(upbeat music) - Is there anything happening right now that you know about 'cause you're in the industry that maybe other people will hear about over the next few years, but would be good to know now? - Well, let's go through some of the scams that exist and sort of match them to what's going on.

First of all, there are healthcare scams that have been going on for forever, but in particular, COVID was a petri dish for them and now monkey pox is becoming a problem as well. And that could be anything from updates, to tracking, to notifications, to here's where you get your vaccine, here's where you schedule your test, these kinds of things.

So you have to be on the lookout for this. Again, as you said, run your cursor over the email address to make sure that where it's coming from looks legitimate. And even then, wherever it's coming from, even if it's a phone calls from someone saying they're from the health department, thank them, hang up, independently confirm the right number for your county health department or your state health department, or even the CDC, if you think you're getting a call from the CDC, which I really haven't heard of too many calls coming from the CDC.

But, and then call the real number and speak to somebody and confirm whatever that information that they're providing you. And remember, in most of these cases, they are never supposed to ask you what your social security number is or getting credit card information from you. You know, you can't pay to get to the head of the line with these.

If it's a legitimate government situation and it's involving healthcare, there is a protocol to use. And in no protocol that I know of and have ever known of, are you paying something in advance in order to advance your prospects with that? So you have health, job scams all the time, especially during the great resignation and now with inflation and now with the concerns about whether or not there's going to be a recession.

You know, people may be looking for additional jobs. There, go to legitimate, well-vetted websites and make sure that you're communicating with the right organization. If someone asks you to provide your social security number right off the bat, that's not legitimate. Don't walk, run. - So this could be a job board.

You see a job you're interested in. You're like, ooh, this company's interesting. Maybe I should apply for it. It could just be a totally a fake company that's leading you down a path of interviewing for a job with the purpose of just collecting information about you. Is that- - Absolutely.

Or getting financial information by way of, you know, giving you, giving them your credit card information. Let's say it's a secret shopper job and they say, well, you know, to get you started, you know, we're going to be laying out some money, but we'd like you to sort of reimburse us for this.

So be careful. You don't want to get involved in anything like that unless you can confirm the legitimacy of it. So always independently confirm. Also confirm that that particular company is actually looking to hire people, which you can go by going to the real website of the organization and then calling the HR department of the company and asking them if they're conducting interviews.

But you have to be very careful about job scams. There was a scam that was going around for a while, disappeared, came back again, the jury commission scam. That's where you get a phone call. Someone represents themselves to be from the jury commission. They're polling, quote, eligible jurors in the district.

And if you would be so kind as to provide them with your social security number, they'll be able to let you know whether or not you're eligible or not for the jury poll. There have been scams where police departments were supposedly calling people and asking them for specific information.

Generally, police departments just don't call people out of the blue, or if they do, it's a legitimate detective. They may be asking you questions, but they're not going to be asking for your social security number or your date of birth or things like that. So unemployment scams, of course, have been a disaster during COVID.

I mean, billions upon billions of dollars have been stolen. My own sister-in-law, who was on one of our episodes, was talking about the fact that she was legitimately notified by her home state of Colorado and by the state of Ohio that somebody using her information had applied for unemployment benefits.

In one case, she found out simply because she received a debit card in the mail from the unemployment agency, which she said, "I'm not looking for a job. I'm fine. I'm not out of work." We've had cases where people found out because someone in their company walked up to their desk in the days when people were actually at their desk and said, "By the way, why did you apply for unemployment?

You still have a job here." So, you know, that was going on. You have the tech scams. That's when you get a phone call from someone representing themselves to be from Apple or Microsoft saying that they've noticed that there's a problem with your computer. They are going to direct you to a site where you can download certain software, which will enable them to then come into your computer and check it out and solve whatever the problem is.

Apple and Microsoft, they don't do that, but scammers certainly do that. So, you know, be on the lookout for tech scams. Then, of course, in the line of work that you've been talking about too, which is vacations and points and all of that, there have been theft of frequent fire miles.

There have been all kinds of vacation scams, all kinds of rental scams that people have to be on the lookout for, which we can go into further depth if you'd like to do that. And then there's catfishing, which is huge. And it just, you know, whatever the theme may be, it's still a catfish.

And what people are trying to do is they're trying to tug on your heartstrings and get you to believe that they care about you. And the whole goal is to get into your life as quickly as possible and as authentically as possible, but yet you never really get to see them.

You never get to really hear them. You may just be communicating with them by text or by email. And then at some point relatively quickly into this relationship, you're suddenly asked for a lot of personal information, or they send you a compromising picture and ask you to reciprocate. And what you don't realize, that's not their picture, but unfortunately that's your picture you just sent to them.

And suddenly you can become a victim of extortion and blackmail. Or they ask you to provide credit card information so that you can help them get a plane ticket to come visit you. Or we've had cases, we had a woman on our show talking about the fact that she met someone online who even had a terrific LinkedIn profile as a very successful medical professional who had decided to dedicate part of his life to go to the Mideast and then open a clinic there.

And somewhere in the first couple of weeks that they were getting to know each other, he said, you know, our equipment has come in. It's held up by customs at the airport. If there's any way that you could help me by sending me 30,000 so I can get the equipment out, that would be great.

Of course, she didn't do it. She wouldn't fall for it. But unfortunately, a lot of people do. I mean, we've seen cases where someone was taken to the tune of $2 million by someone who convinced them that he loved him. And the only way that they found out there was something wrong, which they should have known from the beginning, but was that a financial advisor notified members of their family and said, "Something's going on with your mom.

She's taking a lot of money out and sending it overseas. You really need to look into this." And even after confronted with the reality of her situation, she said, "Okay, I understand it's a fraud, but in my heart, I still love him." I mean, this is how deeply they ingrain themselves into your life.

And then another scam, and I won't go on forever, but another scam are charity scams. And this is where they'll take the issue of the day, whether it's the Ukraine, it's a natural disaster, it's a crisis somewhere in the world, it's children, any one of those topics, whatever is in the news, they will use it, they will convince you that they are the newest, best, most successful, most respected organization in the space.

And could you please give them credit card information or send money to this? And it's not real, it's a fraud. That's really interesting. So I've been a little familiar with some, not all the others. When it comes to the frequent flyer miles thing, if you Google my name, there's some articles about having a lot of points and miles.

And so I have been a victim of, I guess, theft of points, I guess, which we talked about maybe coming on your show. And if that happens, definitely go check it out. I'll tell the full story. - Absolutely. - But in short, it led me to, that's what set me down a path of really locking down all these accounts, because someone was able to call Chase and get Chase to let them order things with points on the internet.

The craziest thing, and I have still today don't understand it, was they ordered an Apple laptop using my points, but they shipped it to my house. Now, maybe the plan was to come to my house and kind of pick it up, but they never did. And I just, an Apple laptop showed up.

So it was like the strangest fraud because Chase refunded the points. And now I had a laptop. I asked Chase what they wanted me to do with it. And they said, "Try to take it to the Apple store." The Apple store didn't want it. So eventually Chase said, "The best thing we can tell you is to keep it or donate it.

We don't know what to do." Which ended up being a happy story for me, but it was probably payback for the hours of time to mitigate it.