AUDIO TRANSCRIPT: Cyber Crimes
>> Good afternoon, everyone. We're going to allow folks to trickle in. But in the essence of time, we will go ahead and begin our program. Happy New Year from all of us here at Virginia Tech. I hope that you all enjoyed a wonderful holiday season and a very good start to what is now 2024. It's so hard to write that date. Many of you may be feeling the same thing, your hand wants to make a three and not a four. But we're glad to have you with us today as we take on the third program in our series of fraud in today's digital world. And we're very appreciative to have a very special guest, one of our own with us today. Dawn Barnes is the senior extension agent with Virginia Cooperative Extension based in Floyd, Virginia. And I've known Dawn for years. This lady when it comes to talking about protections of fraud in the community, Dawn is actually doing this in Floyd, Virginia. She is hosting community workshops to really help folks understand this age that we're in, what people are doing out there when it comes to our cyber world. So Dawn, we're glad to have you here today to take us on this journey with cybercrime. It is amazing how it has proliferated since the pandemic. And this little portal right here, I encourage you all today to not only think about it as your phone, but it's a minicomputer. And Dawn, you're going to take it from there and tell us what's happening in our world when it comes to criminals invading our phone networks and our computers.
>> Certainly. So hello, everyone. I'm the Family Consumer Science Extension Agent for Floyd, Montgomery. Just a quick review. We also have FH agents and we also have agricultural agents, and we all have our places in the world. So today, I'm glad to be with you. I wanted to begin with a couple of statements, one of those being that some of this information may not be new to you and that's okay. I have found, unfortunately, with things that I know in life that sometimes I get a little relaxed or I get distracted with whatever is going on in my world and I forget to do some of those things that I've been told might be something I should be doing. So every now and then I need a little reminder. So if it's not new to you, maybe it will be a reminder. The other thing is, what I share today may be old news [BACKGROUND] and that's basically because things are changing so quickly. And as things change, scammers find new ways to address the issue or address the challenge for them. So don't worry if you hear something else, you told something else a couple of months down the road. Feel free to use a chat if you have any questions. Maybe you have a story that you would like for us to share with folks of something that happened to you. I've learned that the best way to learn is oftentimes learning from each other. Because when we know something truly has happened or know what the experience was, it makes it more real and maybe it happened a little bit different than what we've learned in the past of how these scammers are working, or whatever the information may be. We talk about scams and we talk about fraud. And oftentimes we talk about them as if they are the same thing and they are very similar in that they can upset our financial well being. But one of the ways that it can be broken down is that frauds they're giving our personal information without us knowing it. So someone may get our identity, they may get our social security number, they may have enough information to portray themselves as us. Scams are manipulative in that one of the ways we'll talk about, they are trying to get us to give them information, to give them funds, in some way or another, to give them what they want in their grand scheme or what's going to be successful for them. One credit union I found made a statement that fraudsters rely on illegal access, while scammers employ psychological manipulation. Either one is not a great thing, but they go at a little bit different. So what we're going to do is look at some of the methods of scams. Primarily we're going to look at computer and telephones, how we could protect ourselves, what we needed to do about reporting some statistics. And I also have some examples at the end of some things that have appeared on my phone and on my computer in my email. I may from time to time, read some of the information because they are so close, some of the terminologies that I don't want to get them confused because it is very easy to get them confused. So thinking about telephones as Shannon said, they are the smartphones are also our little walkie minicomputer. But there are some that don't have smartphones and there are some that still have landlines, and scammers use these also. So if you have a phone of any sort, a scammer can get hold of it. One of the things I did want to relay that relatively new update but I mean 2009, it's not, but sometimes we don't catch on to some of the laws and whatnot that have changed. Robocalls. Anybody robocalls? We still from time to time get them. Federal Trade Commission rules went into effect prohibiting most of the pre-recorded telemarketing calls , so the robocalls. So we're not getting as many, sometimes you may still get one if you are getting an illegal robocall, they are suggesting that you report those and they would be reported to the DoNotCall.gov website. And you can do that with your phones and put your phone in as a do not call number. They sometimes need about 30, phone in the system. So if you've called at some point to another and get a phone call, give them a little bit of time and then go after that. Some of the things that we do in particular with our smartphones is transfer money. It's obviously not green money, but there is the peer-to-peer payment apps. Some of the names are the Cash App Venmo, Zelle. One of the things to look when you're looking at those is read the small print. And hopefully we're reading the small print no matter what it is that we're doing. But if something happens and we incur any losses, the likelihood of us getting a refund is very slim. So even a small amount, $20 can make a big difference at the grocery store or anyplace else so we don't want to lose any money, so knowing that. With phone calls there are telephones, especially with our cell phones, one of the things that sometimes can happen is SIM card swaps or SIM swaps. What happens in this case is that the scammer is able to convince the phone company that for whatever reason we've switched phones or other phones been lost, and we need to switch that information to our new phone. And when that happens, then any of that information is now accessible by them. So that could be financial information, it could be any of our personal information that now opens up all of our accounts to them. One of the others is vishing V-I-S-H-I-N-G, or Voice phishing P-H-I-S-I-N-G. A lot of phonetics going on here, but that's when those voices, those recordings call through. And they're saying, oh, I'm from Capital One, or I'm from ABC Credit Union and you have an overdraft. And if you send me $20, $30 now, then everything will be fine or the debt will be covered, or whatever the case may be and they're not. The other thing that happens with some of those is if you ask him who they are and ask for information back, they usually won't give you that information. Voice cloning is something that is a concern, especially as software and artificial intelligence changes. Someone gets someone else's voice and is able to duplicate that voice or make it very close so that now that voice sounds like not the 40-year-old band that they are, but the 14-year-old grandchild of yours they're trying to imitate. At that point, and we'll talk about that one in a minute, but then it makes us a doubt that we are hearing or not hearing who we think we're talking about. One of the other one is click bait B-A-I-T. So it's something that they're trying to get our attention so that we will click on. I've just been told this and I haven't done the research to double check on it. But there's a lot of quizzes on the smartphone now. See what personality, what animal personality you're most like. Which is the color that is your special color that gives you your extra powers. And I've been told that some of those things actually can let scammers enter a little bit more information and that some of them are just not fun quizzes, some of them are indeed things there for scammers to use. So some of the things that I've mentioned thus far are methods or ways that they are trying to separate us with information with money. So as I mentioned earlier. One of them, it could be that the bank, they're calling they want your information and your last five digits of your Social security number. It'll come to me here in a minute. For whatever reason I drew a blank on that particular one. So last four numbers of your Social security number are 1, me the rest of those? So if they have access someway or another, your last four numbers, they can't do a whole lot with it. But if they make you think because they have the four, they can give you the other ones, then they have all your social security numbers and everything that they can access by that they now have access to. Well, why do you want? You have my four, and if you are indeed, you should have all of them. So those are some of the tactics that they use, and I may repeat this later, but you can ask for information. Can you give me a number I can call you back. I need to check my files. I'm busy right now. I need to call you back later. I've got something on the stove, it's going to burn if I don't get off now. Thank you. The IRS is one of those that oftentimes have phone scams that come along. When the health insurance time frame was happening just recently, October, November or December, a lot of those calls also came on that were not the people that they said they were. Most of the pleas for, you need to play your IRS, you're behind in your IRS, you need to pay the funds, or IRS is going to send you a letter. They want to have it in print. So that's one of those things you could say, oh my goodness, this isn't what it needs to be. The other one that unfortunately is pretty prevalent, and I've come across some folks who have had it happen to them, has been the grandparents scams. So the grandparents scams are, you get a call, and it's your granddaughter or it's your grandson, and they're in jail. And they need help and they need money now. And then the police officer gets on, and they say, your granddaughter, your daughter, whomever, we've got them. They are [NOISE] not in a lot of trouble at the moment, but if you give us, if you send us a wire or however the money get it to us quickly of x amount of dollars, we can send them home and send them on the way. I had one lady that had happened to. Fortunately, she had known about that particular scam, and not just this scam, but others. She had a granddaughter, and we know males or females, either one, that there's a lot of things going on in the world. And so they had sat down and they had a code, so that if anything ever happened, the grandmother was to ask the question, how are you? Do I need to go to your apartment and feed or do I need to go home and feed your dog, Rufus? And the comment might be, no, I don't need you to feed Rufus. Well, they don't have a dog, well, their dog's name is not Rufus. Rufus is the key name, but something that the scammers wouldn't know that would assure her that it wasn't her grandson or her granddaughter that was in a problem. And we can't do this when it happens. It's something that we need to prepare for now. It's like everything else that we do when we talk about emergency preparedness. We need to prepare ahead of time for any of those emergencies that might happen. Yes, I just saw in the chat line they were talking about targeting the family that was from China, and they actually had, in essence, had the young man go to a deserted area because if he didn't, his family were in danger. And meanwhile, they were telling the family that we need to have this money. And I forget how much it was, but I'm pretty sure it was a three digit number that they may have paid toward the safe keeping of the son. So it's happening in a lot of different ways, and we just need to be aware of trying to let our brain think first before our heart kicks in because we know as soon as a loved one is concerned, the heart's going to kick in.
>> Exactly. And you know Dawn, you make wonderful points when you mentioned psychological manipulation. These criminals are excellent at these tactics to pull on your heart strings, make it an emergency, confuse and daze you where you are not able to kick in and think it is reactionary. And time is of the essence because when your mind is not wired, you can potentially go down the path they want to take you. So it is amazing how even month to month anymore, criminals are getting better and better at these types of tactics to get what they want, get it quick, and they're done with you. So I love your comment. Take a moment. Take a breath. Think before you start down any path.
>> Yes. Breathe, count to 10, whatever it's going to take, but do something. Asking for more information is not a bad thing, but oftentimes that thing that can also be the trigger to know that might not be happening. Let's go ahead and move on to our computers. We can come back to some of it if we need to, but I want to make sure that we do address everything. And time never goes as far as you think it's going to go, no matter how well you're playing. Some of the things when we're talking about computers, one is the fishing that I talked to you about earlier. One of this may come through our emails. When we see an email and we think we know, and I'll have an example of this one a little bit later, but we think we know who we're addressing, and it's not. So they are instigating the communication instead of us instigating the communication, and when we instigate the communication, and oftentimes that can add a little bit more of a safety there. Spear fishing is when they, again, are looking through their emails, but they have it set up so it's specifically addressed to us, or might have something that might specifically make us think that it is indeed something real. And we have spoofing, and that's when they have a false name or a false number attached to it, so that the information looks good, but the contact information is not going to be correct. Again, some of the things that you can see here in just a little bit because I know some of us are visual, some of us are auditory, so we'll have some of the ones for you to look at. Key/logger, so if we click on a bogus link in an email, then that allows a software to be downloaded onto our computer, and now the hacker could have access to our passwords, to our banking information, to our credit information, to a wealth of information that's on our computer. And for an awful little piece of machinery, our computers have an awful lot of information that we would prefer not to be out there on it. Pharming, P-H-A-R-M-I-N-G, we think it's a website we're going to, but it's actually a malicious program attached to it. So another way, we think we know where we're going, but they've set it up so that we actually are being sent in another direction. Maladvertising, so advertising for things that we might be interested in. Something the general population might be interested in. But it's not really advertising that we're going to go through and purchase something, but advertising that links in to a way that they can now access some of our information. Scareware is that when that email or that information says, if you don't react right now, this email is to notify you that in the next 24 hours your account is going to be closed, and you won't have the access to any of your funds in institution A, B, C. And automatically you think, oh my goodness, it can't, and I've got this coming out and that coming out and I can't, I don't know what I've done. And oftentimes it would be okay, I'm going to react instead of waiting and then going to check. Check the financial institution or check your records and make sure that everything looks okay at the moment. Another one is drive-by downloads. So when we're out and about, we access a Wi-Fi because it makes things easier to travel to where we need to travel to get our information. But unfortunately, if it is an unsecured Wi-Fi, when we're talking about security, we talk about looking for that lock at the top. But if we are on the Wi-Fi at a hotel or wherever else, there's lots of information that they can access. And I think Shannon and you were going to share some more information in relationship to the Wi-Fi.
>> Sure. Dawn makes a good point. We all are consumers of Wi-Fi whether we realize it or not. I think it has become even more important because when you're out at a coffee shop, you're in a hotel lobby, you're at an airport, wherever you've run into Wi-Fi, you've probably logged in. If your phone is already turned on to accept Wi-Fi, you've probably connected to the signal and didn't even know it. Or if you have turned it on, you have discovered there are multiple networks that load. And I encourage you to do that. You're not going to get taken if you just look at how many networks are around you, next time you're out at a coffee shop or a movie theater or something. What do we typically do when we're on Wi-Fi? If we're at an airport or at a hotel, we're getting ready to head out, we probably check our bank account. Do I need to transfer a little bit more money before we head out on the slopes to go skiing? Whatever the case might be the criminal, if you have suddenly entered their portal, they may be able to look at the data that you're transmitting to a router. If you think about Wi-Fi and the router is like a clothes line with clothes pins attached to it and it's in constant motion back and forth and you're sending information. Information is coming from the router, from the bank or wherever, back to your phone. Thieves can collect those packets and examine them. And it used to be the day of, when we talk about encryption, everyone thought, if it's encrypted, I don't have to worry. That code can't be broken. The reality today is give them about 24 hours and a good criminal can break an encryption. It's almost like I use the example. If you go into a parking garage and there is the Hyundai and a Ferrari, which one would you likely like to drive out with? Encryption just kind of helps a criminal to know there's maybe a juicier tidbit or nugget that somebody is trying to hide, and it may be a larger payoff if we can break that encryption. So really with the FBI, we heard Special Agent Susan Armstrong talk about the IC3, the Internet Crimes Complaint Center, and the work that they do examining the various scams that take place throughout our nation. Last year it was about $10.3 billion. So, I mean that's a huge number and that's from a variety of scams. That's not just Wi-Fi scams. They are on the queue for the FBI, but that's just one of many. But we really use that system and we put a lot of trust in it. And as Dawn and I were talking about the program and all we want to make you aware, that's Number 1. That's our goal is to make you aware. And second behind that is to think before you act. So I really encourage in these days and times, if you're going to use the Wi-Fi at Starbucks or Hilton wherever you're vacationing or even if you're in your hometown, probably it's better just to use it to just general surf the web versus trying to order any merchandise through a merchant's website where you've got the credit card number transacting or you're looking at your bank account. Because just remember, a criminal is pretty savvy. And when we look at the Wi-Fi networks we may have already logged on. So I encourage you, don't always make your Wi-Fi discoverable because you can log into something and not even know it, but they can falsify a valid router web source like Hilton. It can be one Hilton and then that can move it up to the top of the queue. And you may think, that's the Hilton Hotel's website and you click it and it's not, it's the criminals impersonation of Hilton's website. Keep those things in mind because that's an area where I will admit I do it, I've done it, and I have learned from it to keep that Wi-Fi turned off on my phone and when I just use it for general surfing, no transaction of business.
>> Exactly right, Shannon. Exactly right. Just as I wanted to know that a little bit ago when Shannon was talking, there was an addition to the chat room that is proof in the pudding that things that we're telling you now may not be same true because they stated that Google Chrome had changed their secure icon to look different. So we need to check that one out and make sure that we are looking for that one in the future.
>> Yeah.
>> One of the questions that sometimes is asked, how do they find my information? How do they know that at Shop A, B, C, or how do they know what my phone number is or how do they know what my grandchild's name is? Well, one unfortunately all you have to do is put your name into the Internet or do a search on yourself and it's amazing the information that picks up. Now, granted, a lot of my things come up because of my association with cooperative association with Virginia Tech. But some of the personal stuff is on there too and it says related be related too or your neighbors are. So there's some information someone could use if they wanted to. If I signed up for a sweepstakes of some sort and I put my information. Well, now that's that information that someone can sell to somebody else and they have that. So there's a lot of things that are done that we don't necessarily think about how that puts that information out there.
>> Dawn, I wanted just to address a couple of things.
>> Sure.
>> A few questions have come up about a VPN, and someone asked, what is a VPN? It is a virtual private network. So it's like your own little air portal of space that's private. They're better than nothing to have a VPN. It's a little bit higher level of firewall security. A lot of times, if you think about your own cell phone, if you have Verizon US Cellular, you already have your own hot spot, your signal with the tower. And I would encourage you to use that. It used to be 10, We had to pay by how much every data that we used. Most phone companies are unlimited now. So really the risk is pretty great to use Wi-Fi when if you just continue with your cellular service, it's unlimited anyway. No matter how much data you use, you're not going to be charged an overage fee. That used to be years ago. But it is a VPN and they are good to have. It's a extra layer of security. If you will, like a law officer may wear an armored vest pad while they're out in the field. It's just an extra layer of not being able to get inside to do that. So I really appreciate you asking the questions about VPNs. I'm sorry, Dawn, go back to where you were.
>> [LAUGHTER] Most definitely. We want that information shared and the questions answered that we can. Again, we've talked about all the things that could happen. What are some of the things we need to consider to protect ourselves? So one is A, a lot of us don't even answer the phones if it's not a number that we don't consider. It's not an area code, that we know anybody from that area code, it's not a number that we recognize at all. And sometimes my philosophy has been if they need to reach me, I do have voicemail and I try to keep it open. Sometimes my voicemail does get full and I have to catch up on Matt and that's okay, but that's an option. As I said before, if we just answer it and we're not really thinking about it. We can hang up. Just hang up, but if we feel the need to be a little bit more, whatever, look, there's something on the stove, it's boiling over. I got to go. Always, no matter what it is, read the small print. On the paperwork, there's a lot of things there that they try to hide on us. As I said earlier, remember that the IRS most often is going to send written notifications. So don't let that fear of the government at that level coming down on us make you react in a way that you wouldn't react otherwise. Don't freely give out passwords, and your account numbers, obviously our social security number. If we think we have been scammed at some point or another, one of the suggestions is, especially if it's a particular account or a particular whatever, change the passwords. I'm getting my notice from campus that it is time for me to change my password. I think I'm down to 15 more days, so I need to do that or they lock me out. I get to keep it for about a year, so it's easy to remember. So I know if we're changing passwords, plus we don't have the same password and everything, it's hard to keep them straight. So I do one thing, I have heard of folks that do another. I ran into a couple one time and he had the list of all the companies, she had the list of all the passwords, and the two never met until they had to use them at the same time. I have a password book, much like an address book, and my passwords are written down in it, except all my passwords are missing anywhere from 2-4 parts of that password, and down below that I have a hint, so it will remind me, and I'll also because I'm mindful that at some point or another someone needs to get, like a loved one needs to access my things because for whatever reason I can't at the moment, I try to make those clues such that my family would know. At least I'm counting on one member anyway because he has an excellent memory. Well, so much for my thought process, but I need to test it on him sometime and see if he does indeed remember the things I think he does. Any of the security software, spam filters, anything that we have on our phones, our computers, whatnot, keep them updated. Our computers, our phone companies, they do try to help us and update the security systems and update the things that are going to make it better or safer for us, but if we don't update, we're not going to be able to take advantage of that. Anytime that they are pressuring us to react now, you need not to tell anyone, because if you do, then this is going to happen or this will take place. If we're not supposed to be telling anybody, then something's up. That's definitely one of those things we can look at really quickly. Give it 100% of your attention. The phone is ringing, you're in the middle of something, the phone is irritating, you just got to go ahead and answer it, or the email is there and you just find yourself okay, I'm just going to click it and be done with it. Well, we've now find out that you've clicked that and that is just giving them access into your account or whatever it might have been. So making sure that we do that. If we have an email, a text, I get some texts sometimes I have no idea who they're from, just because it comes to me doesn't mean that I need to respond, because in responding, that's when the problems can happen, same thing with our attachments. If we don't know who they're coming from, no matter how curious we are, leave the attachments alone.
>> Too, Dawn, we had mentioned in previous sessions that thieves are getting really good now. They might ping your number, and just you see this number and you don't know who it's from, hello, or how is your day going? Most of us would be ready to respond back, "Hello" or, "I'm good, thank you". What that does is if you don't know that number, just leave it alone, because a criminal has access to a lot of data, a lot of phone numbers, and some criminals are certainly in the role of finding out legitimacy, is a person connected to this phone number. And when you respond back, "I'm fine, thank you", or "Hello, who is this?", they have got a sellable number on the market, they have got a human attached to that phone number, so now it becomes the portal that they can begin to work with you. That's not to say you don't have some long lost friend out there that you haven't heard from in years and "Hi, did you have a nice holiday?" [LAUGHTER] And you're thinking, "Shannon said." There are nuances to everything. But when you get those and you just don't recognize that number, it's a different area code or it's even spoofed and it's a local area code, sometimes that's somebody mining for information to find out if there's a human attached to that number.
>> Most definitely. The other thing, check the spelling, check the punctuation. You don't have to have had an A+ in English, the punctuations and the spellings are pretty obvious, even if English wasn't your best subject. And of course, we can't remind folks enough, keep track of your credit reports, keep track of what your reports are to make sure that there's nothing there that is sending off a warning sign along the way. So I've shared a lot of information in a short amount of time, and what I want to do is read a scenario and just get your mind to working about what happened, what they've done. And I have a couple of questions for you along the way, but let me read you the scenario first and put on your sleuthing skills and see how you do. [NOISE] Pamela is sitting down to eat when she receives the sixth call today from a phone number that she does not recognize. Pamela usually does not answer the phone unless she recognizes the number because she is wary of scams. Pamela does not pick up the phone and caller leaves a voice message stating that Pamela owes $349 to Federal Collections Incorporated. The message says that if Pamela does not pay $349 by 11:00 AM tomorrow, a warrant will be issued for her arrest. Pamela would be humiliated if she were arrested in front of her neighbors. She picks up the phone. The caller tells Pamela that she can avoid being arrested by wiring $349 through a money transfer. So you can use voice or you can use the chat, whichever, but what are some of the red flags that come up right away for you? Was there any pressure put on her? Yes. No specific name of the institution, yes. She said Federal Collections Incorporated, but that doesn't tell you a bit of information. No name. Time sensitive. Yes, I know I don't owe anyone. That's the good thing. One of the commercials talks about you can sign up for this service and they would tell you if you're paying anybody, that you shouldn't be paying. In my thought process, should I not be looking at my credit card bills and being able to pick that information up myself? Do it tomorrow. You'll be arrested. That gives you a lot of pressure plus the time frame. It's late in the evening, they have to do it by 11:00 AM. They don't give it a lot of daytime working hours for her to try to check into things either. Nothing is given to her about the information that she could dispute the debt. Just that she needs to pay it, she needs to pay it now. You're in the right line of things and thinking about some of those things that the panelist needs to do. The other thing is you could ask for the paperwork. Can you give me, I want to see something in print? So if you would send something to me, we can have a discussion and go about it and see what else we might be able to find out. So let me give you some statistics, just so you know what things are taking place. One survey showed that about 2% of the calls that are targeted fall for the scammers tracks. And when you think about 2% of the possible population, that's a pretty large number, and even if they had $100 each that they got from those folks. Bank of America reports that Americans lost over scams in 2022. They were mostly those that they're referring to are the ones that impersonated the banks or the financial institutions. Then a little bit more recent in the third quarter of 2023, FTC or the Federal Trade Commission found business impostors and government impostors to be the top 2 fraud subcategories, and this is by age, reported by those For those that were 50-59, government impostors was number 3 and online shopping was number 2. Family and friend impostors was number and 80 plus. And that was the farthest up the list of the top any of the groups, and it was those And unfortunately, one of the things that the scammers are counting on is that as we're and I'm a lot closer to that 70 then I think about. But, our bodies start to change and our hearing starts to change. And as our hearing changes, phone conversations can be more difficult, and that's one of the things they're counting on, is that maybe we will just hear some of the words or the voice will be close enough that it will sound like the granddaughter. That would be one of those things that they can use to divide us from money. The 2022 Consumer Sentinel Network reported there were impostor scams being number fraud losses with a median loss of $650 per person, and young person lost more money, but the median loss were higher for those 70 plus. So not as much money, but more individually. And that same report said that Virginia, there were 52,349 reports, the loss was $7,885,771 with a medium of $500. Those are large numbers. So it's proof that these things are occurring unfortunately on a regular basis and separating folks that may or may not have that money to lose available to them, which makes it even worse.
>> Exactly. And I think as of before the holidays, Dawn, Virginia rank number of the reports of fraud and loss. So I know a lot of folks here are tuning in from Virginia. There's a lot of folks all over the United States. But the Commonwealth of Virginia hit the number 10 mark, and that's huge. But scammers, as Dawn had mentioned, [NOISE] it's so believable, it's the pressure factor. And no wonder the timing that you're getting these towards the middle of the night, like she mentioned, that classic example, it's to dazed and confused. You cannot verify it with a bank because the bank's closed unless you have online, and people feel at the mercy if I don't take action, there's going to be a huge negative consequence.
>> Yes. And someone pointed out in the chat and they're exactly right. That's just the reports that are made. There are scams that [OVERLAPPING] people aren't reporting because maybe they're not report or they don't want anybody to know. And that's one of the things, kudos to a lady. I think two Christmases ago, that was on channel seven or Channel 10, she was in Roanoke, and someone scammed her of all of her Christmas mummy. And she reported it and she wanted the news to know because she didn't want other people like her to have the same incident. And if we don't know about it, if FTC doesn't know about it, if the Attorney General's Office doesn't know about it, if the local law enforcement doesn't know about it, they can't share any of these scams that are going on. So I want to show you, and let's see if it comes up correctly. These are some things that have come across in just the last month for me that I've made copies of so that you could see, so what is in this one? And Shannon, you can keep track of the chat box for me because I can't see without sharing screens. But if anybody does any feedback on that one, what's one of the ones, that's a big giveaway right quick. So we have Sam's Club, but still Sam Club, and that doesn't have anything to do with, and there is no sense in this one. So there's the pieces in the part, and this one was something that my spam catcher with my system caught. This one was one that we got just the other day. Our IT person with extension said, "Hey, if you get this, it's a scam, we leave it alone. You can see open this immediately." Big bold letters. There's an attachment they want me to open. The attached document needs your urgent and immediate attention. I obviously didn't do that, and I don't know what would have happened where it would have sent us if anybody had opened up that attachment. This is another one. And I find very interesting, different company. But look, this right here is the exact same as that last one was. And here is our spelling and punctuation that we said, be mindful of it. That far, all three of these were emails. This was a text I got on my cell phone, close number. "Dear client, your accounts been locked. Well, guess what? Mine hasn't because I don't have trust." But you can bet when I have gotten one of the past that was from one of the financial institutions that I do use for credit card accounts or whatever, my heart does stop because I'm thinking, oh my goodness. But so far, I've been able to keep my wit about me, take a deep breath, check with the financial institution itself, not react to it, and double check on my own. This is one. I was curious and now I've forgotten, I think it's in Richmond. So this is a website for a business and Moses is the name of the person that is an instructor with that particular business. But if I were going to set up something with some martial arts, I wouldn't be traveling to Richmond for it to begin with because I'm in Floyd County. But now that it wants me to strike on this. So we said earlier that there are those that if we hit, they don't take us to the site we want it to take us to. So wonderful example there, and that was, I think an email. I'm wondering if some of the public information with state agencies tie into Richmond. this person I'm curious, maybe a handful of extension agents got it thinking that we were all tied to Richmond. This is different resources, where I found some of the information I use, where I found some information that I didn't use, but that I thought would be good information if someone was going seeking more questions, additional information. Cooperative Extension. Virginia doesn't have a publication, but several of our sister states do. So you can Google Cooperative Extension and whatever the title is and you can come up with some of the information from around the state. The Federal Trade Commission has data. I quoted some of the information from that all along. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has awful lot of information on that. They also have anything talking about spending plans, our financial wellbeing, also the FDIC Gov, they're money smart, has some wonderful information. When we're talking about reporting our Virginia Attorney General's Office, the Federal Trade Commission, both of those are places that we would want to report and they both have on their site what you need to do to report. If your bank account is questionable or you think someone has scammed you and it's attached to your bank account or your credit card company, you want to contact those directly and tell them what has happened and see what can happen and if you can get a refund, a stop on the process, any of those things that you don't wind up separated from that money. But these are just wonderful pieces of information. AARP, that had the most up to date thing I had seen in a while on the scam terminology, because again, it changes on a regular basis. So it's hard to keep track of what the most current is. So that's a lot of information in a little amount of time, just barely skimmed the surface of scamming. But these resources will help you dig a little deeper. If we can help you, we would be more than glad to. So if anybody has any additional questions.
>> Dawn, that is perfect information and it's a nice segue for me. We have some friends here that have joined the Zoom program with us today from the Virginia Attorney General's Office and also from the Senior Medicare Patrol. So thank you all for taking time to be with us. We all learn together, we all grow together. But I really appreciate the Attorney General's Office for being on this call as we go through the questions. And Dawn, you're exactly right. Any Attorney General's Office on their website, if you're Texas, you're Arizona, they all have a portal or a section of their web where you can make those reports. And as Dawn mentioned, reporting, it matters. And we've heard this message. This is the third time we've heard the message that reporting matters. We heard it with Medicare, we heard it with the state police here in Virginia, we've heard it today from Cooperative Extension. It may not get your money back. And like Dawn mentioned, the lady that lost her Christmas money, it may not get that back, but it lets our government, authorities, law enforcement, the FBI, know if a lot of activity is happening in certain areas of our state or our nation. And it can really put, as you will, boots to the ground to then begin to try to find out who is perpetrating these crimes. So that's wonderful information. I echo what Dawn has said. If we can help you, if you're out of state and you're like, run that by me again. We're recording this session, so we will upload it, you will see it when you register for future programs in this series, you can watch it again. But give us a call, we're happy to help get you in the right direction for your city or state here in the nation. So are there any questions for Dawn today? Dawn does such a wonderful job, she's covered it so thoroughly.
>> I can tell you about a scam.
>> Sure.
>> There's an empty lot next to me owned by owners outside the state. When I came home one day, there was a sign out there that was for sale. I called them and they said, "Absolutely not." And the real estate company was quite embarrassed, but they said the man that called said he had a flip phone, so they could not Zoom him. I don't know how he got through the hurdles, but they were about ready to list it.
>> I mean, you just have to be careful and you look at a home purchase, Dick, that's probably six figures.
>> Yeah.
>> There's money to be made if somebody calls that number and signs a contract or give authorization for a down payment with their bank account, routing number and account number. Bingo, there you go, you can have it drained. Wonderful example. Thank you, Dick, for sharing that. Any other questions? We've got about four minutes, and we'll be finishing up today. I will put up here our next program that if you haven't looked yet for the next program to register for, I'm going to load that for you right now. On February 5th, we're going to examine the online dating scams and romance scams. No, we're not going to tell you how to date better when you're online. We'll leave that, I will not even take those questions if you call because I won't know what to tell you. But we're going to look at probably one of the most prevalent growing activities, is the taking of money, as Dawn mentioned, through manipulation and tactic when it comes to romance. And you saw what Dawn did earlier today. She pointed here to the heart and how the heart is so pivotal, sometimes it can override this thing, our mind. And that's exactly what criminals do with the online dating, they hit the heart and they get money quickly. So tune in, we're going to have Sloan Champney coming back from the Better Business Bureau in Western Virginia to give us a rundown. What does this picture look like, how do criminals get online and how do they convince us to part with our money. So February 5th from if you haven't registered, you've still got plenty of time to do so. Dawn, I want to thank you again for the wonderful job that you've done here for Cornerstone and thank you for the wonderful work you're doing in Floyd County, Virginia of educating older citizens and really all citizens. Fraud can hit any of us, it doesn't just have a begin and end with age, it can be really any age group can fall victim here. We hope that you've learned a lot today from tuning in with us. We're going to send out a survey. We really don't have any attachments per se to follow up with you, but please take time to complete our survey. It lets us know how we did, it also helps tailor future programs that we will look to take on here at Cornerstone. And in time, our marketing officials will take our video and they'll get it uploaded and put it in our Cornerstone Library. So it will always have a shelf life, you can go back and look at it and review it, and even share it with friends and neighbors. Thank you all so much for your time today, we are one minute to the stroke of two. We hopefully have had a good use of our time and we've learned some important things. Maybe a few reminders, as Dawn mentioned, that it just doesn't hurt to hear it one more time over. So thank you and we'll look forward to seeing you next month. Have a really good week you all. Bye bye.
>> Thank you, everyone. Bye bye.