If you experience any high pressure tactics or urgency that someone needs you to make a financial decision fast, take a pause and realize that you might be talking to a scammer. Today’s guest is Professor Marti DeLiema. Marti is an Assistant Professor and Gerontologist at the University of Minnesota. Her work focuses on identifying the extent and cost of financial fraud in the US as well as factors related to financial victimization of the aging.
Scamming is a multi-billion dollar industry that is creative and evolving. The National Consumer Protection Week is geared toward education and the National Slam the Scam Day focuses specifically on government imposter scams. Today’s guest is Anthony “AJ” Monaco. AJ currently serves as a special agent in charge of the major case unit at the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General. His unit investigates complex fraud cases with a particular emphasis on Social Security Administration imposter scams and organized fraud rings. AJ has over 30 years of combined federal law enforcement, Marine officer, and legal experience.
Today’s guest is Abigail Bishop. Abigail is the Head of External Relations for Scam Prevention at Amazon, where she leads the organization’s outreach work to protect customers from falling victim to scams globally.
Scammers are brilliant at targeting the vulnerable and then often using the fear of exposure to extort even more out of them. Education about these manipulators isn’t enough. Can we do more to make a global impact knowing that less than 0.1% of scammers are ever prosecuted?
Today’s guest is Jorij Abraham. Jorij Abraham is the Managing Director of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance with a mission of preventing consumers worldwide from getting scammed. He is also the General Manager at ScamAdvisor.com, the global blacklist for malicious websites. In addition, Jorij is an ecommerce professor at University of Applied Sciences TIO.
Advertisements can manipulate us and depict a product that doesn’t actually work. The challenge is knowing if the technology does what they say it does. Today’s guest is Ken from Computer Clan. Ken, or commonly known as Crazy Ken, has been running the Computer Clan YouTube channel since September of 2007. He posts tech videos about rare and retro tech, new tech, and even has a series about scammy tech products. Whether you are a tech whiz or a beginner, it doesn’t matter. Ken will bring the knowledge, science, entertainment, and even debunk a few scams along the way.
In 2020 and 2021, the scam that impacted the largest number of people was done through online purchases. Either you or someone you know may very well have been scammed. Today’s guest is Melissa Trumpower. Melissa Trumpower is the Executive Director of the BBB Institute for Marketplace Trust, the Educational Foundation of the Better Business Bureau. Melissa is the co-author of several research reports, including the BBB Scam Tracker Risk Report, the BBB Online Purchase and Employment and Small Business Scam Reports. She has more than 30 years of leadership experience working with not-for-profit, has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a master’s from John Hopkins University.
Today’s guest is Steve Weisman. Steve is a nationally recognized expert in scams and identity theft as well as a lawyer, college professor, and prolific author. His informative speeches, articles, and books make difficult subjects not only understandable, but enjoyable with the humor he brings to these complex issues. Steve is passionate about educating people through his website Scamicide.com.
Jake Moore is a cybersecurity specialist for ESET, Europe’s number one internet security and anti-virus company. In 2016, he was asked to implement cybersecurity advisers in order to make local communities more aware of ever-increasing cybersecurity threats. Jake shares many experiences working in digital forensics and cybersecurity. We also discuss simple things you can do to keep cybercriminals away and social media accounts safe.
Under the right circumstances, pretty much anyone can become easy prey for a scam. Worse yet, if that happens, you could lose plenty of money before you know what happened.
Every year, millions of people lose billions of dollars to fraud and scams. And the con artists won’t be going anywhere soon. New scams are created every day.