Scam Declined: How Bank Employees Stopped a Scam

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

[00:00:03] Dwight Samuel: I got a call from Dodi, and she said, "Have you uh, talked to or seen Mom this morning?" So I do track her on my phone, and found out where she was, she was in the parking lot there at the bank in Nixa.

[00:00:18] Dodi Thomas: So between the two of us, we were trying to figure out, okay, how do we intercept her, just in case there would be a fail at one of the banks and she was able to get through and do something.

[00:00:30] Bob: So you're still concerned, we'd better get Mom fast, 'cause somebody, something bad might happen here.

[00:00:34] Dodi Thomas: Yes. 

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[00:00:41] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.

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[00:00:45] Bob: When Dwight Samuel and his sister, Dodi Thomas, raced to their mom's home recently, she was gone but they found a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal on the kitchen table and that's just not like Mom. The kids are very worried. But this story has an ending that might really surprise you. We tell a lot of stories at The Perfect Scam that reveal how much systems let people down and set them up to be victims of crimes. You'll often hear me lament that big tech companies or financial institutions don't do more to stop crimes. Well, today's story is different because we've got such a great example of how things can go right when bank employees are well-trained, when a family communicates, when a small town works together to help one of its own. It's really heart-warming. So I can't wait to bring you the story of Linda Samuel who lives next-door to her son in rural Southwest Missouri. He's been next-door for more than 30 years.

[00:01:48] Bob: Your son comes over for lunch at least once a week, right?

[00:01:51] Linda Samuel: Usually on Friday. That's his day off from, he's a minister at one of the congregations in Springfield and Friday is his day off unless he has uh, people in the hospital that he has to visit or some event that they're doing that he has to take care of. So he, uh and he has done that for several years now, and I always look forward to it and he usually brings his little dog with him and his little dog is very well behaved. And he asked me if I wanted a dog for company, and I said, "No, I love Ollie, but I don't want, want to take of all the time." So...

[00:02:25] Bob: It's nice that when someone else's dogs get to...

[00:02:27] Linda Samuel: Right.

[00:02:28] Bob: ...gets to visit. Yeah, sure.

[00:02:31] Bob: Linda, Dwight, and Dodi all live in a small town that's not too far from Springfield, which is southwest Missouri's largest metro area.

[00:02:41] Dwight Samuel: Oh, uh, I mean it's very uh, laid back. The part we're in is very rural, but close enough; I mean Springfield's proper, or the metro area is about a quarter of a million, so you know we live in a place that you can get to the city in 10 minutes or be up in basically farmland in 10 minutes. So Rogersville's more in the direction of the farmland. We have very deep, deep roots here and, and um, that's, you know, I've lived here, I'm now 58. I've lived here my entire life, and of course, Mom being 83 almost living here her entire life. So you know that's uh, haven't moved around much.

[00:03:22] Bob: Do you have cows or hay bales as neighbors?

[00:03:25] Dwight Samuel: (laughs) Well, yeah, we do, uh, we used to raise pigs when my dad was living and don't do that any longer, but uh, but oh yeah, we grew up, I grew up next to a dairy farm and we'd always raise bottle calves and, you know, feed them out and, and so yeah, very much, you know, a few years back much more of a farming community than what it is now.

[00:03:45] Bob: And, and it sounds like a small enough town where you probably see all these people at church and then see them at the grocery store the next day, right?

[00:03:51] Dwight Samuel: Uh yeah, yes, you run into them uh quite frequently, and uh, unfortunately, we've had members uh that have been scammed out of, out of thousands, and I know two examples. One, one couple lost 9000 and one man uh that's still going, he just, he, he still thinks it's, and he's lost a quarter of a million. So...

[00:04:11] Bob: Oh my god! And he's still...

[00:04:12] Dwight Samuel: Uh-huh.

[00:04:12] Bob: ...in, in the middle of it.

[00:04:13] Dwight Samuel: Still in the middle of it. I mean we've had so many people step in and, and try to help him, but uh, uh he lost his home over the deal. And he's 93. So, uh...

[00:04:23] Bob: Oh my god. But I'm, I'm guessing that well I guess not that experience, but the other one helped you, helped prepare you for dealing with this situation, right?

[00:04:35] Dwight Samuel: Oh yeah, just knowing how, how you know, how real it is.

[00:04:39] Bob: This situation, the one that leads to Dwight and Dodi finding that half-eaten bowl of oatmeal on Mom's kitchen table. It begins with a phone call from a man who says his name is Alex.

[00:04:54] Linda Samuel: Well he told me that he was the Federal Trade Commissioner, I believe is what he said he was, and that he was uh trying, they were trying to catch a criminal, and that my Social Security number had been compromised and that they were issuing a new Social Security card.

[00:05:17] Bob: They're trying to catch a criminal, and the need Linda's help. Alex sounds serious but reassuring and tells Linda that she'll have visitors soon coming with a new Social Security card for her.

[00:05:29] Linda Samuel: There would be a couple of uniformed officers who would be bringing that to the door. They'd say nothing to me; I was to say nothing to them.

[00:05:37] Bob: But she would have to be ready for them. As part of the investigation, she'd have to give them money from her bank account, a lot of money -- $25,000. It would be returned later, he said, but she'd need to get the money quickly.

[00:05:53] Linda Samuel: He said that uh, do not tell your family anything about this. Do not say anything to anyone else. It has to be kept very quiet because if anyone else gets wind of it, it may break down the investigation. He said, "We believe that the criminal is possibly at a bank, and maybe is a bank employee who is doing that."

[00:06:18] Bob: It's all very disorienting to Linda, who has lived by herself since her husband died a couple of years ago. She isn't really comfortable with these kinds of interactions.

[00:06:27] Linda Samuel: I have never liked being on the phone particularly. Now if I'm visiting with someone on the phone, that's a different story, but to make a call, even to inquire about my next doctor's appointment or anything like that, I keep putting that off from day to day.

[00:06:47] Bob: But Linda does have a strong sense of civic duty, and she wants to do anything she can to help catch the criminals. So she makes a plan to get the cash she needs, and since she isn't supposed to tell anyone, she knows she can't go to her local bank branch where everyone seems to know her, and would probably start asking questions, so she drives across town following Alex's instruction which have changed a bit. Now he wants Linda to wire that $25,000. But when Linda tries to wire the money, well there's a problem.

[00:07:22] Linda Samuel: When I asked for the money up there, the teller who was taking care of me that day said, "Well I need to get my manager on that." She was fairly new and, and she said, "I need to get my manager."

[00:07:34] Bob: And then, well someone at this branch does recognize Linda and does start to ask questions.

[00:07:41] Linda Samuel: And the young man who is an assistant manager up there went to high school with at least one of my grandsons.

[00:07:49] Bob: Oh wow.

[00:07:50] Linda Samuel: He went through the fact that they needed to uh, just you know no, he said, "We can't, we can't not give you the money because it is your money. But," he said, "we do need to know why you're asking for it."

[00:08:04] Bob: And he talks with Linda for a while.

[00:08:07] Linda Samuel: He said, "We've been having a lot of scams and they seem to target people in the older age range." So he said, "We do frequent training on how to deal with this."

[00:08:21] Bob: He even takes a moment to research the place Alex told Linda to send her money to.

[00:08:26] Linda Samuel: He couldn't find it. And he said, "Well, I just looked this up on the computer that I use here at work, so," he said, "when I get home tonight, I'll get on my personal computer and see if I can do some further checking, and if I find anything I'll call you back."

[00:08:43] Bob: But Linda isn't discouraged. Remember, Alex had told her an employee at the bank might be in on it, and she really does want to help catch the criminal. So when she doesn't hear back from the bank manager by the next morning, she heads to a different branch. Alex tells her to have a story ready in case anyone asks questions. But at this second branch, too, the teller puts up roadblocks.

[00:09:07] Linda Samuel: She said, "Now we can't not give you your money, but we need," said, "what, what are you planning to do with it?" And you know, I know that my dad and my, and my husband always had told me that I couldn't tell a lie because my face would give me away. So I just kind of hum-hawed around and, and said, "Well, uh, it's to help purchase inventory."

[00:09:34] Bob: That teller also tells Linda that there are a lot of scams going on and starts asking a lot of questions. And eventually, Linda leaves that branch empty-handed too. Now, Alex, who's been on the phone with Linda pretty much the whole time, tells her to go to a third branch. But this time she should only ask for $15,000.

[00:09:55] Bob: Up to this point you hadn't said anything to your kids and that, that felt pretty strange to you, right?

[00:09:59] Linda Samuel: Right, and, and it felt strange to them too because particularly since their dad passed away, I've checked with them on a lot of things that I, involved any money transactions of any size at all. Uh, so it felt very strange.

[00:10:18] Bob: So feeling strange, she walks into another branch of her bank, and...

[00:10:24] Linda Samuel: When I got over and walked in, she had said they didn't have that much cash on hand so that they couldn't go ahead and do that. And she also said that they thought it was a scam. So by this time, I just thanked her kindly and went back to my car and just had gotten back to my car and was trying to think, what do I do next, and the phone rang.

[00:10:50] Bob: The phone rings, and it's Dwight, her son. But she's on the phone with Alex so she can't answer right away. Eventually, she calls him back.

[00:11:01] Linda Samuel: He said, "Mom, where are you and what are you doing?" He said, "Dodi and I are sitting here at the kitchen table. You need to get home. Don't stop anyplace, just get right on home."

[00:11:14] Bob: Just get right on home, Dwight says. But why did he call his mom right at that moment? Well, just a few minutes earlier his sister Dodi was, coincidentally, in line at a different branch of the same bank.

[00:11:28] Dodi Thomas: I happened to be in the bank line at the Rogersville branch, the Southern Bank is the name of the bank, and I happened to be, I don't even usually go to that branch, but for whatever reason, I was in the drive-thru, and I was cashing a check and the teller said, oh, as I was doing this, I was getting a call from the bank manager there in Rogersville whose office is down the hallway. And I thought, well I'd better answer it. And she said "Hey, is..." I said, "I happen to be sitting in the bank line." She said, "Well, can you come in for a second? I need to visit with you about your mom." And that was my first knowledge that something was going on.

[00:12:21] Bob: That sounds like an unnerving call to get.

[00:12:24] Dodi Thomas: It is, especially when I was literally sitting in the drive thru.

[00:12:30] Bob: Okay, so you go into her office and what does she say?

[00:12:32] Dodi Thomas: She said, "We have a concern about your mom's account," and Dwight and I are of course on the account with Mom now, and have been, I believe since my dad's death or close to that time. And she said, "We, I have been alerted, there's an alert put on her account, and I got a call from one of the other banks in the area saying that she had gone by and requested to withdraw a large sum of money."

[00:13:05] Bob: The manager tells Dodi her mom's account has been flagged because of suspicious attempted transactions.

[00:13:12] Dodi Thomas: And so she told me the amount of money and what it was supposedly for according to what she had been told. I immediately said, "This is a scam because my mom would not give this amount of money to somebody who was starting up a business off the cuff." This is, this was very unlike anything Mom would do. In the meantime I, of course, I called Dwight immediately.

[00:13:38] Dwight Samuel: Well it was that Thursday morning about 10:30, uh, I was actually at the hospital making some visits, and I got a call from Dodi, and um, she said, "Have you uh, talked to or seen Mom this morning?" And I happen of course live right next-door, but that's not unusual to not, you know we check in pretty much every day, but there may be spans two or three days go by we don't really, you know, visit a lot. So I do track her on my phone, so you know, of course is when I pulled it up and found out where she was, she was in the parking lot you know there at the bank in Nixa.

[00:14:15] Bob: At that point, Dodi and Dwight are worried. They're in a race against time.

[00:14:19] Dodi Thomas: So between the two of us, we were trying to figure out, okay, how do we intercept her, just in case there would be a fail at one of the banks and she was able to get through and do something.

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[00:14:31] Bob: I mean that makes sense. So you're still concerned, we'd better get Mom fast, 'cause somebody, something bad might happen here.

[00:14:36] Dodi Thomas: Yes.

[00:14:38] Bob: But when Dwight and Dodi first try to reach Mom, they can't.

[00:14:41] Dodi Thomas: And she, both Dwight and I had tried to reach her by phone, and she wasn't returning our calls.

[00:14:48] Bob: She wasn't returning their calls because Alex is keeping her on the phone almost the whole time.

[00:14:54] Dodi Thomas: But finally she did call Dwight back of which then he said, you know, "Mom, something is very wrong. Uh we need you to meet us at your house."

[00:15:07] Bob: Dodi and Dwight are still trying to piece the whole story together, and Mom isn't very helpful just then.

[00:15:16] Bob: But how much, how much do you understand what's really happening at that moment?

[00:15:19] Dwight Samuel: Well, very little because Mom would always tell me everything, and as I said, "What are you doing? You know, what's going on?" And she wouldn't, she wouldn't tell me anything. She said, "Well I've got to take care of this."

[00:15:30] Bob: Well, I've got to take care of this. Mom is still trying to help this person solve a crime. She doesn't want to tell her family what's going on, but she does agree to meet her kids at home.

[00:15:42] Dodi Thomas: But normally when I'm out and about, I stop at Wendy's a get a Frosty and a senior drink, 'cause I had a good day.

[00:15:51] Bob: 'Cause why wouldn't you? (chuckles)

[00:15:54] Linda Samuel: So but I, I forfeited it that day and just came straight on home.

[00:15:58] Dwight Samuel: Whoa. That shows how seriously you were taking this at that point.

[00:16:00] Linda Samuel: Right. Right.

[00:16:02] Bob: Dwight and Dodi actually beat their mom home.

[00:16:06] Bob: And what do you find at the kitchen table when you walked in?

[00:16:08] Dwight Samuel: Well there was the half-eaten bowl of oatmeal, and uh yeah, she, you know, she had set down to eat breakfast that morning and, and he called her.

[00:16:18] Bob: But just a moment or two later, Mom walks in and there is immediate cause for concern.

[00:16:24] Dodi Thomas: She looked very tired, and she looked, I would say; my mom usually, when she leaves the house, she usually has her hair fixed at least you know combed. It didn't even look like her hair was combed.

[00:16:43] Dwight Samuel: I mean she looked physically ill. I mean she, her, her hair was all you know, she'd got up and left the table immediately when he called, and um, she just looked very dis--, disheveled, is that the, the word that maybe I could use.

[00:16:56] Bob: Yeah.

[00:16:59] Bob: And when they sit at the kitchen table or found that oatmeal, well at first Mom really doesn't want to talk about the last couple of days.

[00:17:06] Dodi Thomas: She did try to put us off and said, "Everything's alright. There's nothing I need to talk to you about," basically. She didn't want to tell us.

[00:17:16] Bob: Well, I just, I sat on one side of the table, my sister on the other, and I said, "Hey, just sit down there at the end," and like I said, she still would not, at the very beginning, was hesitant to share her story, and I finally said, "Mom, you know, the, the two people that you love and trust the most are right here in this room with you, and you've got to, I mean, you've got to let us know what's going on." And that's, that's when she did and so you know that was, uh, it was kind of a, pretty emotional uh, a few minutes there obviously.

[00:17:49] Dodi Thomas: I would say that Dwight and I probably talked to her for a good 10 minutes or more before she would start coming forward with any information at all. And when she did, my mom is not a liar by nature at all, when she did, you could tell it was very painstaking, but she, you know, eventually you know we convinced her, tell us what has happened? Have you been, how has this person contacted you? Multiple ways, is it by phone? And then we found out that email had been one form of communication. We printed that off so that we would have some sort of, any kind of a phone number or tracking, but uh yeah. She was very, um, I, I would say scared, honestly.

[00:18:42] Bob: Eventually, Mom tells the whole story; the new Social Security number, the Federal Trade Commission, the $25,000 demand, the multiple bank visits. And as they talk, Linda sees the calls for what they really are -- a criminal manipulating her and trying to steal her money.

[00:19:00] Bob: Was it emotional at all for you to be talking about, to them about this finally?

[00:19:04] Linda Samuel: I don't show emotion real easily. In fact, I come near crying at a wedding than I do at, at a funeral. Um, I don't know why. But no, I did, was not particularly getting emotional, but inside I was getting more and more disturbed, I guess.

[00:19:26] Bob: Yeah, sure, sure. It's a hard thing to go through.

[00:19:29] Linda Samuel: And I was just really, I think I was so relieved to find both kids here that I was ready just to spill it all out to, I think I just was relieved to know that the kids finally knew that I wouldn't have to keep it from them any longer.

[00:19:44] Bob: But even as they talk, Alex keeps calling. Dwight eventually gets on the phone with him.

[00:19:51] Dwight Samuel: I was infuriated with him, you know. Well I, I was, I mean, to see, you know, to see what, that morning what she looked like and what she said she had been through and I mean, I guess the word that I've, I've used and it, it was just, it was sickening but infuriating. It was. I mean I, I'm thankful I couldn't, I wasn't in the same room with him because you know I could only yell I think through the phone.

[00:20:18] Bob: And I know Dwight as a soft-spoken lovely minister, so it must have been strange to hear him get mad, right, Dodi?

[00:20:24] Dodi Thomas: Well he does not like injustice because he's like my mom and my dad was, and if someone is being mistreated, he, he feels as though there is punishment due for that. And so yes, he did let him have it and the gentleman said, I shouldn't call him a gentleman, but the man said, "Well, the authorities will be on their way," and Dwight said, "Send them on. We are here to accept them and give them all of the information that we have on you because this obviously a scam." And then at that point, you know, the conversation, he got a little belligerent you know and at that point the conversation pretty much ended.

[00:21:08] Bob: Of course the story didn't really end there. At this point the family is worried about what other financial accounts the criminals may have tried to access.

[00:21:18] Dwight Samuel: After that, our main concern was, you know the, the funds obviously to make sure, because we had Southern Bank knew what was going on, but we hadn't talked to ... and of course, you know, that's where she just basically has spending money. Most of her investment's through Edward Jones. So we hadn't visited with you know her agent there, uh, and got on the phone with her and, and you know we spent, it took us an hour to an hour and a half to, you know, to make sure everything was tied up there and that everything was good at Southern Bank.

[00:21:49] Bob: But everything seemed secure, and they never hear from Alex again. As I've mentioned so often, this kind of story has a very different kind of ending. But in this case, a lot of things went right. Several bank employees, well-trained bank employees, spoke up, did not complete the transaction and got help. Perhaps more important, the bank employees communicated with each other. So when Linda headed to another branch, it was prepared, and it was good fortune that Linda had put her kids' name in her accounts so the bank could feel free to talk about the issue with her family. There are other ways to accomplish this, and we'll talk about them shortly. But that's not all that went right.

[00:22:32] Bob: It seems like this is partly a function of it being a small town where people know each other, but could you talk about how important it was that the bank interceded?

[00:22:39] Dodi Thomas: Yes, the lady at the bank, the one who was the person who called me initially, my son had a coffee truck in Rogersville for about a year and a half, and this bank manager loved his coffee. So she had come through his line so many times, and so knew me because of that, but also because of my mom, because it is small town. And when I opened an account there myself, and then my name was on the account, so yes, we did have that connection; however, all of the other banks, whether it was an assistant manager, whether it was a, a teller, uh the one in Springfield, the one in Ozark, the one in Nixa, I spoke with people from each of those banks individually on the phone throughout this process, and they were very, very professional, and they were very caring. And the one bank that she had gone to the very last, which was the Nixa bank, I even called because at that point we were still trying to locate her for sure, and I called, spoke to somebody, and, and the person I spoke to said, "Well hang on just a second. I think she may have already been in here," but they even looked outside to see if her car was still in the parking lot.

[00:24:03] Bob: Wow.

[00:24:05] Dodi Thomas: And she was. And it looked like, and so the person called me back and said, "Hey, we looked out in the parking lot. I think that your mom is still here. It looks like she's on the phone with somebody." And then at that time Dwight and I, I realized the person she was on the phone at that time, thankfully, it was Dwight, not the guy, because they had finally, she had finally called him back. And um, so they, they did go the extra mile and treat her with care and respect. I don't think they, they did it in a way; it wasn't putting her down or anything like that. It just seemed like they really cared.

[00:24:48] Bob: And you know, when you really care, it often comes back to you.

[00:24:53] Dodi Thomas: In the end, because my mom loves to bake, she actually took banana bread or something around to all the different ones that had helped her through this big ordeal. And you know, thanked them personally for looking out for her and for looking out for you know her as a person and not just the money she had in the bank, so.

[00:25:18] Bob: Alright. That's it. I've decided the solution to America's fraud problem is banana bread.

[00:25:22] Dodi Thomas: It would go a long way.

[00:25:24] Bob: It would go a long way, and I'm only half joking. Um, you know, so many of these institutions are large and uncaring, and so this is a, this is a, this really makes me smile, this story.

[00:25:34] Bob: But the criminals almost stole thousands of dollars from Linda, mainly because they tapped into her desire to do the right thing.

[00:25:46] Bob: Your mom was told she was helping catch a criminal, and she felt a real sense of responsibility and duty towards doing that, right?

[00:25:52] Dwight Samuel: Right, and that's, that's the reason she had not shared, you know, that, that was the piece I couldn't get put together until I found out what it was, was to why she was so fearful to, to share with either Dodi, my sister or myself. But it was, she has a very strong sense of right and wrong, and if a criminal can be caught, even if it meant withholding all this information from us, that was the reason she was doing it.

[00:26:17] Bob: Linda decides to share her story with KY3, a local TV station, and reporter Ashley Reynolds. Linda is hoping to help other people avoid becoming a victim of a scam.

[00:26:28] Dodi Thomas: Well, one of the things that I feel like was important is that even with her having been a tax preparer in the past, or had her own tax business, that she was humble enough to say I'm willing to go and talk about this to other people, and I'm willing to share it with whomever because if it'll help somebody else, because, like you said, anyone and everyone is subject to this kind of a situation if put in the right position at the right ti--, or the wrong time. And so I'm proud of her for speaking out about it and not being, uh you know, being humble enough to do that because I think it is important. And then I know, even people that I don't know well at all, that I've seen in a McDonald's drive-thru line, or out at Walmart right after the story came out, um, they said, "Hey, we just saw you on the news." You know, so people do listen, you know, and they do, hopefully, uh at least gain as, as much information as they can to help with their loved one or themselves through something that they might experience that's similar to this.

[00:27:45] Bob: Dwight also hoped just a little that there might be some way to get justice in this case.

[00:27:52] Dwight Samuel: That's the little bit of, you know when I was talking to Ashley Reynolds, um, I said, "What, you know, what are the chances of anything like this getting caught?" And she said, "If you can get a minute to yell at him on the phone, that's probably the, the most you're going to get out of it." And I said, "Well I, I did, was able to do that." But uh, anyway.

[00:28:08] Bob: You got, you got your piece. I mean you said your piece.

[00:28:10] Dwight Samuel: Got my, got my say in, right. So...

[00:28:14] Bob: It is great that Linda was saved in large part by well-trained, and I'll say it, brave, thoughtful bank employees. You might wonder why isn't there a bigger effort to train more banks to act like this? Well there is. It's called Bank Safe, and it's AARP's program to help banks do their part in fighting fraud, and here today to talk about it is AARP's Jilenne Gunther.

[00:28:40] Jilenne Gunther: I run AARP's Business to Business Solutions for issues on financial exploitation, dementia, financial caregiving, and accessibility. And we really focus on the financial industry as a key player in protecting vulnerable adults. So we've worked with about 1500 financial organizations across six industry subsectors, and our tools have helped save an estimated $400 million from being stolen from consumers.

[00:29:06] Bob: $400 million. Wow! That's a lot of money. You must be proud.

[00:29:09] Jilenne Gunther: Yeah, it is definitely, it's the thing that really brings us the most joy. I, I think one of my favorite parts of this job is when we go onsite to a financial institution that has used AARP's resources and has a story about how they've been able to stop exploitation before the money left the account and helped put that money right back in the pockets of consumers.

[00:29:32] Bob: The Perfect Scam is part of AARP's Fraud Watch Network which works directly with consumers in an effort to stop fraud. Jilenne's team works with industry, with banks so more account holders have the kind of positive experience that Linda did.

[00:29:49] Jilenne Gunther: So what this teller did in this story is really a model for what we're seeing across the country when financial institutions empower their employees. It's not just training and education, it's also their culture. So the teller in this specific instance felt confident enough to speak up because her organization had her back. And these interventions that we're talking about here today, they typically often hinge on one person noticing something that doesn't feel right, and having the skills and authority to act quickly and to ask the right questions. And that's what really what AARP's Bank Safe initiative is built around, moments like this. So it's giving every teller, every member service representative, every financial advisor the knowledge and the confidence to say, hey, wait a second. Let's check this before it's too late.

[00:30:45] Bob: Okay, so what is Bank Safe?

[00:30:46] Jilenne Gunther: AARP Bank Safe is really looking at the business solution for issues on financial exploitation, dementia, financial caregiving accessibility. And what we focus on is working with the financial industry as a key player in protecting vulnerable adults. And that's where we work with 1500 financial organizations across those six industry subsectors. We put together a training that really fills in that gap that I talked about before. This is not training that's just compliance, which is, here's the red flags, now we report it to the authorities. It really focuses on, very much on the middle ground, which is what do you do when you see it? And then we also have policy templates and tools that they can use so that they're escalating properly within their organization, that people have access to a trusted contact form, and things like that. And also encourage financial institutions to use data analytics and artificial intelligence to catch some of these red flags and unusual patterns.

[00:31:52] Bob: It's much easier to deal with these kinds of crimes before the money leaves the account rather than trying to recover the money after it's stolen, right?

[00:32:00] Jilenne Gunther: Yeah, absolutely. I started my career in the prosecutor's office. It's really difficult to recover, or to near impossible to recover funds on behalf of the consumer once it's gone, and so if we get to the point of production, then we're able to really look at how can we prevent this before the money leaves the account? And the way that I like to describe this is really it's like fighting pollution. You want to get at the point of production.

[00:32:29] Bob: And while working with banks is an important part stopping fraud, it's just one piece of the puzzle.

[00:32:36] Jilenne Gunther: We have to look at that where does this start and where are these criminals starting the action, and how are they contacting these, the consumers? And so really to, we need the whole system involved, and that includes social media companies that these criminals are using to post things. It includes telecom and other organizations like that. They are being perpetrated against as well by these criminals, they're upstream, and so they also need to be, have skin in the game to stop this before it even gets to the point that the consumer's even contacted and wanting to make a transaction out of their financial accounts. If we can get it upstream with these social media companies, these telecom, and internet, so these criminals don't have access to use those platforms as a method to contacting consumer, that's even a more effective way to prevent.

[00:33:41] Bob: As we heard in Linda's story, a really, really important step in the fight against fraud is the attentive frontline worker who steps in when it seems like something's wrong. That is not so easy. It really does require a team, a whole culture.

[00:33:57] Bob: If you're a worker anywhere, if you're a cashier at a big box store, or if someone's buying gift cards, or if you're at a bank and someone's doing something very unusual, it's, it's easy to just do it, right? It's hard to stop and bother the customer and have a conflict in that moment, but it's so important that person's boss and their boss's boss are supportive of that kind of intervention, right?

[00:34:22] Jilenne Gunther: Yeah, no, absolutely. It's really important to empower the frontlines at the financial organization. So that means train the frontline staff to really recognize the red flags of exploitation, also act in that moment to stop it. And a lot of times what we see from other types of training in this space is they focus on the compliance piece, which is here are the red flags and now you need to go report it. But it misses the middle part which is what do you do when you see it? And that's what AARP's really put a lot of focus on, and that's why you see that we've been able to save an estimated $400 million. But it also goes beyond that like you mentioned. It's about developing policies and protocols for those effective interventions so it's the teller telling their manager something's amiss, and getting those people involved, the fraud risk investigator so they can investigate it before the money is lost.

[00:35:20] Bob: And there are consequences, right? A customer's going to get irritated, there's a chance that things can go sideways, but still, we need to give tellers the strength and bravery, if you will, to step up, right?

[00:35:29] Jilenne Gunther: Yeah, and I like the fact that you said the word bravery because it really is. A lot of times these frontline tellers or member service representatives or financial advisors, this might be their first or second job. They are having to intervene in a situation with somebody who might be significantly older than them, and so they, there is part of that bravery. They may have a long line behind them and they're under pressure to keep things moving. But one of the things that we teach them is to really slow down, ask the right questions, and then pick the right action step to intervene. And that could be anywhere from getting a manager involved to putting a hold on the transaction to then give you time to an investigation, or in this case where they're able to call someone related to that person.

[00:36:26] Bob: Bank Safe is based on research around what banks and consumers need to fight fraud, but also, what interventions are proven to be effective.

[00:36:36] Jilenne Gunther: So we did a survey with consumers and we said, hey, what would you want from your financial institution? Anywhere from accessibility to financial caregiving to specialized loans, and then one of the things they said was one of the top three things they said they wanted, was they wanted the financial institutions where they bank to be highly trained to spot, to detect, and stop financial exploitation. Then we went to the industry and we held over 30 roundtables, not just in Washington DC, but across the country and asked people anywhere from a frontline teller to a CEO to a fraud risk investigator to adult protective services, how can AARP play a role? And they said the same thing consumers said is we need training, thorough training to provide to our frontline institutions because I think what people don't realize is we've got about 10,000 financial institutions, banks, and credit unions. The majority of those institutions are very small banks and credit unions. They typically don't have a large training department, and so they have to rely on either create it themselves and then going from location to teach their frontline staff. And so that's where AARP came in and put together a training, and we worked with over 2000 financial institution employees to really create something that was needed, that it would be helpful to them, that focused on the action steps. We had Virginia Tech look and do a random control study on about 1000 employees took the training, a little less than a 1000 didn't take the training; we compared the results and those who took the Bank Safe training saved 16 times more money than those who didn't take the training. And what's important...

[00:38:32] Bob: Sixteen times! Wow!

[00:38:35] Jilenne Gunther: Sixteen times.

[00:38:36] Bob: Wow.

[00:38:36] Jilenne Gunther: And not only that, but they recognized red flags four times as much, and it's, it's one thing to teach someone something, they can increase their knowledge, but really what we wanted to do here was also increase their confidence going back to what you said about bravery. And so one of the things we're really proud of about is that those who were in the Bank Safe train group were four times as confident to intervene than those who didn't take the training.

[00:39:09] Bob: Okay, so what is the Bank Safe training like?

[00:39:13] Jilenne Gunther: There are a couple of different things, and one of the things that was really a primary focus that a lot of the frontline employees love about the training is the videos. So we sit down with a committee, our Bank Safe advisory committee, and we write scenarios based on real-life stories they have seen at their financial institution. So they're all always very realistic and then as you go through the video, it stops and you're asked, what would you do in this situation? If you get the question, great. If not, it explains to you what needed to have happen. And you actually get to see the video diverge, right, you get to see what happens if you pick the wrong answer, and then you see that the person loses their money, and then if you pick the question correctly, you get to see the success of that. So it's making it more realistic. But the other thing that I really like about the training too is it's gamified. And we really wanted to build empathy, right? This can happen to anyone. It doesn't matter your social class, how much you have in the bank account, your, even your education. It can happen to anyone, and so when you first go into the training, you get, there are three stories that pop up, and they're based on real-life people who have been in a situation where they've been targeted by a criminal, and you get to select that person that you're going to represent through the training. And as you answer the questions in the training correctly, you get to see that you're saving them money on the left-hand corner of, of the training. And that's just to really see that you can make a difference. And also in the training, it's actually my favorite part, which is you get to hear a story from someone on the frontlines who's used the Bank Safe training, and been able to implement the action steps and tells a story about how they were able to save someone money. And that's what really, it shows people, yes, it's not just hey, this is what you should be doing, it's showing, hey, this works, and I can do it too.

[00:41:25] Bob: And also, it feels good, right, to save somebody from something that would have been devastating financially. It must feel great.

[00:41:30] Jilenne Gunther: Yeah, no, absolutely. And in fact, in doing qualitative interviews with financial institutions who are already proactive in this space, one of the things they said about why they make an investment in this is because their employees want to be part of something greater. They want, these people are in their communities, and they want to be able to protect their consumers or customers, their members, their clients.

[00:41:57] Bob: And I want to give them a hug. Seriously, I hope they get like little gold stars or something. It really is something that could change someone's life.

[00:42:04] Jilenne Gunther: No, definitely. I always refer to them as our heroes.

[00:42:09] Bob: If you've listened to several Perfect Scam episodes, you know that criminals nearly always tell victims they can't hang up the phone, even when they drive around or go inside a store or go in a bank to get money. And they keep talk to victims throughout the ordeal, so that's one very big red flag that tellers are trained to know this if someone is distracted by a cellphone conversation during a major withdrawal. But there are plenty of other red flags Bank Safe tells bank workers to watch for.

[00:42:36] Jilenne Gunther: Yeah, there can be other ones that they're coming in with a person. It can be behavioral cues, right, the other person that's with them is speaking on their behalf, is being pushy and a little bit aggressive. There are those types of red flags. There are transactional red flags that would not be in line with the person's historical pattern. So one of those things is a change in the mailing address. The other one would be opening a new joint checking account, payments to a new recipient; anything that is a faster payment like a wire transfer, gift cards, Bitcoin, those types of things where they're irreversible are a transactional red flag when they're, it's not in the person's historical patterns. There're again, behavioral red flags. This could be things like coercive company, declining uh health, or cognitive decline, alarming kind of statements, something seems off about the customer's behavior. A lot of times when we're talking to the frontline, they're like, it was almost like just like in the video. This person came in, they were extremely nervous, they were sort--, they had something in their bag. They're being a little bit secretive, they didn't really want to give me answers, they wouldn't look me in the eye. Those are the things, and really, it's following your gut intuition when you're on the front lines to say something's off and I need to step up and start asking some gentle questions.

[00:44:06] Bob: If all this feels a little bit like see something, say something, well, it is like that. There's always a voice inside that fights against the urge to say something. What if I'm wrong? What if I'm embarrassing myself, or embarrassing a customer? However...

[00:44:23] Bob: When a teller is suspicious, I'm sure in the back of their mind they think oh, maybe there's nothing wrong here, but I'll bet almost never are there false positives where a teller calls the manager and says, "I'm worried about this transaction," and it's fine. I bet that almost never happens.

[00:44:37] Jilenne Gunther: I would agree. I would also say there is this fear, and I think what people have to realize is all they need is a suspicion, and a lot of times that could be a gut reaction; it could be seeing red flags, and really what is the harm in asking those additional questions? And we know from a bank out in the United Kingdom who did a study on this, that you know they were worried about false positives, and in fact, what actually happened is people liked the fact that their financial institution was looking to protect them. They felt safer. And in fact, our research showed that I mentioned earlier, that trust increased depending on how a financial institution handles a financial exploitation case, and trust is the backbone of the financial industry. So I really do think this is a win-win, and they're an invested partner between consumers and their financial institutions.

[00:45:36] Bob: There's more to Bank Safe than employee training.

[00:45:39] Jilenne Gunther: The thing that we're trying to do as well is also get them to adopt different tools. It's adopting the tools of how do you do a hold? How do you implement a trusted contact so it's effective? How do you integrate artificial intelligence within your core systems? How do you integrate networks of support? And what are some other proactive measures that they can implement, because at the end of the day, we can't educate ourselves out of this. We need to be collaborating with the financial industry to help prevent this, because they're a natural ally and vested ally and partner in this fight against criminals, not only transnational, but those who are taking advantage of their loved ones.

[00:46:28] Bob: Yeah, I just think that's great. I have to say from where I sit, I talk to one victim a week essentially, and in so many of the stories, it is frustrating and I'm sure if you've listened to the podcast, you're frustrated when you hear it, the person says, I've literally never wired money in my life, and then I walk into the bank and I wired $30,000 or whatnot. And when I hear these stories, on one hand I'm hearing about all this artificial intelligence and fraud fighting tools and whatnot, and then I hear that story, and I'm like, what went wrong here? Do you want to even try to, I think what went wrong is they probably haven't had Bank Safe training. But I wonder if you could suggest why the disconnect exists?

[00:47:09] Jilenne Gunther: There's a couple of different reasons to, right? One is that they didn't have training on what the red flags are. There's a high churn for frontline employees, so it's really important to get them in, to get them trained. The second thing that I would also say too is that at the end of the day there are things like the, when you walk into the financial institution, you'll notice this disclosure that basically says it's like convenience of availability of funds, which is, it's your money, you need to have access to it. So they can slow it down, but if they don't have the ability to make a hold or delay the transaction, then if the consumer wants it, they're, there are speed bumps they can put in, but if they are not in a state that specifically allows a hold, there's a downside to that and in the ability to protect that consumer. And I think that's where the speed bumps that we're all talking about are really helpful for both the consumer, but also for the financial institution. From what I hear is they don't want that customer, that member to be exploited out of their hard-earned funds. They want to be able to stop it. Sometimes their hands are tied because they don't have the law on their side. It's not clear on what they can do, because you've got other laws that say they have to have access to their funds in their account.

[00:48:34] Bob: And there's another issue. Today's banking system includes all kinds of new ways to move money around like person-to-person payment apps. They are convenient and fast, but...

[00:48:48] Jilenne Gunther: And what faster payments means is there's not as many bumps and pauses that you can have to stop this. And that's why you see criminals, especially when the perpetrator's a stranger or they're transnational, is their lean towards those newer payments, right? It's that wire transfers, gift cards, P2P transactions, those types of things they're leaning towards. It's these cryptocurrency ATMs. They're looking for fast and irreversible. And so that should be an alert sign when anyone wants something from you and they are insisting on that type of payment.

[00:49:37] Bob: So one of the lessons you might take away from Linda's story is how much family communication helped her avoid having money stolen by the criminals who were manipulating her. That was made easier because Linda's kids were joint account holders so the bank could share what was happening with them. There's an easier way to accomplish this same thing, Jilenne says, and it's really something everyone should consider; filling out a trusted contact form with your bank.

[00:50:03] Jilenne Gunther: That's a form, just if you have kids at school, you have, they come home with a sheet if there's an emergency, here's you they, the school can call. It's the same thing here, and AARP has a policy template that financial institutions can use. In this case, the consumer can sense that, hey, if there's a sus--, suspected financial exploitation, which includes a scam, you, they authorize the financial institution to reach out to that person whether that's a friend, colleague, but it also goes a step further is if there is suspected cognitive decline they can also reach out and contact that person.

[00:50:44] Bob: It's a big step to ask your parents to put your name on their checking account, but this would be something that doesn't go quite as far that people might be more comfortable with.

[00:50:51] Jilenne Gunther: Exactly. With a joint bank account, it's really typically those are created for people that you're sharing debts and liabilities for. And so really, a better step here is to name someone who's trusted, so they, the financial institution can reach out to that trusted contact person and say, hey, we're having this problem. Can you help intervene? And that's really helpful not only for the financial institution but for the family as well.

[00:51:22] Bob: So there is something you can do today to make your life a little safer. Consider talking with your financial institution about filling out a trusted contact form because I want to tell more stories that have happy endings.

[00:51:36] Jilenne Gunther: Yeah, and in fact, it's, I know we all hear the sad stories, but one of the things I love about Bank Safe is we hear the happy stories of a young person who typically is college age intervening and stopping the financial exploitation of an older consumer. In fact, what we know is that when a frontline person speaks up and says something, nearly half of the cases, that scam's stopped before even a single dollar leaves the account. And that's what happened with this case in Missouri with this teller; slowing it down and having a second set of eyes on it, whether that's a manager, the teller, a trusted contact, or a family member; it works.

[00:52:21] Bob: For The Perfect Scam. I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:52:28] 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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