they're so--, get a last name. Nobody wants to give me a last name. But anyway, so if you get an offer for a job, people believe that if it sounds too good, it, it's not true, okay? That is not the case anymore, okay. The scammers are now coming with true, good stories. You get a part-time job, you get a full-time job from 8 to 5, they make names that are very similar to companies that are local, okay. Call those companies.

[00:52:07] Bob: And in fact, doing research for this story, I found a homepage from a legitimate company that I won't name because they're a victim too, with a big note on that homepage alerting people that they are not hiring because some criminals using their company name is part of a task scam. It says right there on top; WE DO NOT HAVE ANY OPENINGS FOR ANY JOBS INCLUDING CONTRACTOR OR TASK WORK. Online crime has many kinds of victims and a lot of collateral damage.

[00:52:38] Dorothy: I actually got, and after, after the scam, I actually got an offer for a remote job for Amazon, okay, what they call staying at home on the phone, and calling customer service, 8 to 5, okay. I called Amazon, I got the administrative offices, and says, "Do you have such a job remote? Are you actually looking for people?" They said, "No, we're not." Then I actually got another job for a post office, the same thing. Phone representative. I called the postal office, "Do you have such a job?" "No." So when you get these offers, get phone numbers, get names, full names. If they want to give their full names, the representative phone num--, the representative ID, something that it's solid, and then call that company. Google the phone number of that company and make sure you do it because now even Google has phone numbers that are not true. And make sure you verify that job is actually a solid job. Get a human resources person. Do not believe the job you're being offered. Do not start working for a job that doesn't exist. So make sure you verify tooth and nail that job is, 'cause I think that was my mistake. I believed I got a job and job and true training and work, and then got myself entangled like a cobweb.

[00:53:59] Bob: Like a cobweb. I think that's very well said.

[00:54:01] Dorothy: Yeah.

[00:54:02] Bob: Yeah, is there, I want to, seriously, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for sharing this story with us, and you are an amazing advocate for people. And I think a lot of good is going to come out of this episode. I just know that it is, and I hope that that gives you at least a little bit of comfort in what you're going through. I know it's not a lot, but I think it's really important.

[00:54:20] Dorothy: I pray if I save one person, I, it will be good.

[00:54:26] Bob: I think you're going to save a lot more than that.

[00:54:27] Dorothy: If one person hears me, yeah, I hope so.

[00:54:35] Bob: For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:54:46] 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. To learn more about the Fraud Watch Network volunteers and the fraud survivors they've helped, check out the new video series, Fraud Wars, on AARP's YouTube channel. 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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[00:43:36] 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. To learn more about the Fraud Watch Network volunteers and the fraud survivors they've helped, check out the new video series, Fraud Wars, on AARP's YouTube channel. 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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