#183 – Protecting Your Finances with Amy Nofziger

I’m Wes Moss. The prevailing thought in America is that you’ll never have enough money and it’s almost impossible to retire early. Actually, I think the opposite is true. For more than 20 years, I’ve been researching, studying, and advising American families, including those who started late, on how to retire sooner and happier. So my mission with the Retire Sooner podcast is to help a million people retire earlier while enjoying the adventure along the way. I’d love for you to be one of them. Let’s get started. Amy.

Wes Moss [00:00:36]:

Welcome to the retire Sooner podcast. We’ve been trying to get you on here for a very long time. And I know that you do lots of great television. You’re on the morning shows, and it just feels like the world. The more digital we become and the easier banking is, the easier it is for people to try to take money from all of us. And it’s not just and maybe we start out here and dispel a couple of myths. I think, of course, as we get older, and I think about protecting our parents money, right, and our grandparents money. For the listeners here, for the Retire Sooner podcast, I think of it in that perspective.

Wes Moss [00:01:18]:

And then I think about I’ve seen you talk about how kids are getting scammed and educated people in their thirty s and their 40s. So it’s kind of everybody. But has it gotten a lot worse in the last decade or two decades? Because banking is supposed to be so easy and frictionless and there’s so many more ways for people to click through and find us.

Amy Nofziger [00:01:42]:

Wow, that’s a lot to unpack, Wes, but let me do my best, right? How do I say this? So, first of all, yes, let’s break down those myths. Fraud can happen to anyone of any age, any education level with any amount of money. Criminals do not core who they steal from. They will steal my 19 year old’s $5 or they will steal my 75 year old mother’s retirement. Obviously, they’re going to go where the money is though, and that is older adults who have worked hard their whole lives. So that is why older adults are targeted more. But let’s be clear again, every day on the Fraud Watch network Helpline, I speak to people and my team speaks to people 18 years old, up to 98 years old, it does not matter. But your question about has it gotten easier, has it gotten more prevalent? Yes.

Amy Nofziger [00:02:44]:

But let me say that with a couple of caveats. We have more access points in our daily lives for criminals to meet us. Whereas when I started two decades ago, the majority of the fraud was coming in over the phone, through the mail, or honestly at the front door. Now, with the explosion of us connecting with people online, and let’s be clear, we were connecting with a lot more people online during the pandemic. We have just opened up so many more avenues and outlets for criminals to meet us on every single platform, and then they’re just stealing from us in just so many new ways.

Wes Moss [00:03:31]:

How big are the numbers? How big is that in any given day? How much money is getting siphoned away from bad actors?

Amy Nofziger [00:03:40]:

Yeah. So last year, I believe the Federal Trade Commission released the number of $8.8 billion with a B that was reported loss. And the significant thing in that sentence is reported. Those are only the people that reported their victimization. So I like to take that $8.8 billion and multiply it by ten or 20 on the actual moss from our consumers, because we know that this crime is hugely underreported. But for us on the Fraud Watch Network Helpline, we receive 400 to 500 phone calls every single day from people who are experiencing fraud, who have been victims of fraud, who are honestly calling us to see if something is fraud. And I don’t mean to sound unempathetic to this, but if someone has a $5,000 loss, I’m like, okay, you got off easy, because just yesterday I was reading through some of the cases, and it was 450,000, 400,000, 350,000. And that is one day to us at ARP.

Wes Moss [00:05:01]:

If we’re starting to look at some of the scale, and you mentioned it could be literally $5, it can be $400,000. And I’m sure more than that. Where is something that size coming from? Where do you see something that large? And how does that happen? This goes to kind of looking at some of the most popular ways people, bad actors, steal from us and our parents. But let’s start with some of that. Those are life changing numbers for people.

Amy Nofziger [00:05:38]:

I’ll say this. Yes. For a lot of people, those are life changing numbers. For some of the people, they’re not. It is an interesting dynamic, one that I’ve really been paying attention to lately. With some of the big dollar losses, and we’re even talking like $1.5 million, it’s not the financial loss that is as devastating to these individuals, because they do have a significant amount of wealth, and they might be 75 years old. It’s the first time in their life that they haven’t been able to successfully get out of a situation or have that situation turn out the way they want it to. So for them, it’s more of an emotional loss than the financial loss, whereas some of my lower losses, like $500, the money is so much more devastating to them.

Amy Nofziger [00:06:36]:

But the emotional is like, well, you know what? I’ve kind of been picked on my whole life, and I’ve kind of been at the bottom of the barrel. Here it is again, someone else in society taking advantage of me. It’s an interesting dynamic, but with big losses, where we’re seeing those huge six figure losses or even seven figure losses right now, really are coming in in a couple of ways. One definitely what we call romance scams.

Wes Moss [00:07:02]:

So romance the tinder swindler.

Amy Nofziger [00:07:05]:

The tindaller swindler. But for most of our people, they have never met their person. Whereas with the tindler Swindler, which is a mouthful to say, so I can’t keep saying it many times, it’s a tongue twister, is they’re playing Words With Friends, they’re on a Facebook social club, they’re even on a celebrity fan page. Maybe they are actively looking on a dating site. But these individuals come in, ingratiate themselves with them, just slight casual conversation. The next thing you know, it does turn into a full fledged romance. Those take a lot of time. I talked to a woman yesterday that had been in a relationship, quote, in a relationship for seven years with this individual, they’ll claim every single story possible.

Amy Nofziger [00:07:58]:

One interesting thing that we’re seeing with the, quote, romance scam or new friendship scams right now is they actually sometimes might start as crypto investment scams. So this is kind of a new phenomenon where we’re seeing professionals being reached out to on LinkedIn, saying, I’ve been following your profile. I’m a student. I would like a mentor. Can you mentor me? Which for a lot of professionals, especially maybe that have accumulated this knowledge throughout their life and want to share it with someone, that’s very flattering to them. They get into a conversation, it seems very innocent. There might be a little bit of flirting here and there. But what happens is then that student, in quotes would say, hey, my aunt is actually a professional crypto investor.

Amy Nofziger [00:08:52]:

Are you ever interested in that? And that’s where, again, we’re seeing big losses. It’s an interesting phenomenon because with crypto, I particularly believe that the criminals are playing on people’s FOMO right. The fear of missing out. Wow. It is a phenomenon that we all have as individuals. Usually for me, it happens on a Friday night when I choose to stay home and not go to that party. Right. But for some people, they’re know, I missed out on Apple, I missed out on Microsoft, but I am not going to miss out on crypto.

Amy Nofziger [00:09:29]:

And the criminals take that to their advantage and use it to manipulate people.

Wes Moss [00:09:33]:

When you talk about these relationship scams. And again, I’m in the financial advice world and I have an RIA firm, and I think about somebody changing a wire number and it goes to the wrong wire or someone not checking on a wire. To me, that’s what we’re always looking for. But what you’re talking about here, these are really con artists that are creating relationships and essentially coaxing people into giving them money, which, by the way, how is that illegal? Or is there a loophole? Because they’re really kind of talking somebody into something. What is that? Amy?

Amy Nofziger [00:10:15]:

Yeah, certainly not an attorney. Never want to be. But there are definitely crimes that are being broken because they’re not being in full truth. And the undue influence these criminals are putting on their victims and they’re telling a story, but they’re not telling a true story. Right. And then also where some of the crime gets into play is the banking fraud. So we’re having a lot of our criminals ask our victims to open up bank accounts for them and then essentially be a money mule. So these networks of criminals operate like any criminal enterprise out there, but it’s just like a business.

Amy Nofziger [00:11:06]:

There are bosses, there are closers, there are the doers, there are the runners. And so the money you are stealing from Mrs. Smith that you have Mrs. Smith put into a bank account and then wire to somebody else who actually also might be a victim of another scam and thinks this is her prize winnings coming to her account and then has to pay, quote, taxes on that prize money and being shipped overseas to somewhere else. The criminals are I hate to give them credit, but they’re very sophisticated when it comes to these crime models. I think our law enforcement does a fantastic job and has had some really good success recently on apprehending some of these criminals, especially when they step foot into the United States. But we are not going to, one, educate our way out of this, and we’re also not going to prosecute and arrest our way out of this. We need to do all of the above to educate ourselves, and we need to educate our community.

Amy Nofziger [00:12:08]:

We need to change the way we as a society look at these crimes. Wes, right now in my house, what do you mean by that? There is really no different than someone getting $20,000 stolen from them on the street by a mugging or the $20,000 they got stolen by manipulation over the phone. The difference is how we as society look at that individual, the individual that was robbed on the street, kind of to make it not a joke about it, but we will give her a hug. We will set up a GoFundMe account. We will bake her casseroles. Her church will throw her a fundraiser. People will come.

Wes Moss [00:12:48]:

It’s a black and white victim.

Amy Nofziger [00:12:50]:

Yeah, you were a victim. Same person over the phone. Oh, she probably has dementia. Oh, my God, she’s so gullible. How could she do that, right? There’s no GoFundMe. There’s no macaroni and cheese casserole for that victim. So when we as a society have an impression of who these victims are as uneducated, naive and these are not the words I use. These are the words society uses.

Amy Nofziger [00:13:17]:

We treat the crimes differently. It’s not a priority. It’s not a priority. We need to look at this, though, as a more societal issue. And again, go back to the numbers in the beginning. If we’re estimating the 8.8 times $10 billion lost, that is money out of our economy, your economy. That could build up your community, that is going to these transnational crime ranks. It is a we problem.

Wes Moss [00:13:46]:

Again, the person that’s $20,000 mugged and gets $10,000 stolen from them if you’re carrying around that much cash. But as an example, versus scammed out of 10,000, either way, there’s really no recourse. You don’t get that. Nobody ever gets this money back. Is that correct?

Amy Nofziger [00:14:04]:

Nobody gets the money back? Listen, I can get into it, but they’re depending on how the money was sent and how quickly it happens and how quickly blah, blah, blah, but let’s just not lose the money in the first place. And again, part of the solution, I think, is really looking at the ways that the criminals are asking for the money now. And this goes back to your question in the beginning with banking. Are we just making it too easy right now? For us, the two most preferred methods that the criminals are asking for are prepaid gift cards and crypto ATM machines.

Wes Moss [00:14:43]:

Crypto ATM.

Amy Nofziger [00:14:44]:

Okay. Yeah. I ask this to people all the time. How many of you have ever seen a crypto ATM machine? Everyone says no, right? Then I actually pull up the crypto ATM machines that are in like a two block radius of where they’re sitting right now, and they’re like, oh, I was just at that store yesterday. I didn’t know that that was a crypto ATM machine because it just looks like an ATM machine. We have about 95,000 of these crypto ATM machines in the country right now. Interestingly enough, most of them are located in the lobbies of vape stores, smoke shops. I saw one the other day at a Philly cheesesteak place, liquor stores.

Wes Moss [00:15:26]:

Describe that for our audience because again, I’ve heard that there are crypto ATMs, but just functionally. What do you do with a crypto ATM? Do you go into a crypto account and just pull out actual cash and cash in some of your bitcoin?

Amy Nofziger [00:15:39]:

Yeah, it’s a great question. So what the criminals are asking people to do is and again, they’re really manipulative and smooth with say, you know, mrs. Smith, you’re going to be arrested because you didn’t pay your taxes, or whatever the scam per se is. We’re going to make this super simple for you so the cops don’t show up to your house. I’m going to text you right now a QR code. And that is something new to all of us. QR codes, right?

Wes Moss [00:16:07]:

Yeah.

Amy Nofziger [00:16:08]:

But who during the pandemic did not get a QR code with their restaurant menu? We’re comfortable with QR codes. So I’m going to text you this QR code. I need you to go know ABC liquor store on Arapaho. You know where that is, right, Ms. Smith? Well, of course, that’s like, right next door to me. Okay. Take that, QR code. There’s going to be an ATM machine.

Amy Nofziger [00:16:32]:

It’s very nondescript, Mrs. Smith, because this is the ATM machine that the government works with. This is only for the government, right? So they create a story. They create a lie. First, get your cash or your debit card. Put your cash into the machine, scan the QR code, and get your receipt. And that is the proof to show if law enforcement shows up to your house. Well, essentially, what has happened? They’ve never said the word crypto.

Amy Nofziger [00:17:01]:

They’ve never said the word bitcoin or any other kind of digital currency. They sent her a QR code. She scans the QR code. When she scans the QR code on that ATM machine and inserts her cash or her debit card. That is then instantly converted into crypto, which most of the criminals are asking for. Crypto is bitcoin. Right now. It converts it into bitcoin and puts it into their wallet.

Amy Nofziger [00:17:24]:

All of that information was in that QR code. The minute it goes to their wallet, it is gone. I have had victims stand at these crypto ATM machines for up to 2 hours in the lobby of a convenience store with two workers staring at them while people are coming in to get their gas and their slim gyms inserting. $80,000 in cash.

Wes Moss [00:17:49]:

Wow. Okay, so hold on. Help me understand a legitimate use of a crypto ATM machine. If I’m just a normal person, there’s no scam, no crime. What is it supposed to be used for?

Amy Nofziger [00:18:02]:

So I struggle with answering with this question, because I don’t see one. I don’t see one. I have mentioned this many times. Where is a, quote, legitimate crypto investor or what scenario are they going to walk in and get a slushy and some crypto? Are they going to get a philly cheesesteak and some crypto? I do not see a legitimate reason for these, but we have allowed these to come into our communities. And I think the thing is because there’s not enough knowledge or education raised about these machines and asking those questions.

Wes Moss [00:18:43]:

So, Amy, they’re not designed. If you’ve got $20,000 in your bitcoin account, let’s say, are you able to go to a crypto machine and say, I’d like to take 20 grand out of my bitcoin account and get it out in cash.

Amy Nofziger [00:18:58]:

It is kind of like an ATM machine. But most of the prospectus that I have read are more about someone who wants to experiment with crypto. So you can go to one of these machines. People who maybe are not comfortable with being online, they can go and buy crypto from one of these machines. That is what I’m reading. But again, my point is, I feel like we have made the entry points to losing a significant amount of money high. Also, one of the things I talk about with these machines is the oversight of so the employees who are working at the vape store or the Billy cheese steak place, they’re not trained like a financial institution employee or a wire transfer employee is trained. So I’ve even had victims say to me, the guys were just sitting at the counter staring at me.

Wes Moss [00:19:55]:

And they’re putting money in. They’re putting money in, putting cash in, putting cash in. These crypto ATMs really are almost like think of it as like an Internet cafe. Hey, if you want to trade or buy some Bitcoin, go to these machines and you can do it.

Amy Nofziger [00:20:09]:

Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:20:11]:

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Wes Moss [00:20:59]:

So tell our listeners about that.

Amy Nofziger [00:21:01]:

So impersonation and impostor scams right now are collectively probably the number one most reported scam. And honestly, every scam is an impersonation scam pretending to be someone you’re not, right? But we have the government impostor scams where you’ll receive a phone call, a text message, not usually an email on these. Usually it’s a phone call or a text message saying, you missed a jury duty. You didn’t pay your taxes. Your Social Security number was used in a crime on the border, and we’re with the DEA, and we’re going to come and arrest you unless you can verify who you are and pay the penalty.

Wes Moss [00:21:44]:

So they see that and all of a sudden there’s this great fear. It’s like, whoa, whoa, what? Did I miss jury duty? What if somebody did use my Social Security number and people could just get super nervous about that, and then they take advantage of that? I guess.

Amy Nofziger [00:22:03]:

Yeah. There’s so much kind of emotional and psychological tactics and warfare that these criminals put on the victims, whether that’s yelling at them, saying, you’re going to do this right now, otherwise you’re going to get arrested. Can you imagine being arrested in front of your friends and family and your neighbors? I had a woman one time who said this happened on a Friday, and she thought, oh, my God, if I have to go to jail, who’s going to take care of my dog? Your cognitive brain shuts down, and your emotional brain takes over. Your fight and flight brain takes over. I cannot be arrested. I cannot. I will do whatever then. The criminals will actually, a lot of times keep the victim under the ether, under their thumb, so they will stay on the phone with them while they instruct the victim what to do.

Amy Nofziger [00:22:57]:

And in these cases, again, it’s either driving to the crypto ATM machine or driving to a store and buying the prepaid gift cards. And with the prepaid gift cards, we’ve all seen them we all know what they look like.

Wes Moss [00:23:11]:

Every time you go into CVS, there’s a whole wall of them everywhere.

Amy Nofziger [00:23:14]:

Everywhere. It doesn’t matter. All the criminals need is for the victim to load money on that card and then really even just take a picture or read the numbers off the back of the card. They don’t actually need the physical hard card, so it’s such an instant transaction. And they’ll keep the person on the phone the whole time. They’ll say if anyone asks you at the counter what you’re buying for, tell them it’s a birthday present for your niece. Because if you tell them this, they’re going to charge you more taxes. Or they tell them to lie.

Amy Nofziger [00:23:46]:

They keep them under the ether. This goes the same with most of our imposter scams. Grandparent. Imposter scams? Where? Hey, Grandma, it’s me. I’ve gotten in trouble. I’ve been arrested. I killed a pregnant woman in a car. They’re going to put me in jail.

Amy Nofziger [00:24:00]:

I can’t. Don’t tell mom. Go get the money for me. But then the other big one right now with the employment hold on.

Wes Moss [00:24:08]:

So they’re taking advantage of this is a younger person calling and saying, hey, this is Jen, your granddaughter. And they’ll do that until somebody says, oh, hey, Jen. Just because it’s a young person’s voice and somebody older might not quite get it.

Amy Nofziger [00:24:28]:

Is that how that works? I have to say this too. I don’t even know sometimes. Now, to be a grandparent, you’re probably going to be over the age of, let’s say 75. Yeah, 55, 70. But it’s not necessarily an older thing with hearing or cognitive moss or anything like that. It’s an emotional thing. It’s all of a sudden unsuspected, you’re caught off guard with someone crying on the phone to you that is asking for help. So it’s Grandma.

Amy Nofziger [00:24:58]:

Grandma Johnny, is that you? Yes, Grandma, it’s me. Or they might even have the name because let’s be honest here, we put out way too much information about our friends and family online. Sure, the obituaries is not to give any criminals listening to your podcast any ideas, but the obituaries are a great place for criminals to get information. They have the grandchildren’s name, they have alma maters, they have all of the information you need to manipulate somebody. So yes, they’ll go in and yes, Grandma, it’s me. Please don’t tell mom. Grandma, you know how much I love you, right? That gets into the emotional side. Oh my gosh, this person needs my help right now.

Wes Moss [00:25:35]:

Wow. And then they operate out of fear and expediency, and the next thing they know, they’re buying a gift card at CVS and it’s going to the scammers.

Amy Nofziger [00:25:46]:

And this one is an interesting kind of psychological dynamic because we focus more on the victim that lost the money. But there’s quite a few victims in this one because I’ve actually talked to a significant amount of grandchildren who are reporting on behalf of their grandparents. And it was their name that was used in the scam. The guilt that that grandchild feels that their grandparent lost $10,000 in their name because the grandparent thought that they were the one that got in trouble. That’s a significant guilt for a young person to feel. When then they find out that that money is lost, it’s a lot. And again, back to how we treat these criminals. There’s no real therapy, so to speak, to help that individual recover from that guilt they might feel.

Wes Moss [00:26:39]:

Okay, so you were about to tell another really common one. So you’ve got grandparent and then what.

Amy Nofziger [00:26:45]:

Are some the business imposters. So we’ve all gotten these. This is where they’ll use any legitimate company name pretending to be them, whether it’s an Amazon imposter, a Best Buy, Microsoft saying that there’s been a problem with your account, saying that someone charged something to your account to call this phone number. I talked to a gentleman the other day who it was a geek squad and he actually is a customer. And he’s like, yeah. So I called the number and I said, no, you’re wrong on my billing cycle. Well, it was obviously a fake customer service number that the criminals had put in the email. He called them, they said, oh, don’t worry sir, we’ll take care of it.

Amy Nofziger [00:27:27]:

We just need to remote access into your computer to take care of that refund for know, just know, know Amazon doesn’t operate that way. And most of those emails that you get are scams and just delete them and junk them.

Wes Moss [00:27:45]:

Same thing with charities. You see charity scams, we see a.

Amy Nofziger [00:27:51]:

Lot of charity scams, especially after natural disasters. Anything where the community comes together. I will say with charity scams right now, I think we do a really good job as a society of warning people beforehand. Like with the Maui Fires, I saw people coming out right away saying, only give to this place, be skeptical of any GoFundMe. The interesting thing with charity fraud as well is most victims don’t necessarily know that they’ve been a victim of charity fraud until law enforcement or an attorney general’s office actually realizes it and sues them. Because if I give $100 right now to ABC Cat Foundation, I’m not necessarily going to know that that was a fake charity until someone tells me.

Wes Moss [00:28:36]:

So what about the and again, same thing. People are not getting this money back. Most of the time the money doesn’t come back.

Amy Nofziger [00:28:45]:

Correct.

Wes Moss [00:28:47]:

And let’s just go back to I guess we’ll go specifically to these love scams. And I have not seen the documentary on this, but as we talked about this today here in the studio, a lot of people have this was something on TikTok or Tinder where someone was creating a relationship but actually saw them in person, right? Yeah. And what happened here?

Amy Nofziger [00:29:12]:

Yeah. So this know, we’ve heard other examples of it like Dirty John. And it is where somebody pretends to be catfishing. Yeah. More successful, more educated, more fluent. Meets people online, takes them on these crazy trips. You feel like they’re legitimate because they do have this money to spend. Then they create these stories about why they need your money then because, oh, my money is tied up at customs.

Amy Nofziger [00:29:46]:

And these situations are not usually the ones that we are dealing with on our helpline, right? We’re dealing with more the people who never meet, who are just corresponding via text messages, WhatsApp, video chat, whatever it is. But that doesn’t mean that this relationship isn’t as real to them as if you and I were sitting next to each other right now. Because they do create these hopes, these dreams, these fantasies. I’m going to marry you. They get you to start their children, quote children start calling you mom or dad. They do create this life that we want. People want to have connection with people. And then a crisis happens.

Amy Nofziger [00:30:33]:

The crisis is, I was robbed. The crisis is I have a health emergency. The crisis is X-Y-Z. All scams are hard, but these have a lot of emotional outputs that come with them. And it’s not just the finances. It’s the moss of the hope and the dream, the loss that you were pretty special there to someone for a while and who doesn’t want to feel special. And now you realize that this person was just a criminal and stealing from you the whole time. These are really hard emotionally.

Amy Nofziger [00:31:07]:

We have a support group actually for victims of all scams, but a lot of them primarily are romance scam victims because there’s just so much that is involved with these and the unraveling. It is really hard for victims.

Wes Moss [00:31:22]:

So it sounds like a lot of what you see in these billions and billions of dollars that happen every single year. It reported eight or 9 billion. So you could say it could be 100 billion a year. How often, though, are you dealing with somebody who has perpetrated a financial institution or changed a wired number from a brokerage firm or a bank? Is that part of your purview or is that harder for criminals to knock into?

Amy Nofziger [00:31:55]:

We really focus more on the person to person fraud, the consumer fraud. We do get phone calls from people who are like, I’m the admin assistant and this just happened. Or there’s a scam called like a can you do me a favor scam where you think you get an email from your boss that says, hey, I’m stuck in a meeting. Can you please run to the grocery store and buy some gift cards? I forgot to get the president’s a birthday present or something like that. And they’ll call us the business email compromise what you’re talking about with the wires and stuff. I would hope. Most companies do have fraud processes in place on how. To handle that once it’s realized whether that’s their own internal kind of fraud department or whether they directly report it to the FBI.

Amy Nofziger [00:32:46]:

Most of our people are I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know.

Wes Moss [00:32:53]:

They don’t know where to go.

Amy Nofziger [00:32:55]:

They don’t know where to go. A lot of people don’t know where to go and we can be that first person for you and we really do focus on the emotional side of it as well. We have about 200 fraud specialists that work on our team across the country that will work one on one with these victims. We are not filling in the piece of paper. We are listening. Wes are empathetic. We are telling them they’re not alone. We will focus on what they need to do next.

Amy Nofziger [00:33:25]:

But I really want these victims to be able to tell their story in a non judgment, in an empathetic way. And that’s why the helpline is one so successful. And we’re only successful because of our amazing volunteer fraud specialists that volunteer their time to work with these victims and give them the time whether that’s 60 minutes to 2 hours that they need to tell their story.

Wes Moss [00:33:48]:

So I want to think about prevention and then what’s next if it does happen. Let’s start with prevention here a I know that you talk about there are certain steps that we should all know or be taking in order to prevent this, that’s one and then I guess maybe along with that the clues that this is starting to happen to someone.

Amy Nofziger [00:34:11]:

I think easiest prevention tip is to first recognize that we can all be victims. I know that sounds very simple. It might not be what people want to hear but if you don’t think that you’ll ever be a victim of a fraud or a scam then you’re never going to pay attention to any article, any podcast, any tips. You’re going to be like well that only happens to people who aren’t smart or that only happens to women. We all have vulnerabilities and we all need to look into ourselves and say what’s our vulnerability? I talk about this when I go out in the public and for me it would be my children. So if I got that kidnapping scam right now or if I got a text from my kids saying hey mom, I’m in trouble I would sit up and everything would go out the window. We all need to know what our vulnerabilities were and then another one that again is not going to be very popular because it’s not a magic wand is we need to slow down. This is an interesting thing and we have our connection to the world with us.

Amy Nofziger [00:35:30]:

That is our phones. We also need to remember that yes, the device that we carry in our person pocket makes phone calls but it is more than a phone. It is a connection point to criminals. All over the world. So let’s almost stop calling it a phone and let’s call it something else. It’s a connection point, but we have it with us all the time. And if it dings and it rings, we are there and we are picking it up. Right?

Wes Moss [00:35:57]:

Yeah, we’re there.

Amy Nofziger [00:35:59]:

No, we need to slow down at any opportunity that is coming to us, take a breath, because the criminals will talk fast. They’ll act fast. They’ll want you to talk fast and act fast, and they want you to not think cognitively. They don’t want you to think, why would the IRS be calling me when they would send me a letter in the mail? They don’t want you to think that way. They don’t want you to think, why would little Johnny be calling me when he should be at college right now? They don’t want you thinking that. So we need to slow down. And then for me, because let’s just say there’s a hundred documented variations of scams that are out right now. I don’t even know the number, but that’s not what we need to be focusing on.

Amy Nofziger [00:36:47]:

What we need to be focusing on is what is the ask what is that person asking you right now? Whether it’s via text, email, Facebook, phone, I don’t care. What are they asking you? Are they asking you for a prepaid gift card? Are they asking you to go somewhere and deposit money? Are they asking you to send money via a non traditional way, like a venmo cash app or Zelle? Are they asking you for your Social Security number? Honestly, if I could get those four things eliminated, I could basically retire sooner. Right.

Wes Moss [00:37:28]:

Great work. Maybe the best way to utilize retire sooner of any guest ever. Right.

Amy Nofziger [00:37:35]:

There should be, like a little ding or something. Right? Yeah, it’s listen to what they’re asking. Whether it’s the Amazon imposter, the romance scam, the grandparents scam, a tech support I don’t core what scam it is. The criminals want the same thing.

Wes Moss [00:37:50]:

They want gift cards.

Amy Nofziger [00:37:51]:

Yep. They want Bitcoin, venmo cash, happy and sell. Yeah, they ask for cash. Trust me. They still ask for cash. They want your Social Security number or your Medicare number. So what are they asking for? And if one of those things that’s all. If I could just get you to remember that.

Wes Moss [00:38:11]:

Yeah. Isn’t it such, Amy, that 99.99% of the time, if somebody is asking you for money that’s not an actual family member? Well, an actual verified family member, then it is a absolutely. That’s it.

Amy Nofziger [00:38:30]:

That’s it. Done.

Wes Moss [00:38:31]:

And another kind of this is a little tactical, but a government agency like your example, the DEA or the IRS, they don’t ever call anyone and just say, hey, I need money now. Like, it doesn’t not happen. Correct. But people don’t quite know that. Right. I just read an article this week, 1600 New IRS Agents are Coming After millionaires on CNBC that’s a real thing. Okay, wait, am I going to get a text? Am I going to get a call? They’re going to audit somebody. So there is that sliver of well, maybe that’s a thing.

Wes Moss [00:39:06]:

How would you answer that question?

Amy Nofziger [00:39:08]:

Yeah. And the criminals will exploit that sliver. Criminals follow the headlines so they know when there’s some know government process that’s going to change to confuse people. But the IRS and the federal, state, local government will never accept prepaid gift cards or crypto for payment. Stop right there.

Wes Moss [00:39:33]:

That’s simple. Yep.

Amy Nofziger [00:39:34]:

Right? It’s that simple. And we have a pretty significant process of justice for people to be arrested in our country. They will not give you a heads up and call you and say, hey, heads up, I’m coming to arrest you today, but if you send me a Nordstrom’s gift card, it’ll be fine. Yeah, that’s not how the system works. But the criminals just put so much fear, and none of us want to be arrested, right. So they do put that fear of embarrassment and shame in front of us.

Wes Moss [00:40:11]:

Okay, so one, I know a fair amount of people over the last few years that have been victim to what you just talked about, similar stories, educated people, people that themselves would say, I would never be the person that would ever fall for that. So, one, understand that we all could be victims because we all have a fear point. To your point, all of us, if we’re parents, there’s a fear point, by the way, is it, one, two, slow down and think about what somebody’s actually asking for? Understand, your phone is a portal. And three, what is the ask? And if it’s a gift card, ATM or Bitcoin, crypto, Venmo Social Security number, it’s 99.9%. Just a scam, period.

Amy Nofziger [00:41:02]:

Absolutely. And even that 1%, you can still slow down and take a minute to figure it out. If it really is your doctor’s office calling you, asking for your Medicare number, they’re going to be fine with you hanging up the phone, doing some research, then calling your doctor’s office back at the phone number you have for them that’s a verified phone number, and saying, hey, did you guys just call me?

Wes Moss [00:41:26]:

All right. I like those three.

Amy Nofziger [00:41:28]:

I like those three.

Wes Moss [00:41:29]:

And again, part of this, though, you said it’s not just education, it’s not just law enforcement, but it’s a combination of all these.

Amy Nofziger [00:41:36]:

It’s the combination of all of these, and it’s also the combination of the middle person. And the middle person, to me, in a lot of these situations is how we have made access to the funds so simple and easy. I can’t go into a craft store and buy spray paint without an 18 year old manager unlocking it for me because we’ve put some barriers and restrictions for the health and safety of our communities. But yet I can go in and buy $5,000 worth of prepaid gift cards or $80,000 in crypto. So we need to look at where the money is being taken from in those entry points and really put some protection methods in place.

Wes Moss [00:42:27]:

Let’s talk about as we start to address this with our parents, and I really think you’ve kind of shed light on this is not just about people who are aging. It’s all of us because we all have a weak point or a pain point. We can all be scared about something. But I think about protecting my parents. I protecting our parents and our grandparents because so much of this is it’s a false relationship that leads to so much of this. How do we talk to our parents about that? Do we ever figure out, hey, I think this is mom or dad? Look, this guy’s not legit. You’re getting scammed here. But, oh, he hasn’t done anything yet.

Wes Moss [00:43:09]:

How do you recommend talking to people? Or is it just a blunt conversation?

Amy Nofziger [00:43:15]:

So I recommend to start it now if you haven’t already. It’s a very similar conversation that I would have with my teens about peer pressure, drugs, alcohol, whatever. Start the conversation as soon as you can to keep those lines of communication open and to establish that this is going to be part of our family norm, to share information about what’s going on in the world. So you’re at your parents house, hey, mom and dad, I heard this great podcast about scams and fraud. Or I just read this great ARP article about the grandparents scam. What would you do? I think actually role play it. What would you do if someone called you and said that they know Johnny saying they needed money? What would you do? It’s not enough to say, don’t do this. You have to almost put them in this situation.

Amy Nofziger [00:44:15]:

And there are studies out there about if you are forewarned with a refusal script on getting out of a situation that you’re not comfortable with, you are more apt to get out of that situation. Right? It’s like when I know someone’s going to come up and ask me to volunteer to be classroom mom, it’s like I got it in my head, no, I’m sorry, I’m just too busy right now. I don’t think I’m the best person for that role. You have it, you’ve practiced it. But say like, hey, let’s have a conversation about this, or even tell them your vulnerabilities. Don’t put it in a paternalistic like, you’re old, so you don’t know better. Say, I got this call the other day and it really caught me off guard. Mom like, what would you do if you got that phone call? That is a great place to start.

Amy Nofziger [00:45:07]:

Also for some of and I have a mother. I’m sure she’s listening right now, but some days she forgets what I do for a living because she’ll say, I got this email from my friend who’s overseas and he asks for gift cards. And so I wrote that like, oh my God. So we all have that mother, but you have to find the best strategy that works with your loved one. So for me, it would be like, hey, mom, heads up. There’s this really popular scam right now. When you go to your next cooking class, can you tell everybody about it? Let her be the horn to her friends, right? So let your parents say, mom, I heard this about the Amazon apostrophe scam. Next time you go to your Bible study, can you make sure to tell them about it? So put her in the role of.

Wes Moss [00:45:57]:

The knower, the advocate.

Amy Nofziger [00:45:59]:

The advocate. Because then that especially for folks who do maybe the ego sounds like a bad kind know, negative word here, but that do have that this will never happen to me. But by telling them to be the spreader of the news to the others that it might happen to, they’re still getting that knowledge and that information.

Wes Moss [00:46:21]:

I think in a digitally frictionless financial world where there’s now so many easy ways to send money, transfer money, it’s almost as though the reversion to it would be really nice for everyone to know their banker, if there’s such a thing, right? I don’t know how it’s hard to find a banker because you can walk into a bank and you don’t still really have a banker. Your financial institution, your financial advisor, that is a real live person that needs to take direction from you and not somebody else. And I think there are a lot of protections there. The question I would have, and maybe we haven’t started to see this yet, I’m asking you, and in the future, could this happen? But have you seen anything with voice cloning yet? I know I’ve seen that CNBC Brian Sullivan has a show on at night and he cloned himself and it was like, oh my God, it sounds exactly like him talking to himself. We haven’t started to see that yet, have we?

Amy Nofziger [00:47:27]:

So this is very again, follow the headlines. This is a very popular topic right now for me, for the folks that we have heard on The Helpline. We are not seeing that, and here’s why. I think that the scammers are doing a pretty good job without it. They are successful without it. A criminal does not need to clone my son’s voice to call my mom and try to victimize her in the grandparents scam. They can do it without it, and they’ve been doing it for years. The only place where I might say that I think we’re seeing it and it might trend up.

Amy Nofziger [00:48:06]:

So scammers put ear muffs on. So don’t take any ideas. Is the celebrity impostor scams? During COVID a lot of celebrities were really connecting more on social media with their fans because they couldn’t get to the concerts, they couldn’t put on their performances. So they were doing little shows and connecting, and we want to feel connected with our famous celebrity crushes. So the scammers are taking that to their advantage, and they’re reaching out to fans on the Facebook social media pages saying, hey, I’m so and so. You know, I’m ready for a simple life. I’ve seen you follow my page. Let’s start a relationship.

Amy Nofziger [00:48:44]:

Because celebrities are so available online, and somebody could clone their, you know, a video if a victim starts to have doubt saying, I don’t think you know Taylor Swift, I don’t think you are Carrie Underwood, they could, I think, do a deep fake video to try to then manipulate the victim further.

Wes Moss [00:49:09]:

Yeah, okay. I really thought Taylor Swift was DMing me.

Amy Nofziger [00:49:15]:

She wasn’t. She’s a little busy right now, but.

Wes Moss [00:49:20]:

It may be George Clooney. George Clooney reached out to me right now.

Amy Nofziger [00:49:27]:

I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of people that are being personally invited to invest in crypto from Musk.

Wes Moss [00:49:33]:

Ah, okay.

Amy Nofziger [00:49:34]:

He is a very popular imposter right now.

Wes Moss [00:49:37]:

Yeah, I believe it. Yeah. Well, he’s on X all the time.

Amy Nofziger [00:49:41]:

Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:49:43]:

Okay. This is so informative. Amy, what about in your wallet walking around? What is safe to be in our wallet?

Amy Nofziger [00:49:58]:

Thank you for asking this question. I love how we go from AI and deepfakes to the simplest thing about our wallet. Right. Let’s just get back to the basics, friends. We actually just recently did a huge article on this in the ARP Bulletin because we were getting so many calls on the helpline regarding people losing their wallets, losing or being stolen. And I’m sitting here thinking, we’re just focusing on all these huge kind of scams when we got to get back to the basics. So driver’s license, maybe one credit card, maybe your health insurance card. And I can fight some people on that one and a couple of bucks of cash.

Amy Nofziger [00:50:37]:

Stop. I want everyone to pull their wallet out right now. Right now. Pull your wallet out. If you have your birth certificate or your Social Security card in there, take it out. Take it out now. If you have your Medicare card, I want you to think about your Medicare card and your wallet. Do you need it every day? No.

Amy Nofziger [00:50:57]:

Most days you don’t even need it when you’re going to the doctor because they already have it, and they can verify you by your ID. Medicare cards are big business right now. There are so many criminals who are stealing Medicare numbers to charge whether it’s DNA swab kits, COVID tests, back braces, urinary, catheters, whatever it is on your Medicare number. So think about that. I actually said this to my husband the other day. Why do you have your house key in the wallet? You are going to drive me crazy. Because he has a car that just you need a card for or his phone. And I wes like, don’t carry that in there.

Amy Nofziger [00:51:34]:

Because if you lose your wallet, your ID. Is in there with your address, and now you have a house key. So why don’t we just open up the doors and let criminals come and steal everything from our house? So be really thoughtful about it. And one other thing I’ll say about your wallet if you lose your wallet and you have a credit card in there and you need to contact your credit card company, do you have that phone number and that account memorized? No. So I recommend that people actually get a copy of their credit cards front and back and put it in a safe spot. Because when you’re under ether and you’re under pressure and you’re feeling anxious, and you go to your device, your phone, and you do a search for I’m just making this up, ABC credit card company. And you pick the first number.

Wes Moss [00:52:24]:

Oh, it could be a scammer.

Amy Nofziger [00:52:25]:

Thank you.

Wes Moss [00:52:26]:

Wow.

Amy Nofziger [00:52:26]:

Then you’re almost revictimizing yourself.

Wes Moss [00:52:29]:

How about having a photo of a asks it has a wallet and it wants a card, right. And people have photos of their license on their iPhone. I guess that’s just one more portal for someone to get to find.

Amy Nofziger [00:52:46]:

It is one more portal to find. Let me say this. If you lose your phone, you better have a biometric or a hard password on your phone. There are still a significant amount of people that do not have a passcode on their device. They disable that. You think about what you have on that device, and again, we call it a phone, but it’s a device. It’s basically a computer you hear in your pocket. One of the scams we’re seeing right now is you’re out in the community and someone says, hey, I’m so sorry I lost my phone.

Amy Nofziger [00:53:19]:

Can I borrow your phone to call my mom and come pick me up? You unlock your code and you have your Venmo Cash app or Zelle app open and not shut down. Under password protection, the person pretends to be calling their mother and is opening up your Venmo and sending them money. This happiest all the time. All the time. And I try to be a nice person. So I actually had someone me the other day, I need to call my mom. I said, okay, I’ll dial the number and hold the phone, and you can talk to them on speakerphone.

Wes Moss [00:53:51]:

And they walked away.

Amy Nofziger [00:53:52]:

No, they actually did it. So I’m like, good. I’m glad I did.

Wes Moss [00:53:55]:

Oh, so they actually did need to.

Amy Nofziger [00:53:56]:

Call their they actually did.

Wes Moss [00:53:57]:

Amy goes, you’re talking to the wrong woman.

Amy Nofziger [00:54:00]:

I know. Do you know what I do for a so? But again, make sure you have your apps closed. Don’t have Venmo just opened up on your device, because if anyone gets there, they can instantly transfer the money.

Wes Moss [00:54:13]:

Checks and social media. I want to ask you about checks, and then I just think about social media. You mentioned somebody saying, hey, I want you to be a mentor. I was just thinking back. I’ve gotten that a lot on LinkedIn, and I just always ignore all of those. I almost feel like you can’t even use I personally look at social media as just I don’t know if I can even use it and feel confident in any of like, think about LinkedIn. We get invites all the time. Everybody gets invites all the time.

Wes Moss [00:54:45]:

It used to be that you could tangentially know somebody on LinkedIn, and you’re like, oh, they’re in Atlanta, and they work for I’ve heard of this firm. Sure. And then now I get requests from even our new employees of my company. I’m like, oh, could be a scam. I don’t trust anything anymore on these things. So should we just stop all social media?

Amy Nofziger [00:55:11]:

So I use social media, in my opinion, for entertainment. I think of it now as, like, when I TV well, or, like, when I was a teenager and I used to go buy my Tiger Beat magazine, right? I would look through my Tiger Beat, right?

Wes Moss [00:55:31]:

Tiger Beat. Hold on.

Amy Nofziger [00:55:32]:

You don’t remember Tiger Beat? Like, with Chad Allen and Ricky Schroeder on the COVID.

Wes Moss [00:55:38]:

Okay. Ricky Schroeder.

Amy Nofziger [00:55:39]:

Yeah, like a gossip magazine, right? Use it as entertainment, but just know that everything out there can be and most likely is fake. So I use this example with people sometimes who say, well, I got a friend request. I didn’t know them. And I say, So, of the billions of people, they only needed you, do you not think that there’s something in it for them? Or, they asked me to be an unsolicited person, asked me to be a mentor. Okay, take that situation and go downtown in what city you are and pretend that situation is happening face to face. So I’m downtown, and someone runs up to me and says, oh, my gosh, I am such a huge fan of yours. Will you please mentor me? You’re like what? No. You’re crazy.

Amy Nofziger [00:56:28]:

But for some reason, with technology, we give it more truth. We give it more truth. We give it more value. There should not be any value to that at all. Social media, lock down your pages hard. Lock them down. Don’t let them be public. Don’t let anyone go on your social media page.

Amy Nofziger [00:56:49]:

Any friend request that you get, if you don’t know them, they are not your friend. You do not need more friends. Any celebrity that’s reaching out to you on DMs, that’s sliding into your DMs or coming in on LinkedIn, it is not the celebrity. Anytime I’m talking to a celebrity, I was like, Will you please tell people, your fans, that you don’t need their money and you don’t need a cell phone? Because they don’t that is not how it works.

Wes Moss [00:57:19]:

By the way, I’ve had the Retire Sooner page, or it’s the Wes Moss Money Matters, whatever on maybe it’s been instagram. I can’t remember which one. But it has been cloned like 30 times. And I have people that will email. I’ll have real life people text me and say, hey, I think you just asked me to do something. But it’s like one letter off. It’s not like money matters. It’s like money with a zero.

Wes Moss [00:57:47]:

But it’s my exact so my message to retire sooner, folks, I will never reach out to anyone on social media, ever.

Amy Nofziger [00:57:57]:

Yeah, you won’t.

Wes Moss [00:57:59]:

And then what about checks? This is old school. People still sometimes use the what to watch for on checks.

Amy Nofziger [00:58:06]:

Back to the basics again. We had a huge influx of check washing.

Wes Moss [00:58:12]:

What does washing mean? What’s that?

Amy Nofziger [00:58:14]:

So you, you write a check like you’re writing a check to your mortgage, to the IRS, whatever, you put it in the mail. A criminal steals that check and with a little tiny, simple chemical compound, they can take like a QTIP and basically erase what you wrote on that check and then rewrite it to somebody else. Okay, this has been a huge problem. So for that, what I tell people is certainly think about do you need to write a check or can you do some kind of online bill pay that is encrypted? If you are writing a check, do not put it in your outgoing mailbox. If you are writing a check, don’t even put it in one of the big blue mailboxes. Those are getting stolen. They’re actually robbing postal workers right now for the master key on those. Take it directly into the post office and if you see anything suspicious, contact your bank immediately.

Wes Moss [00:59:11]:

And if you write a check, write it in what, magic Marker or flow ink versus like a ballpoint pen, a gel ink.

Amy Nofziger [00:59:17]:

So gel ink adheres to the fibers in the check, and it doesn’t mean it can’t be washed, but it will definitely look more suspicious. Gel. Yeah, most pens are gel. They’re a little bit more liquidy. And so when you write it in, it actually adheres to the fiber versus.

Wes Moss [00:59:33]:

Like an old school ballpoint pen. Those can get washed.

Amy Nofziger [00:59:37]:

Okay. Correct.

Wes Moss [00:59:38]:

Wow. I’m getting off social media completely. Okay, I guess I can’t say that I can’t do that, but I will not reach out.

Amy Nofziger [00:59:46]:

You’re just going to go eyes wide open.

Wes Moss [00:59:49]:

So you’ve talked about one last thing, I think about phones, and it really needs to be a complicated password or Face ID. You’ve got to have that on. There dual authentication on any bank accounts, of course. And we didn’t talk a ton about that because I think your financial to your point, you talk about a lot of these relationship the relational scams. You’ve got to be my message to listeners as well is to have a relationship with your financial institution because there’s a lot of protections. If you’ve got money at a big firm, they are responsible in most cases, unless you’re sending money to the wrong person. Most of the big financial institutions. If something just fully nefarious happens to an account there, you are protected in large.

Wes Moss [01:00:45]:

So the only place that I see people not being protected is if they’re doing something with their account and they’re not interfacing with a live person and they get scammed into something relationally. Right. If you have a Vanguard account and you send money to somebody overseas because they asked you to, vanguard’s not going to cover that as an example.

Amy Nofziger [01:01:07]:

Yeah, but to your point about the relation with your banker, people can put trusted contacts on their account. So if the banker does have some suspicion that you’re being victimized, they can reach out to your trusted contact and say, do you know why your mom is pulling out $20,000? A lot of us, we feel like we’re so protected, we’re so smart. This will never happen to me. We don’t say to our banker, hey, listen, it’s okay if you question me. If I come in here one time and say, I want $50,000 when I’ve never asked for $50,000. It’s okay if you take a second and ask me some questions about this withdrawal. It is a hard place. And it’s the same thing with the bank tellers.

Amy Nofziger [01:01:56]:

There’s a hierarchy. There’s a power dynamic. We’re asking a bank teller to ask questions of an 85 year old person who’s been a bank customer there for 50 years on why the heck are you pulling out this amount of money? I don’t think you’re, you know, so have that conversation and say it’s okay to pull in a manager or somebody else if you think I’m being victimized, because remember, we all need to remember that it can and most likely probably will happen to us at some point in our lives.

Wes Moss [01:02:27]:

Phones and emails. One last thing. How do we answer our phones? And should we just never answer? Should we get rid of social media and email?

Amy Nofziger [01:02:36]:

No, I think email is actually one of the easiest things. Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, and delete. We do go through emails quickly, but never call any phone number that’s in an email that you haven’t triple verified and triple checked with your phone. There actually is a lot of technology in your phone to help protect you. So you can go into your phone, into settings, under Phone Settings, and it can say Silence unknown Callers. So that means that anybody that is not in your contacts list will go directly to voicemail. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to get their call. It’s just going to go directly to voicemail and not ring.

Amy Nofziger [01:03:16]:

That is huge for people who, again, are just sitting there. Their phone rings. It is just like automatic. We just pick it up and we answer the phone, let it go to voicemail. You be in control of it. Listen to the message. Listen to what they’re asking. Be out of that ether, be out of their control.

Amy Nofziger [01:03:34]:

And then you can. Delete it but we need to take back control of our devices.

Wes Moss [01:03:41]:

Once you realize that money’s been taken from you erroneously, are you guys at ARP saying here are the three law enforcement agencies I should call, you should call? What is the protocol once this has happened?

Amy Nofziger [01:03:56]:

Yeah. So obviously it depends for whatever scam it is that’s happening. Oftentimes it is a law enforcement referral that we need to encourage them to do. Whether it’s reporting to IC three gov which is the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, their local police department, secret service whomever it is oftentimes though it’s a solution that they can take on for themselves. Whether that’s getting a copy of their credit report to see if they’ve been a victim of identity theft and then placing a fraud alert on their credit report, calling their financial institution, setting up new barriers, new boundaries. Again we will cover all of that with anyone that calls us. But most importantly what I think we add to that is that non judgment and that empathetic listening. Just for example, I had a gentleman the other day that was a victim of and I believe it was an email imposter scam and he’s like, I know you haven’t heard of this and I kind of want to say, well yes, you’re my 100th one today that’s come into our queue.

Amy Nofziger [01:05:04]:

But it’s encouraging him to say thank you for reporting this to us, thank you for spotting the red flags because we know that then he’s going to hopefully in turn warn others about it and encourage people to report. Because if you go back this is such an unreported crime because of embarrassment and shame and lack of where to go for help.

Wes Moss [01:05:31]:

Okay so that was my next question. If you don’t talk to somebody at ARP on the Fraud Watch Network, is there a particular place that people should go? I didn’t know that you could contact Secret Service. I’ve never heard of IC three gov.

Amy Nofziger [01:05:48]:

What’s a good spot to start, obviously start with us. But again that’s why we are here is to help you, try to guide you. If it’s know maybe it’s the securities and Exchange Commission, maybe it’s your state’s Attorney General’s office, maybe it’s your State’s Division of securities, maybe it’s the Federal Trade Commission, maybe it’s the CFTC. There are so many places.

Wes Moss [01:06:12]:

That’s why you need some guidance. That’s why you’re guiding this.

Amy Nofziger [01:06:15]:

Because we know if people are overwhelmed with options they’re not going to even take the first step. So if we can get them to at least make one phone call and whether that’s to us or whoever and they can have their options of the most important thing for you to do today is X. If we can just get them to do X then I feel more secure that that person’s journey emotionally and financially and for the future with their fraud journey is going to be more set and stable than if they’re so overwhelmed they don’t do even one step.

Wes Moss [01:06:49]:

I’m going to leave it there. It’s such an interesting topic because it applies to everyone now more than ever. Some of it is somewhat interesting, the fact that until I had really been getting ready to talk to you, I had not even heard of the TikTok or what are they called again?

Amy Nofziger [01:07:09]:

Tindler swindler.

Wes Moss [01:07:10]:

Tinder swindler. But the fact that there’s so much of this happening on a relationship basis, I think is really important for the Retiree Sooner listeners to know. So it’s fascinating and scary all at the same time, but I think today’s been educational. I actually feel better about good our future in protecting ourselves and our listeners, protecting themselves and their family and their parents and their grandparents from this. So I think you’re good. It’s no coincidence. You’ve been doing this for almost 20 years, Amy.

Amy Nofziger [01:07:44]:

Yes, I know. Can you believe that? And just remember, I want your listeners to know that there are resources. I mean, anybody of any age, you don’t have to be an ARP member, can call our helpline. If you ever think something’s a scam, you want to check on it, you have any questions, then call the helpline. They can go on the website aarp.org slash fraudwatchnetwork free resources. Anyone can do it.

Wes Moss [01:08:05]:

Love it. Amy, you’re a pro. Thank you so much. You are very generous with over an hour of your time.

Amy Nofziger [01:08:11]:

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Mallory Boggs [01:08:13]:

Hey, y’all, this is Mallory with the Retire Sooner team. Please be sure to rate and subscribe to this podcast and share it with a friend. If you have any questions, you can find us@wesmoss.com. That’s wesmoss.com. You can also follow us on Instagram and YouTube. You’ll find us under the handle Retire Sooner podcast. And now for our show’s. Disclosure this information is provided to you as a resource for informational purposes only and is not to be viewed as investment advice or recommendations.

Mallory Boggs [01:08:41]:

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Mallory Boggs [01:09:29]:

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