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[music] -Scammers are getting smarter, but so are consumers.

Hello, I'm Julie Cooke.

On this edition of Tennessee is Talking, the Better Business Bureau is here to talk about how to stay safe online from social media fraud to imposter schemes.

We'll give you the tools to protect yourself and your family.

Let the conversation begin.

[music] -West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee is Talking.

Let the conversation begin.

-Thanks for joining the discussion here on Tennessee is Talking.

Hello, I'm Julie Cooke.

In today's world, a few wrong clicks can put your identity or your money at risk.

That's why the work of the Better Business Bureau is more important than ever.

Joining us is Todd Trice, Communication Specialist for the BBB of the Mid-South.

Welcome to you, Todd.

I have to tell the truth.

I was expecting a gentleman.

-Oh, yes.

-[laughs] Oh, I wonder what-- Your name is Todd- --netta.

-Toddnetta?

-Yes.

I go by the boy named Todd for short.

-Go by Todd.

-Yes.

-It's great to have you here.

There's so much to talk about.

-Thank you for having me.

-I know that there are trends in the scams.

What are some of the things that you're seeing right now?

-Right now, our most popular scams will definitely have to be online purchases, phishing, and, believe it or not, romance scams are super popular, as well as employment scams.

Of course, like the crisis that we are in now, with everything is high, and a lot of people are looking for work or additional jobs.

Employment scams are super high right now.

-What are some of those?

-Employment scams are, really, it can be as simple as you're online and you're looking for jobs.

Of course, you never keep a track if you are one of those persons that are constantly filling out application, you're not keeping track.

You might get a random call and say, "Hey, thank you for applying for X, Y, and Z position."

Of course, since you've been in the process of applying, you really don't grasp what that job was or what the company name is.

You go ahead and set up that interview, and then you realize, "Hey, this person never want to meet me in person."

They just want to do everything via text message or over Zoom, and you never see anyone's face.

They'll also ask you to go ahead and download a third-party app like WhatsApp.

Those pretty much are the telltale signs that that is going.. into that employment scam.

-I heard of one that was for a nanny, and it was paying great money.

They said, "If you will go and buy, furnish the house with groceries, and then we'll pay you back like three times that when this family arrives in town."

Have you ever heard of anything like that?

-We haven't, but it's been something that's close to it.

Very close to it.

We know with scammers, they try to use other scams and implement that into a newer scam.

A lot of times, it's more so of the call centers.

Of course, we're dealing with people that want to work from home.

They miss working from home from the pandemic.

They're looking for these work-from-home jobs.

That's how they wheel them in, like, hey, promise of working from home.

We've had a actual victim that spent five days straight in training where all they did was supposedly recorded their voices.

It was supposed to be a customer service role for airlines.

In regards to that, they would sell airline tickets at a deeply discounted discount.

In the middle of training, all that he remembers is that they were doing a voice recordings for hours, eight hours a day.

At the end of training, they pretty much told them, "Thank you for your time, but we don't have any availability for you to get on the phones, but we appreciate what you did there."

He reported to us, "Hey, I did all of this training with them.

They recorded my voice.

Hours of recording my voice.

I didn't get paid.

I pretty much was told like, hey, there's no job fo.. and I was never reached out to again."

As well as the fact that when he did the interview process, he never actually seen a physical person.

It was all through text message, and he also did-- -That should be a red flag right there.

-Yes.

It was all through WhatsApp.

-Even if you do go and meet a person.

They were recording these voices to use, to scam people, which is not- -We think it's another form of AI.

--traceable type of thing.

AI is that playing into- -Yes, artificial intelligence?

--a lot of these scams.

-Oh, yes.

Most recently, deepfakes are something that is super popular right now.

The fact that people can-- if he was given that many hours of his voice recording, let's say if he's on social media and he's one of those guys that like to take a video of himself.

Once the scammer realized, "Hey, I have a video of this guy.

I have hours of recording.

I can utilize this to my greatest advantage.

Meaning I can set up fake profiles claiming that I'm him.

I can act like I'm actually him.

I can do identity theft."

Things of that nature, "Because when you did sign up for this job, you gave me your Social Security number.

You gave me your birthday.

You gave me your address.

I have all your voice recordings.

I know what you look like.

We have apps websites now where I can upload all of that.

I can get you to say a sentence that you probably never said before.

Because I have all your information, I have all of your photos, your videos, and what you sound like.

I can create pretty much you virtually."

-That's so scary.

-It's scary.

-You said something right then.

That's the biggest red flag to me to asking for my Social Security number online or on the phone.

No, ma'am.

-Never.

Then if you do feel-- a lot of times you will get those legitimate calls where people are like, "Let me confirm."

Typically, when you are confirming, they either ask for that four-digit, never really that full Social Security number.

-Those last four.

-Yes.

Sometimes legitimate calls will ask you to verify using your last four digits of your Social Security.

-It still makes me nervous.

-It does make you nervous, and you should, especially the day and age that we're living in and scammers are, like I said, they are skillful.

We have a job we go to every day, and we become pr.. that's what scammers do.

They become professionals in their job.

-It's how they make a li.. -Yes.

-Phishing, it's not like, rod and reel.

-No.

-P-H-I-S-H-I-- Explain that.

-The most common phishing tactics will be those random text messages that you get.

The most popular right now will be the unpaid toll.

You might've got a text message.

-That one is [crosstalk] -"We're going to arrest you.

This is your final notice.

If you don't pay us this money--" That is a phishing tactic because guess what they're trying to do?

They're trying to wheel you in .. to get you to respond.

Because even if it's as simple as you call in and upset saying, "I want to be off this and take me off your call list or stop texting me."

They want you to give them a call so they can try to ease your mind, let you know, like, "Hey, we can take you off.

Just give us a little bit more of your personal information so we can identify you in our system to take you out."

-[crosstalk] -Yes.

It can be simple tactics as well, e-mails.

I get so many of them from either PayPal, McAfee, Norton virus.

-I get a lot from [crosstalk] I got several one week from a computer company.

"This is your receipt for your purchase."

They were both 899, different items, but the same price.

I happened to notice, I just looked up the real logo for this company, and they were not the same.

-I'm glad that you-- -I knew I didn't buy anything, but people have got kids at college, or maybe grandmother let one of the kids have her card or it could be anything.

If you think you owe something, I think that's what comes into play with these gift cards.

I heard of a friend getting scammed like this.

I don't know if it was her phone company or it was some company she did business with.

"We're going to cut you off," and all that.

She ended up getting, like, I think about $1,000.

I tell you to go get these gift cards from where?

I guess it stores.

-Yes.

You can go to any store, Dollar General, any store that utilize and sell gift cards.

Unfortunately, gift cards are gifts.

There's no way of you getting your money back.

They use scare tactics, especially with phishing, because let's say you do get that e-mail and it's saying, "Thank you for your purchase of $899," your jaw drops.

You're like, "What?"

You start freaking out, like, "$899?

Who did this and why?"

I always tell people, instead of you calling that number immediately, go check your bank account, verify if that has been taken out your checking account- -Or your credit card.

--or your credit card.

-That's the first thing I think, my credit card sli.. Somebody's got it and stolen it.

Then you think you're going to start getting these things.

-Exactly.

Always just check with your bank first, chec.. or whoever that you deal with with your money.

Verify that first before you call that number that's listed, because a lot of times, like I said, they're going to try to get all of that personal identifiable information out of you in that phone call.

Then they also hit you with, "What is the account number, or what's that card number that you utilize for this supposed charge?

I can check that for you."

You're thinking they're confirming the details, but honestly, they're getting all of the information that they need in order to get into your account and steal additional money.

-Social media lends itself to all kinds of things, if you have time.

[laughs] What are some of the most prominent ones?

-Social media scams, the highest ones would definitely be the government grant.

It's always from someone that the victim may know, supposedly.

With social media, and I can get into a whole rabbit hole with that, it's always a loved one, a family member, or a classmate who account has been hacked and they no longer have access to.

That scammer utilized that hacked social media page to reach out all of their friends, their family.

You get that random inbox message.

"Hey, how's it going?

I haven't heard from you in a while.

I got something super awesome that I want to tell you about free money."

You was like, "I know Jennifer.

Me and her went to school together, our kids play to..

I know her.

I'm trusting her.

She's telling me about this government grant, and I can get X, Y, and Z."

The telltale sign is call Jennifer directly.

Don't trust those social media interactions.

A lot of times that's what happened on social media is from a loved one, a family member, or a friend from school.

-I did get one from a friend of mine's mom, who's about 88.

She was like, "Hey, I haven't seen you in so long."

I was like, 'Hi there, how are you?"

I started talking.

I was just texting her and telling her what.. my daughter has a baby, whatever.

I went down a little bit, and then she said, "Did you hear about the student loan, these student college grants?"

or something.

I'm like, "That woman just--" It just hit me.

I felt so silly.

I wanted to ask you, too, about, on the social media, these friend requests.

I get them all the time, and they've only been active since two months ago.

There's no pictures.

There's no physical evidence that there's a person.

They're all the time.

-Oh, yes.

-How do you tell if a fake friend.. -Honestly, and at my age, if I don't know you and if we've never had a conversation, you're not getting onto my Facebook page.

A lot of times people are like, "How are they finding me?"

Typically, how when we create our Facebook pages, is that they're open and they have limited privacy settings unless you physically go into your-- -If you say it's public,- -Yes, it's public, meaning everybody can it.

--then everybody can see it.

It's in the settings if you go in your settings.

-Yes, exactly.

The best thing to do is to go in that settings and set up your privacy settings to how you would like it, meaning that a lot of times it's open as far as the friend request.

I have it set to where only people that's associated with-- if we have mutual friends, that's the only way that you can send me a friend..

If we have no mutual friends, it's impossible to send me a friend.

-I still think it's easy to do that, but like I said, you look on there and it's somebody that you know, but they haven't been active since 2020.

-Oh, yes.

-They haven't posted anyt.. All of a sudden, they're going to be my friend.

That's a clue what else to look for.

-Be skeptical of that, because a lot of times you might, "I'll just accept it anyway."

Don't accept that because a lot of times you-- -I usually look through there, and a lot of times, especially when they don't have any pictures, they're putting cats or dogs or sunny sceneries or, whatever, things like that.

-What they're also doing is, is that they .. when you see that they're not having a profile picture.

It actually happened to me personally.

It scared me, is that I was getting those friend requests with no images or anything like that on that account.

-If you got your picture up there, why .. -Guess what they did?

They took my pictures and they posted onto their account to gain more traction onto their page.

Then they started sending frie..

I had no idea until one of my relatives reached out to me and say, "Hey, is this you?

The name is totally different."

It was going by Aziz, it was one by a foreign name, and it had my pictures.

That's why me, currently, personally, I do not post images of my children online.

-One of the things that has been going around lately is, and I've heard more than one person say this, and I've seen probably four or five on my Facebook page.

The thing is, it's a friend of yours.

"My father has passed away.

When I contacted this person, she said she would be out of state.

I'm cleaning out, taking care of his belongings.

They've passed away.

My dad or granddad or whatever."

They'll have like lawnmowers and tractors and all kinds of huge items that probably one person in their 80s or grandpa don't have all this stuff on hand.

A car.

Good deal in a car.

$5,500 for a car with 50,000 miles on it or something that's just I'm like-- Because I actually thought I did that, and I realized the person that I was talking to, and I called her and she said, "No, I saw that.

I've got like three or four of them."

There's just these huge-- Have you seen those?

-I know exactly a scam.

We actually got a name for it's called the heirloom scam.

-She was lining me up to pay, like right then.

I was like, "Let me meet you, I'll come and get it."

What else are they-- I'm just [crosstalk] -Yes, it was a very common scam.

Actually, when I first started at the BBB, we were getting a lot of reports of that, especially when people pass and they were leaving homes and things of that nature.

They were trying to scam people into really, I would have to say it's a big phishing attempt as well as money attempt to get to money as well as your personal identifiable information.

For the past few years, it has dwelled, and we haven't gotten as many.

It was a very popular scam around the pandemic time and when people, unfortunately, was passed away.

-It's pretty prominent now because I know I've had probably seen about a half a dozen on Facebook just in the past six months.

-I wish more people would report those.

-Yes, the people who, the only thing you know to do is if you can contact that person, if you have a phone number.

-Yes, and let them know.

-Then a couple of times I've seen people come on l.. "This is not me."

Just huge, big items that an 80-something-year-old person is probably not going to have.

-It's so sad.

-It is.

Facebook and Instagram, the other forms of social media, are a little bit different.

Are they as prone to scams as Facebook?

-Honestly, Instagram, I rarely get any reports of scams originating from Instagram unless it's like a romance or something like that.

TikTok is huge when it comes.. because now they have a TikTok shop.

I personally do not have a TikTok and never used TikTok, so I don't know much about it.

We have had numerous reports of people buying products from the TikTok.. or from TikTok advertisement as well as even Facebook advertising, where they're not getting the product that they ordered, or the product that came was not what they bought.

A lot of times with the TikTok shop, they're just not getting anything from what they ordered.

-I want to ask you about the romance scams because I can see where people can so easily fall into.

Something like that.

It's very costly, can be.

-Very.

Unfortunately, we did have two West Tennessee women fall victim to a romance scam, where both of them originated from Facebook, where they got that friend request from.. Of course, when you're older and like I was talking with the victim is that she wasn't out there.

She wasn't going out into the coffee shops.

She didn't have the platform where she was able to go out and meet someone.

She got that Dean friend request from this attractive gentlem..

He explained.

This is the same exact scenario of the other.. where she met him on Facebook.

The men that they were talking to came from this military background.

They were deployed, and they needed all of these things done.

Of course, the conversation was going well on social media.

Then he said, "Let's switch this conversation from social media.

Let's go over to WhatsApp," which is a third-party app.

Unfortunately, it's encrypted.

The laws are different when it's WhatsApp.

Unfortunately, like with Apple iPhones and Androids, the law enforcement are able to get into them and do all the tracking if they need to.

-When you say it's encrypted-- -WhatsApp is that people can delete it, and you're gone.

It's like you're disappeared.

There's no way someone can find out who you were.

-Trace back.

-Yes, they're untraceable thro.. -They make themselves untraceable.

-Yes.

It could be anyone.

Unfortunately, this lady, she did not.

She wasn't familiar with this, but she said, "Okay, let's download it," instead of exchanging actual phone numbers.

Of course, they utilize that military slang.

They were like, "I'm deployed, and it's free.

You wouldn't have to worry about the data roaming charges and things of that nature."

She's like, "Okay."

Literally same conversation for both of the victims.

They were these military men was saying, "Hey, I need this done.

I need this amount of money sent so my house won'.. and things of that nature.

Like, "I need this help.

I have the money.

Don't worry about it.

You will get your money."

Over time, unfortunately, both victims sent up to 24,000 over the course of eight months.

One victim, she is actually getting interviewed by news stations.

She wants to get that man's nam..

The other one is a little bit more secluded.

She's not willing to be on camera, but with both situations, they were scammed.

Unfortunately, with the first victim who is telling her story, that guy was actually sending her videos.

She was actually talking with this guy, but she never did the actual FaceTime, but he was sending her those videos.

He was sending her those pictures with her name written down or a fork in the picture.

-It was another person in the video, not the real-- not the person.

-No.

She believes that .. but you got to think about it.

If you're dealing with a scammer, and let's say I'm a professional scammer and I have a friend that is attractive, and I said, "Hey, can I use your photos?

Can you help me, and I help you?

I will pay you to help me do X, Y, and Z."

Sometimes people don't know that their friends are utilizing their pictures or their videos in order to help their scam tactics.

That was a little bit different between the first [crosstalk] -You don't really even have to do that.

You could go on any Facebook page and just lift screenshots.

-Another example.

Unfortunately, this was not a West Tennessee man, but we've had a gentleman who, the same scenario, but this is the trigger.

He got a text message.

The text message was pretty much, "Thank you so much for helping me on my flight with my luggage.

I would love to take you out to dinner to thank you for what you did for me."

The man responded, "You have the wrong person.

I was never at an airport."

"Oh, I'm so sorry.

Thank you so much for letting me know that I had the wrong person.

What's your name?"

That conversation went on.

He was a single bachelor, older guy.

Then the conversation went on.

They ended up exchanging pictures and noticed it was a young, attractive lady.

She recommend, "Let's take this off of our text messages.

Let's go over to WhatsApp.

Him being older,-- -It's called what's-- -WhatsApp.

-W-H-A-T, apostrophe, S, like What'sApp?

-Yes.

They took it off of there, and they went on to WhatsApp.

Then she was beginning to tell him how her brother was into investing, and he was like, "I'm an investor."

Lo and behold, after some time of conversating with the young lady, he sent close to over a million dollars in i.. was investing.

Then until he realized after a few months of sending her all this money, he wasn't getting any traction.

She stopped responding.

He found someone to do some research, and lo and behold, the images that she was utilizing was a influencer based in China who was super popular.

He was able to get someone to reach out and say, "Hey, is this you that I've been speaking with?"

due to all the money that was spent.

She was like, "No, I have no idea who this man is.

It was not me.

A lot of fans, a lot of strangers utilize my pictures a lot wh.. and things of that nature.

-That TV show, this is making me think of that.

I don't know if that's still even on or not.

-I believe so, but, yes, catfishing is a-- -That guy, he was on Dancing with the Stars, I think.

-Oh, really?

-He may have even won.

I don't know.

-Oh yes, Niamh.

-Niamh.

I used to just cheer every time they would bust somebody.

This romance stuff, and you're dealing with somebody you've never seen, and you don't really know who they are.

Is that not the biggest red flag when they say, "I wonder if you could help me out.

I've got this going on, that going on."

-Biggest red flag.

If you are looking for love and you're out there and you want love, you will never ever pay a man or a woman anything.

Unless you're going that route or where you do want to willingly pay someone.

No, if you've never met anyone, never even FaceTime them, do not send them any of your money.

-Do men get scammed more, or women, or do you have any figures on that?

-We don't have any figures, but based on who reports to us, women reports more.

I think men are more embarrassed.

Of course, women are embarrassed as well, but we get more reports of women versus the men.

-I've got so much more conversation.

I hate to cut it off, but Todd Trice has been with us, a communication specialist for the BBB of the Mid-South.

I want to make sure everybody knows how to get in touch with you.

You may feel silly asking, "I wish I hadn't done that," or reporting or reporting to the police or reporting to you all.

What is the best way to get in touch?

-Always report on bbb.org/scamtracker.

If you're unable, not tech-savvy, don't know how to maneuver through it, always give us a call at 901-759-1300.

You can give us a call me or Daniel.

We'll go over that scam with you.

I'll let you know.

We can tell you beforehand if it's a scam.

We hate when people always call us afterwards because we could have really helped before.

If the scam has already occurred, call us or log it into our scam tracker system, and we can help.

Especially when it comes to large sum of money.

I've taken programs through our fighting financial fraud through IABBB, and we've had sit-downs with FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

We know the steps to take when large amounts of money has been stolen and we're able to help.

-You romancers, the first time they start asking for that little bit of loan or a little bit of help, you call Todd or somebody at the BBB and tell them Todd Trice told you to call.

I'm so sorry our time is up, but that's all that we have for today on this edition of Tennessee is Talking.

Once again, a big thank you to Todd Trice and the Better Business Bureau for these great tips on scam awareness and internet safety.

If you want to rewatch the program or share it with a friend, remember you can stream it anytime on the PBS app, along with all the local Channel 11 programs.

You can also watch it on westtnpbs.org.

Keep the conversation going by following West Tennessee PBS on social media.

Until next time, keep on talking, Tennessee.

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