70th Birthday Ruined by a Jury Duty Scam

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

[00:00:04] Gale Barr: They sent me bar codes, different bar codes with the official Maricopa County Sheriff's Department insignia on it, that I have to use to deposit the cash. Now they only let you deposit 2000 at a time, and so they gave me like almost five of them, so that I could deposit all of the money. And I was there over an hour. I was so tired. I was beyond, I can't even, it was just, I just wanted to go home. I wanted it to end.

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[00:00:35] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.

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[00:00:40] Bob: Today's story begins with a birthday celebration, one that's stalled for many weeks by a criminal. But in the end, there's celebrating all the same because it turns out training works. Laws work. And most of all, caring about each other works. Gale Barr lives in Goodyear, Arizona, just outside Phoenix, and about that birthday...

[00:01:09] Bob: What are your plans for your birthday?

[00:01:11] Gale Barr: Well, I was supposed to work the shift, morning shift at work and then probably go out to dinner with my husband, something quiet, nothing too extravagant for the birthday, but yeah, just a quiet evening at home. I was looking forward to getting home to celebrate after work.

[00:01:287] Bob: Am I allowed to ask which birthday this was?

[00:01:30] Gale Barr: My 70th.

[00:01:32] Bob: Well that's a big number right there, that's an important birthday.

[00:01:34] Gale Barr: It was, yeah.

[00:01:36] Bob: At 70, Gale is still working. She hadn't planned things that way.

[00:01:43] Bob: And what, what kind of work do you do?

[00:01:45] Gale Barr: I practice as a nurse practitioner, and it was in a research facility. So I went back to work part-time after I retired.

[00:01:55] Bob: Gale went back to work for a very specific reason.

[00:01:59] Gale Barr: I have a son who was 33 at the time, and he has medical and mental health issues, so and we were on a fixed income, so I had to, you know, we wanted to help him as well for different doctors and things that weren't covered. He doesn't have insurance, things like that. We wanted to help him and plus have a little extra money for us.

[00:02:18] Bob: So that's why Gale is working the morning of her 70th birthday. She's just finished with her shift when the celebration and all those good feelings are interrupted.

[00:02:30] Gale Barr: I went into my office after my shift, which was 7:30 to 10:30. At 10:30, I went into the office and I was just looking through my messages, my birthday messages, and there was a message from a Chief Deputy Derrick Elmore from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department.

[00:02:48] Bob: So you're getting, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday from friends...

[00:02:51] Gale Barr: Yeah.

[00:02:52] Bob: ...relatives, and then suddenly this crazy message, right?

[00:02:55] Gale Barr: Yes. He said that there was an important legal matter concerning legal documents I needed to address concerning the Honorable Judge Jennifer Zipps, so please call back. Gave me the number, the extension. I looked his name up; he was indeed a Phoenix police officer, and Jennifer Zipps was indeed, an Arizona judge. And I thought, okay, let me just call him back and take care of whatever this is. I was curious. What's going on? A little scared, but curious, you know.

[00:03:25] Bob: So nervously, Gale dials the number left on her voicemail.

[00:03:31] Gale Barr: Somebody answered the phone and said it was the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department and connected me to Police Captain John Bailey. Badge #1386.

[00:03:42] Bob: And John Bailey has disturbing news for her.

[00:03:46] Gale Barr: He said that I was hand-selected by the Honorable Judge Jennifer Zipps to be on a grand jury in a medical malpractice case scheduled for October 14th, the day before my birthday, and I didn't show up.

[00:04:02] Bob: And then, you think, oh my God, you probably never missed jury duty in your life, I'm guessing. You're probably very civic-minded, right? So how did that...

[00:04:09] Gale Barr: That's right.

[00:04:10] Bob: Yeah, so, so did you think you would be in trouble?

[00:04:13] Gale Barr: I did, especially when he said to me, because I didn't show up, that she doesn't take kindly to that, and he told me I had signed a subpoena that I'd be at the trial and I didn't show up, and that he knew my address, he knew I was a nurse practitioner.

[00:04:30] Bob: The officer knows a lot about Gale, and also says there is this signed form.

[00:04:36] Gale Barr: In terms of the subpoena, I know I didn't sign a subpoena, but there was some question in my mind as my 33-year-old son, who was living with us at the time, I thought, well maybe he signed something. So there was a little bit of uncertainty that could have happened.

[00:04:54] Bob: With that uncertainty about what could have happened, Gale runs through the possibilities, and the officer is very direct with her.

[00:05:03] Gale Barr: Well, first of all, he told me that I have to get $9,260 out of the bank, and he said, because he said there, I was, there were two citations out against me. One was Contempt of Court, and he gave me the number of that, COCCV7466, and Failure to Appear, FTACV3944. I had to pay a post-bond amount of $9,260 today via a federal bonding kiosk. And that I had to bring the receipts from the deposits back into the sheriff's department today, and if my signature did not match the signature of whoever signed the subpoena papers, then I'd get my money back. So I thought okay, if I have to give some money, I'll get it back.

[00:05:50] Bob: $9000, that's a huge fine.

[00:05:52] Gale Barr: Yes, it was, it was all the money that I had been earning since I went out of retirement. It was, I was saving that for special reasons, yeah. It was a lot of money to me.

[00:06:04] Bob: But hopeful she'll quickly get the money back; Gale follows his instructions.

[00:06:11] Bob: So, okay, he says, go get $9,260 and you, I guess you get in your car, and you drive to the bank. Is that what you do?

[00:06:18] Gale Barr: I do. And he told me there was a gag order. I couldn't talk to anybody, so he isolated me. And he said that I also have to stay on the phone with him the whole time and don't take the phone into the bank with me. It was called a Maintain Contact Order that I had to stay on the phone.

[00:06:36] Bob: A Maintain Contact Order. Okay, so...

[00:06:37] Gale Barr: And they said that was in case I planned to skip out of town.

[00:06:41] Bob: Oh geez, oh my God.

[00:06:44] Bob: And if anyone asks any questions...

[00:06:47] Gale Barr: If somebody asked me what the money's for, just make something up.

[00:06:52] Bob: So with her lips sealed and her phone in her purse, Gale drives to the bank to withdraw nearly $10,000 in cash.

[00:07:01] Gale Barr: I was so scared, I was so afraid. I believed it so much because I'm from the generation that you just believe people. You assume people are innocent until proven guilty instead of assuming everyone's guilty until proven innocent.

[00:07:18] Bob: Yeah, of course. Yeah.

[00:07:19] Gale Barr: Nowadays, that is the way to be, I think. But I didn't know.

[00:07:24] Bob: So you go into the bank. You, how did you get the money? Did you, you know, write a check to yourself or...

[00:07:28] Gale Barr: No, it was all cash in an envelope.

[00:07:30] Bob: Okay.

[00:07:32] Gale Barr: And then they told me to go to this address where there was a federal, what did they call it, Federal Bonding Kiosk, they called it. And it turned out to be a Bitcoin machine.

[00:07:41] Bob: But they called it a Federal Bonding Kiosk.

[00:07:44] Gale Barr: They did.

[00:07:46] Bob: And that Federal Bonding Kiosk, well the crypto ATM, well it's in a nearby convenience store, and that seems off to Gale.

[00:07:55] Gale Barr: I mean when I first saw it I was very suspicious. I thought this doesn't seem right at all. This has got to be a scam, and I said it to them. I said, "This seems like a scam." Now the interesting thing, Bob, about all this is that they knew exactly what to say to me. I don't know what they said, that's what I was trying to remember, but it was convincing, and it just kept me in it.

[00:08:15] Bob: Gale doesn't know what to do, but she feels like she has to follow the instructions. So...

[00:08:21] Gale Barr: Well, they sent me bar codes, different bar codes with the official Maricopa County Sheriff's Department insignia on it, that I have to use to deposit the cash. Now they only let you deposit 2000 at a time, and so they gave me like almost five, five of them, so that I could deposit all of the money. And I was there over an hour. I was so tired. I was beyond, I can't even, it was just, I just wanted to go home. I wanted it to end. That's what I wanted it to do.

[00:08:50] Bob: But you were there for like an hour?

[00:08:52] Gale Barr: A whole hour, yes, I was, putting money into the machine.

[00:08:56] Bob: And for that long, lonely hour, no one says a word to Gale.

[00:09:02] Gale Barr: I was hoping somebody would, but no, and I was afraid because they were like this authority saying you can't talk to anybody.

[00:09:09] Bob: Yeah, well that must have felt really weird to have to do this without calling your husband, right?

[00:09:13] Gale Barr: It was terrible, yeah, it was bad.

[00:09:17] Bob: Finally, it's over. She's put that $9,260 into that machine.

[00:09:23] Gale Barr: Well, then they said what I had to do was drive down to the Maricopa Sheriff's Department, and they gave me the address, and that, and I drove down there.

[00:09:32] Bob: She's going to walk into the station, show her signature to the police, get her money back, and end this whole thing. But as soon as she gets there...

[00:09:41] Gale Barr: They said there's another subpoena, a federal citation for me now, and they needed another $12,000 or something like that.

[00:09:51] Bob: Another $12,000! Gale doesn't have that kind of cash.

[00:09:56] Gale Barr: And then they put me on hold and transferred somewhere else, and they got back on the phone and said, "Oh, that's about $3,000. We reduced the fee." And so they said, go to your, go to another bank. So I did go to another, the bank that I go to. It was nearby the Maricopa Sheriff's Department Office.

[00:10:13] Bob: Same as before. Gale walks into the bank, phone in her purse, and attempts to get $3000 cash. Except this time...

[00:10:21] Gale Barr: But guess what. Oh, let me tell you what happened. Thank goodness the bank manager was there, and he started asking me questions like, 'cause he must have seen like I'd already took out the $9,260. "So what is this for?" And I said, remembering they told me to say that it was, make something... I said it was for my son. And then he said, "Are you going to take this money to him today?" And at that point I just couldn't continue with it, and he said, "Let's go in the back and talk."

[00:10:48] Bob: Let's go in the back and talk. The bank manager gets Gale into a quiet space, and he's very specific with her.

[00:10:56] Gale Barr: And he said, "This is a scam. Hang up." And I hung up.

[00:11:00] Bob: This is a scam. Hang up. Gale already had doubts about what was going on, and especially after she went to that "Federal Bonding Kiosk."

[00:11:12] Bob: Do you remember the moment that you know, that you realized that it probably was a scam? I mean was it right in mid-sentence when he stopped you? Would you, can you...

[00:11:21] Gale Barr: Yes. Yes, that was it. That's right, Bob. That's pretty much it. I suspected it at the Bit--, Bitcoin machine, 'cause that just seemed totally crazy. It seemed, and I know that I didn't do anything wrong. I know that I'd never gotten a subpoena. I just, yeah, I think that that was really the moment, I think.

[00:11:39] Bob: Yeah, it's someone else saying it to you. It sounds like he was a very kind man.

[00:11:43] Gale Barr: He was so kind, yes.

[00:11:46] Bob: Honestly, this makes me very happy because we do these stories every week and there are so many situations where the, either the folks at the bank or the folks at the gas station, they don't say one or two sentences that would make all the difference. And in this case, this fellow did do that. So I think that's great.

[00:11:58] Gale Barr: Uh-hmm. Me too.

[00:12:01] Bob: Okay, it's great the bank stopped her from taking out that second withdrawal of $3000. But still, she's now realized that nearly $10,000 has been stolen from her. And remember, it's Gale's birthday.

[00:12:15] Gale Barr: My next step was to drive home and tell my husband what happened, which I did. It was so upsetting. Well, of course he said, well couldn't believe what happened, and then after that, I told him and my son, and it was just awful, sad, upsetting. Then my husband said to me, "It's just money. You can always replace money, but you have," he pointed out the wonderful things I have in my life which he was right. "And sometimes you have to just let things go."

[00:12:42] Bob: You just have to let some things go. They try, but well, Gale's birthday is certainly ruined.

[00:12:50] Gale Barr: I think we did go out to dinner, but it wasn't good. It wasn't a good celebration at all; it was just very sad.

[00:12:58] Bob: Oh God, I can't imagine you'd order the second drink after realizing you just had $10,000 stolen from you.

[00:13:04] Gale Barr: Yeah, I don't even drink... I don't drink at all, but I just, yeah, we, no, it was just terrible. It was bad.

[00:13:12] Bob: It sound terrible.

[00:13:14] Bob: The next day Gale files a police report with Tempe Police. They take her information, but as far as she knows, her $10,000 is gone for good, and that is a big blow to the family.

[00:13:27] Bob: Whenever we talk about money being stolen, who knows, 5 dollars is a lot to some people, it's nothing to other people. It's all relative, right? But to me, to hear that this is, you're 70, you go back to work after retiring. You're trying to take care of your son and that's what was stolen. That's a lot more than $9000 it seems to me.

[00:13:45] Gale Barr: It was. It really was. It, it, and I just thought to myself, that was my money, I worked for that. That's not right what they did. It felt like my brain was hijacked, and that's their technique that they used. I couldn't think logically.

[00:14:00] Bob: But Gale decides she wants to do at least something positive with this terrible experience.

[00:14:06] Gale Barr: Yeah, well I mean this was, this just happened very soon. I don't know why I thought of it, but I just know that when things happen to people, you reach out to the news and it's a good thing, it's always a good thing to let other people know what happened to you no matter how embarrassing it might be. But I thought it was a good idea.

[00:14:24] Bob: A much better idea than Gale could have known, because the journalist, Bianca Bueno of Channel 12 News...

[00:14:30] Gale Barr: ...told me about the new Arizona Cryptocurrency Kiosk License Fraud Prevention Law that just went into effect a month before my scam.

[00:14:40] Bob: Wow! There was a brand-new law that just covered what happened to you.

[00:14:45] Gale Barr: Uh-hmm.

[00:14:47] Bob: We've talked with you about crypto ATM laws that are sprouting up all around the country. AARP has been a big advocate of them. The specifics vary, but in general, these laws force crypto ATM firms to be much more accountable, and the timing couldn't have been better for Gale.

[00:15:04] Gale Barr: Well it protects everyone, but mostly elderly people from this type of fraud because they're losing so much money in these Bitcoin machines. And, and you get all your money back basically, and you have to file a report with the kiosk company within 30 days. You have to make a police report in 30 days and contact the attorney general. Those were three things you have to do. So I worked really hard to make sure I got all of that done very quickly after Bianca told me to do it, and, and I was also on the news; she interviewed me for Channel 12 News, so I did a story for them, too.

[00:15:38] (newsclip) Channel 12 News. Tonight, a Valley woman has a warning to everyone after she was scammed out of almost $10,000 on her birthday. She became a victim of somebody pretending to be a sheriff's deputy. 12 News journalist, Bianca Bueno sat down her. $10,000 on your birthday, that's not great, Bianca. No, it's not, and it's the second victim in two weeks that we've interviewed who have been targeted with the exact same scam.

[00:16:04] Bob: Thirty days is not a lot of time to file this claim.

[00:16:06] Gale Barr: It's not, and it really was, it was hard going down, far downtown. It's not easy.

[00:16:12] Bob: Gale follows all the instructions carefully, and...

[00:16:17] Gale Barr: Well, when I filled it out, I had a check within a couple days.

[00:16:20] Bob: You're kidding, really?

[00:16:21] Gale Barr: No, yes, everything came back to me. Every cent.

[00:16:25] Bob: What did that feel like?

[00:16:26] Gale Barr: It was fantastic. It's, it was like I couldn't believe it. It was amazing.

[00:16:32] Bob: Within days, Gale got all her money back. Dear listener, if you've heard any of these Perfect Scam episodes in the past year or two, you know that crypto ATMs are front and center of so many of these stories, and I've had to share with you the sad news over and over that the victim's money is unrecoverable. So this is just great to hear that Gale got her money back. I sure hope we hear a lot more stories like this soon.

[00:16:59] Gale Barr: The governor, Katie Hobbs, she helped get that bill passed. I sent her a message to thank her. I wish I could do it in person. I really appreciated that law going into effect. It was very lucky, too.

[00:17:11] Bob: Well I'm going to give you a chance to do it here. What did the note say? What would you say to the governor if you could?

[00:17:15] Gale Barr: Thank you for being so compassionate and caring about the citizens of Arizona, especially older people. Thank you for doing that because that money is so important to us. It would have been gone without you.

[00:17:30] Bob: Yeah, and I also, I love hearing that so often we hear that, legislators aren't doing anything, and there's all this stalemate and all that, but here's a law that was passed that actually helped a person, right?

[00:17:40] Gale Barr: Yeah. It really did.

[00:17:43] Bob: I think that's great. Okay, what do you want people to remember when they hear your story?

[00:17:48] Gale Barr: Well, I want them to remember that first know that don't beat yourself up too much because they are very sophisticated, the scammers, and so don't beat yourself up first of all. And to know what your state laws are about this type of fraud. Know what they are, and if they don't have laws in place, maybe talk to your, send letters to the governor asking for them to put them in place.

[00:18:15] Bob: And perhaps more important...

[00:18:18] Gale Barr: Know that if there's a number that you don't know, and there, and there's urgency and fear is used, and isolation; it's a scam. Hang up the phone. It's okay. Even if somebody sounds like authority and just know that they are so sophisticated out there, and they can do this. Just hang up the phone.

[00:18:39] Bob: So as I hinted at the beginning of this episode, Gale's birthday dinner was ruined, but only temporarily.

[00:18:48] Bob: Okay, so I hope after you got the money back, you went back to dinner and did something to celebrate.

[00:18:51] Gale Barr: We did. We did. We did.

[00:18:53] Bob: What did you do?

[00:18:54] Gale Barr: We went back out to dinner, but we had a nice time with friends, yeah. That time with some friends.

[00:19:01] Bob: That's really great. I love a happy ending; I have to tell you. And also now you're back to where you were, right, and I'm sure, while it sounds like your husband and your son were understanding, I'm sure that was still a difficult thing for the family, and now it's over, right?

[00:19:13] Gale Barr: Uh-huh, it's over. Yep. It's over.

[00:19:16] Bob: It's over for Gale, and that's great. But not for so many other victims of crimes like this. Government impersonation scams are raging right now. They come in many forms; an unpaid tax bill, a missed jury summons, and FTC investigation. But they all have the same goal, to get victims to send money as quickly as possible. As you might imagine, real government workers can't stand when they're impersonated by criminals.

[00:19:43] Det. Mark DiBone: It's very personal.

[00:19:45] Bob: That's Detective Mark DiBone. He works in the Financial Crimes Unit of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, which was impersonated by the criminals who attacked Gale.

[00:19:55] Det. Mark DiBone: We take these very personal anyway. Anyone taking advantage of, of somebody in and of itself is something that we kind of, I've always taken personal. I know my fellow detectives have, and then when they're using our name to try to make themselves sound more, they use that as that kind of step above where they say, oh, you have to listen to us, we're law enforcement. It gives us a bad name as law enforcement as a whole.

[00:20:18] Bob: So they invoke the name of your department, but they also use a, I believe in this case, an officer's name, a real officer's name, and a real judge's name, which adds even more credibility and I'm sure also adds to the fury you must feel.

[00:20:30] Det. Mark DiBbone: Yes. So in those situations I've seen it all. I've seen, they use the names of currently active law enforcement. They've used the names of retired law enforcement officers. They even have used the names of officers who have fallen in the line of duty.

[00:20:45] Bob: Oh, God. Wow.

[00:20:46] Det. Mark DiBone: So we have had that actually occur, at which point that is very personal when it comes to something like that, and we obviously are never happy of, about it to begin with, but let alone afterwards. I kind of noticed, we've been kind of trying to track that kind of thing and see. A lot of the names that they'll use, they get off of either the news, one of our lieutenants who works lake patrol, he is an expert in, they use like the underwater submarines type stuff to go down look for evidence and find things like that, and he gets interviewed all the time, and they love using his name 'cause he was just in the news last week.

[00:21:25] Bob: When criminals call, claim to be law enforcement or some other government employee, they try to cause a panic to scare victims. Tell them they've done something wrong, and they must act immediately to fix it, or else. But the truth is, government agencies move much more deliberately than that.

[00:21:43] Det. Mark DiBone: It's a lot of times what we're learning is people just don't, they don't know how things actually work. The general public, unfortunately, deals with what they learn and it's kind of, it's kind of funny, at the same it's, it's off of TV and movies. That's where people learn a lot about or what they happens in law enforcement. Even true crime stuff, that kind of thing, but when it comes down to it, the odds of, of somebody just knowing, oh, you would never get a phone call about jury duty and a warrant, or those types of things.

[00:22:17] Bob: You wouldn't get a phone call about a warrant for your arrest that you could get out from under by paying a fine immediately.

[00:22:24] Det. Mark DiBone: Anything coming from court, no matter what it is, whether it's a jury duty summons or even in this story, the story that this, this person came up with, this criminal came up with, you will always receive in the mail. The court will never call you. They will never text you. They will never contact you in any other way. They will always send it via the mail. US Mail is the only way you're ever going to receive anything like that. So anyone calling we always say, it's along the same lines with a warrant, there are 4.7+ million people living in Maricopa County right now. Currently, at this very moment, we have over 50,000 felony warrants. There is no way, as law enforcement, that we have the ability to make phone calls and try to contact everyone to let you know there's a summons and you have a citation, and all this kind of stuff. It's impossible with the amount of people working. So that's one thing that again, get that across to say you're never going to get a phone call, it's never going to happen, is really what we're trying to push with this.

[00:23:27] Bob: When criminals get potential victims on the phone, they've rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed, which is why we don't ever want you to speak with them period.

[00:23:37] Det. Mark DiBone: Criminals that are doing this are so good at it. They've got an answer to every question. They're prepared for literally anything, and it makes it very difficult.

[00:23:47] Bob: Detective DiBone wasn't part of the team that investigated Gale's case, but I asked him, how common are these kinds of jury duty scams?

[00:23:55] Det. Mark DiBone: Oh, it's very common, unfortunately. They love using that idea, usually it's, we call it the warrant, the jury duty warrant is most often what we see it as, where oh, you missed jury duty and there's a warrant for your arrest. But then this is along the exact same lines. You have a warrant; you have a citation you need to pay. You have, whatever it is excuse they can come up with for whatever it is they're asking for. Those occur very often when it comes down to it, cause the stories these criminals come up with are insane when it comes to their imagination and how they can take it and use everything against somebody. But just as they know your name, they know your address, they may know personal information, doesn't mean it's realistic, but that's just what they will try to do to get you to believe it to be real.

[00:24:41] Bob: Yet they seem to even know what Gale did for a living, because it was really, the summons was related to her profession.

[00:24:48] Det. Mark DiBone: Yes. And I'll guarantee, there's so much information out there, and to get information about anybody, you know where to look if you can find it. If Gale, and I don't know Gale's story personally, but if she posts on Facebook, oh I helped out a patient today, that kind of, even just something that's easy and as just, it's a great day, you really helped this patient out. That alone is enough information for someone to look at and say, oh, okay. You're involved with patients. Oh, and then they can start looking into that. And companies put, here's our employees. Here's our nurse practitioners, here's our doctors, here's all of that kind of stuff is put out there. Once it's on the internet, it's always on the internet. Even if they erase the page, you can always find it. And so that's one thing that even if the business stopped doing that, doesn't mean that somebody still can't find that information. So just because your information's out there, it's always going to be. Just because somebody knows that information doesn't make it a real thing. Any excuse that they give you, when you break it down and you look at each thing individually, no matter who you are, you're going to go, ooh, that's kind of shady, that's questionable, but when you put it all together, you add fear to it, and you add possible threats to it. You just want to do it. You just want to get it done so you're not in trouble. You've spent your entire life staying out of trouble. When you get in your 60s and 70s, you don't want to start then. And that's kind of what a lot of that is that threat; we'll come arrest you. Well, okay. That's the part where it doesn't work that way. That's not how we do it. But again, the normal people don't really realize that. The person on the public doesn't really realize that. And that could be used against them.

[00:26:28] Bob: Yeah, that's exactly what she said. She just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. Can I tell you what irritates me, not that you care, but what really irritates me...

[00:26:37] Det. Mark DiBone: No, I totally care!

[00:26:39] Bob: ...is there's a whole world of people out there who just ignore jury duty summons and couldn't care less, right? But the people who actually feel a sense of duty are the ones who are victims of this scam the most, and that really upsets me.

[00:26:50] Det. Mark DiBone: Yes, and we try to explain to people, I mean in our educational campaign, I'll tell you with how often these scams are changing, pretty much what we're telling people is, don't answer the phone.

[00:27:03] Bob: Don't answer the phone. That's just good simple advice. Now Gale's story has a happy ending because a new law entitles her to compensation from the crypto ATM operator. That's a success story for sure, but it's no reason for anyone to let their guard down.

[00:27:19] Det. Mark DiBone: There's very specific things that have to go with that. There's specific qualifiers, if you will, that have to occur for that to happen, but it's mostly timelines. It's really you pretty much have 30 days to do it, and if you're not a new customer, so if you're already involved in cryptocurrency, it won't work. And so that's something that luckily, I'll tell you, the generation that's being targeted loves their paperwork. And that's the one saving grace. People that are 60 and older, that generation loves holding on. They like to hold a receipt. Our younger generation, oh, okay, I don't need it. They don't realize what it is; it's all about balancing a checkbook at one time and needing to see what those numbers were. Now everything's online. They can just pull up their bank account anytime and look at it. But back in the day when you had to, when you had to do everything by hand differently, you held onto those receipts so you could balance that checkbook, and you could balance your account out and know what's in it. And so luckily that's helped, but anytime someone tells you to destroy your receipt, that alone should be a red flag. Why would I destroy a receipt of something that I did?

[00:28:23] Bob: What other red flags are there that people should know to see, well this is probably not real.

[00:28:28] Det. Mark DiBone: One of the big ones, especially in this situation, there is no legitimate business that will ever say it's mandatory, you have to pay in cryptocurrency. None whatsoever. That is one thing. Cryptocurrency is a, is a big thing. We always tell people, even when we educate people, I don't educate you about what cryptocurrency is. I don't want you to know. And I tell them that. I want you to be afraid of it. So when you see it, you go, nope, I'm going the other direction. And that is something that's important. If I, there's no way I'm going to try to explain it to you so then you know how it works and what to do with it and so on, 'cause that's just going to fold you, it gives them more of a story to use. But when they say, "Oh no, you've got to do this." No law enforcement or government agency will ever call you or text you and want money from you, ever. It's a wiggle. It will never happen.

[00:29:21] Bob: And, and I hear myself saying this more now, and I don't like it, but it's true, trust no one. Verify everything before you do anything.

[00:29:33] Det. Mark DiBone: But yeah, at this point it's the verification aspect of it. Stop, think, verify, is a big one that we love to use, and AARP supports that, I know, and that's why you know we work very well together. No matter what you're being told, verify everything. If, if you don't know who's on the phone, don't answer it. If they leave a message, verify it first, don't call them back. Where are they calling from? Oh, this one says, this message said they're calling from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. Well call the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and verify that first before you call anything. But once you do that, our dispatchers, our call takers are trained to them, no, we would never call you. That's not real. No agency would ever do that. But those types of things. And it's what I usually refer to it as it's just a really hard habit to break.

[00:30:22] Bob: I know that advice can sound repetitive, but answering the phone, it's a hard habit to break.

[00:30:28] Det. Mark DiBone: The older generation has had more technology occur in the last 50 years than in the history of the world. Okay, and things that they were taught, I call them, they're really hard habits to break. They were taught from a young age, answer the phone, be polite. If somebody's calling you, it's for a reason. And back then that's, nobody was calling you without a reason to talk to you. And so when you go from phones in the kitchen with a long cord to, and paying for long distance, to now something the size of a penny fits in your ear and you could talk to someone on the other side of the world for free, that's a huge jump. And so that, that habit to break of answering the phone is very hard, but what we've pushed the idea is let them leave--, if it's important, they'll leave a message. And even when they leave a message, verify before you call anything back. Anybody calling from a law enforcement agency, the government, any of that kind of stuff; in Gale's case, they called saying, "I'm with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office." Well before you call back that person who they left their name and their phone number, call the sheriff's office first. Find a trusted number online. Go to their website, get a trusted number, and call and verify that information first. We've taught all of our call takers that when they get a call about like that, they're going to ask, why are you asking? Oh, I just got a message that this person said they needed to talk to me about whatever. Our dispatchers will tell them, no, that's a scam. Don't call them back.

[00:32:03] Bob: And it's okay to call the police, right, on the non-emergency number?

[00:32:06] Det. Mark DiBone: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:32:08] Bob: But I think a lot of people may be shy about doing that or maybe they've never done it. But you guys aren't going to get irritated if I call and ask, right?

[00:32:14] Det. Mark DiBone: No, no, we will absolutely not, because we want to help you. We're there to protect you. So at that point, by calling and saying, hey, I just want to verify, even if you call and ask: Is there an Officer John Bailey? Well there is. But that doesn't mean he called you. And so our dispatchers are going to say, why? What happened? Oh, he left me a voicemail and said to call him back. Have you made a report with us? And then they can contact the actual Officer Bailey and if Officer Bailey says, I never made that phone call, you have nothing to worry about.

[00:32:43] Bob: And just to be clear, it is very, very, very unlikely that any government agency will call you if you don't already have ongoing business with it.

[00:32:56] Det. Mark DiBone: If you haven't reached out to law enforcement first, you didn't call and make a report, the odds of us calling you back are pretty slim to none when it comes down to it, and so that's why you call in the sheriff's office first, call in that agency, whatever it is, whoever they're claiming to be, don't just call them back, because that's how you get caught up in that story. It's about trying to stay out of that story and stay away from that. And they may call once or twice more; they're going to keep trying, and they're going to threaten you. Well we would never make a threat. I'm never going to call you and threaten to come and arrest you. That's not how it works. We don't do that. We have laws in the US for a reason, and you still have your due justice. You still have your time in court if there if you were to be charged for something. You don't just pay a fine and it goes away. That's not how it works. So if the odds of it being realistic are slim to none, and even in that slim portion, verifying it first. But any time anybody claiming to be law enforcement calls you and tells you that you owe money and you need to pay it right now, is 100% a scam. No questions asked.

[00:33:58] Bob: I've got to say, I love clear advice for people. No, no vagary here. It's 100% a scam. I like that.

[00:34:04] Det. Mark DiBone: Absolutely. And no law enforcement or government agency will ever call, text, or email you, and tell you that you have to pay money. It will never happen.

[00:34:16] Bob: It will never happen. Clear, simple, accurate advice. For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:34:37] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you're not alone. Call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next. Our email address at The Perfect Scam is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org, and we want to hear from you. If you've been the victim of a scam or you know someone who has, and you'd like us to tell their story, write to us. That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; Researcher, Becky Dodson; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; and our Audio Engineer and Sound Designer, Julio Gonzalez. Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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