There’s no denying the COVID-19 pandemic has changed pretty much everything about how we live in 2021.

Even as we approach what we all hope is the beginning of the end of this virus, our quarantine habits and behaviors will undoubtedly be with us for the long haul.  And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  We will hopefully move forward with a renewed appreciation for our health, the health of others, and a useful good practices tool kit to limit the spread of germs and illness. 

I know we all hate the masks and constant hand-sanitizing, but raise your hand if you caught the cold or flu the past two winters.  I know I didn’t.  And with my immune system?  That qualifies as a miracle.

But beyond health and hygiene practices, we’ve embraced new ways of communicating and doing business on a massive scale.  Even the most technophobic among us have had to rely on digital apps and services they’d otherwise avoid like the…well.  You get the picture.

One of the most critical things we’ve had to embrace is finding ways to pay for the things we need WITHOUT making physical contact.  And for that, many of us relied on services like Zelle, Cash App, Venmo, and PayPal to transfer money to vendors or accept money from buyers.

These services are what we call peer-to-peer payment services.  They are simple platforms that allow users to create an account, connect it to a credit card or bank account, and transfer money directly to other users.  It’s a fast, easy, and often instantaneous way to send money to someone else.  And most importantly, it allows us to pay for goods and services without needing to touch a payment machine, touch someone’s bank card, or come into contact with a cashier.

Prior to the pandemic, I would have assuredly told you vendors requiring payment methods like these are the early warning signs of a scam.  Every p2p payment service is different with regards to safeguards against fraudulent payments, but generally, you can think of them like you would think of wiring someone money through Western Union.  In many cases, sending someone money through these services is as good as giving them cash.  Which means if you transfer money to a scammer, there will be very little you can do to recover those funds.  Scammers LOVE that.

But the rules have changed.  All of us, and seniors especially, SHOULD be using electronic payment methods where possible to limit the spread of COVID.  Two years ago, someone REQUIRING risky electronic transfers like this was untrustworthy.  Now, it’s responsible for a seller to refuse in-person cash or check exchange or payment services that require them to show up in person at a physical location to pick up payment.

It’s because of this p2p payment scams have shot straight up to the top of the list among scams affecting seniors.  Not only are more seniors using p2p payment services, but they’re likely new to the p2p payment game.  These new users are among the most vulnerable to the ways scammers use these apps to screw users out of money or goods:

Avoid peer-to-peer payment scams on Paypal, Zelle, and Venmo - Salal

Hackers are exploiting digital wallet scams on Paypal, Venmo & other peer-to-peer services. Learn how they work & how to protect your account.

Salal

First and foremost, do NOT use these payment services unless you absolutely trust and have vetted the person you’re transacting with.  When it comes to paying someone through one of these apps, know who it is you’re giving your money to.  As we’ve said, few of these services offer any kind of reimbursement if you mistakenly send money to the wrong account or if you send money to someone who doesn’t provide you the items or services you’re paying for.  Verify the legitimacy of the person or the vendor you’re going to pay, confirm their details on whatever app you’re using to pay, and remember anyone can be anyone on the internet.  It is best to only use p2p payment services with people you know—not with mystery vendors on the web.

Most of the creative scams affect those using p2p platforms to RECEIVE money.  Perhaps you’re selling an item or asking someone to pay you for a service you rendered them.

Scammers have several tricks to dodge paying you through these apps:

Fake and stolen credit cards.  A scammer can link these apps to a bogus payment method.  By the time you find out the transaction won’t go through and you won’t receive payment, you may have sent a scammer an item or rendered them a service you can’t get back.

Fake “overpayment” emails.  A scammer can spoof an email from a p2p platform to do one of two things.  They could use it to phish for your login details and gain access to your payment methods OR they could claim someone “overpaid” you for an item, asking you to send a buyer back the overpayment difference.

Canceled payments.  Though some apps, like Zelle, are instantaneous, some take up to several days to process payment.  A scammer can “pay” you for an item or a service, receive that item or service, and then cancel the payment before it processes. 

While social distancing remains a must, there’s no easy way to know who is and is not a scammer using p2p payment.  Unfortunately, in most of these cases, you won’t find out someone is a fraud until after the damage is done. 

Our best advice to limit the damage someone could potentially do to you through these services is to link a credit card rather than a bank account.  While the apps themselves might not offer much in the way of reimbursement, by using credit cards, you can still take advantage of the security measures afforded to you through your credit card to make up for fraudulent exchanges. 

It’s been my personal mission to rally people of all age groups around seniors’ issues for quite some time.  Lack of general awareness is what allows abuses against specific groups to go unchecked.  And let’s be real: everyone is going to be senior one day.  The best thing we can do for ourselves in time is create a safer environment for retirees right now.

…Unfortunately, I’m also really into the epic roast war between Millennials and Boomers on the internet.  In my family, the young people were always told, “20-year-olds don’t know anything—don’t listen to 20-year-olds.”  Just before turning 30, it morphed into, “never trust anyone in their 30s.”  One day—when I’m allowed to have an opinion—they’re REALLY going to get an earful.

So, I’m conflicted.   As much as I love the differences from one generation to the next (and all of the opportunities it gives us to poke a little fun at each other from time to time), I’m not a fan of the very real divide those differences can cause.  Especially when that divide isn’t as wide or as solid as we think.

Case in point: telephone and online scams.

Scams are something we tend to associate predominantly with seniors.  Without seeing a single report or any kind of quote from an expert on the topic, almost everyone would tell you seniors are the most susceptible to scammers.

It’s true most scammers eye seniors specifically when they come up with their strategies.  Some of the most profitable scams operating right now in the United States are exclusively targeting retirees, Medicare beneficiaries, and Social Security beneficiaries.  Seniors are more likely to have savings accounts, assets, and are more likely to be living in social isolation, which is incredibly good for a scammer looking to siphon money from a victim in the long term.

But it’s also true scammers go where the opportunity is.  And anyone willing to put their information out there is an opportunity, senior or no.

Remember when I said the best thing we can do for ourselves is to pay more attention to things that affect seniors?  Well, the opposite is true, too: the WORST thing we can do is label something a “seniors’ problem” and walk away from it entirely.  Especially when the problems we wave away because they don’t affect us are actually OUR problems.

The world may call phone and web scams “seniors’ problems,” but that’s NOT what the data is now showing.  In fact, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s analysis of who is making scam reports, seniors may have one more point to make in the “wisdom before beauty” debate.

The FTC says in recent years, 40% of those making scam reports fell between the ages of 20 and 29, compared to 18% being 70 or older.  According to their data, scam reports dramatically decrease beginning at age 50.

Fraud Costs Medicare Billions of Dollars Every Year

Here’s what to watch out for and how to report scams

AARP

This data was determined based on reports made in 2017 and 2018.  But more recent data shows this trend has maintained even into 2021.

BBB Risk Report: Adults 18-24 were highest scam risk in 2020

Online purchase scams become riskiest scam in the wake of COVID-19. Adults 18–24 reported the highest median losses ($150) and the highest likelihood of loss (56.6%).

http://www.bbb.org

According to the Better Business Bureau, adults between the ages of 18 and 24 are at the highest risk of becoming a victim.  Not only are young people continuing to be most susceptible to scams, but the trend has crossed over from the Millennial generation officially into Generation Z, the oldest of whom are currently between 18 and 24 years old.

Now, before you start thinking about all of the zingers you’re going to throw at your grandchildren over Zoom tonight, seniors are STILL very at risk.  Although more young people fall for online scams than any other age group, seniors still tend to lose the most money.  A college-aged adult may fall for every online scam he sees, but there’s no getting blood from a stone.  I don’t know what your college bank account looked like, but if someone took $100 dollars from me when I was in school, I would have been tapped out for a while.  This age group is NOT known for having spare cash.

Seniors, on the other hand, DO have money in the bank.  They also have home equity, vehicles, working children, and other resources they can potentially use to get money if pressed by a scammer.  Seniors may fall for scams less, but because they have more readily available funds, their losses can potentially be life-altering.

It’s also worth considering the data might not be telling the story we think it’s telling.

The hard data we have says seniors aren’t REPORTING losing to scams at the same level Millennials and Gen Z are.  This isn’t the same thing as saying seniors aren’t losing money to scams at the same rate young people are.

Baby Boomers and older generations didn’t grow up in a society where oversharing was completely normal.  The oldest Millennials, however, were young adults and teenagers when Myspace and Facebook were rolled out.  They’ve been publicly sharing online for half their lives at this point.

And Gen Z?  Whew.  They never had a chance.  They’ve never known a world without constant oversharing.

In fact, this is a major reason why younger generations fall for online scams right and left.  Younger people are far more comfortable communicating with strangers online, doing business online, and putting personal details online.  It’s all they’ve ever known.

Older generations, on the other hand, are slow to take up the newest social media trends.  This is possibly because seniors aren’t primed to jump from one platform to the next putting their entire lives on display.  If I had to pick the single most repeated, most critical, most serious lesson I was taught growing up by the older people in my life, it was “DON’T TELL EVERYONE ALL OF YOUR BUSINESS.”  They all recoil at the thought of posting a photo of themselves online.

But where the comfort with sharing can be a positive thing is reporting crime.  People who are very private and protective of their lives may find it very difficult to reach out and report losing money to a scammer. They may also feel a great deal more shame about being scammed in the first place.

It’s estimated only 1 in 25 seniors report financial fraud.  This fact alone would make seniors the most ideal target in the world—the likelihood you’d ever get reported or caught scamming a retiree is very low.  Not only are seniors less comfortable in general with our online transaction/online sharing/online communication world, but they’re so concerned being victimized will be taken as evidence of mental decline or incompetence that they often hide what was done to them.

So the takeaway from this data isn’t really who falls for online scams less.  That doesn’t really matter all that much—though, by all means, don’t be afraid to whip this fact out at the dinner table if some sassy stripling decides to “OK Boomer” you.

The story here is really about why it’s important for young people and seniors to communicate and invest in each other.  While Millennials and Gen Z consider being victimized by online scammers their grandparents’ issue, they themselves are getting destroyed by online thieves.  My generation still has a LOT to learn from those we often choose to ignore—especially on the issue of privacy.

But our parents and grandparents could learn a lot from us, too.  The data shows that when we get hurt by online fraudsters, we make sure someone knows.  Sure, we might feel the same shame and embarrassment about falling for a stupid online scam, but we also know reporting a scammer may save someone else in the future. 

There is NO REASON AT ALL to feel shame when someone takes advantage of you.  All the shame belongs to the person doing the hurting—never the victim.  If it has happened or does happen to you, don’t be hard on yourself.  These people are very good at what they do, they are very good at picking their targets, and they use every detail about you and what’s going on in the world around you to exploit you.  There’s no such thing as someone who is immune to scams. 

And if it ever does happen to you?  Reporting is essential to protecting others and getting justice for yourself.  Nobody is interested in judging you for reporting a crime—they’re interested in stopping these crimes from happening.

So, as a self-appointed representative of the oft-scammed Millennial generation, I’ll officially concede that we’ve been pretty smug and pretty incorrect about how savvy and safe we are when it comes to scams. 

…Go ahead and let that one sink in because it might a good long while before one of us admits we were wrong to you again.

But I will also say this: if it is indeed the case a lack of senior reporting is contributing to this huge gap in reporting between 20-somethings and retirees, know that we want to help you.  Getting scammed so often ourselves, we know how rampant it is, we know how terrible it feels, and we know it’s not your fault. 

But we won’t know someone is hurting you if you don’t tell us.  So, if you don’t feel comfortable reporting being scammed or if you don’t know how or where to report it, be open with your family and TELL SOMEONE.  Keeping these things a secret is what allows these scams to continue.  And it takes a horrible emotional toll on those who feel they must hide it.

We may like to butt heads on a lot of things, but at the end of the day, we can all agree everyone has a right to be safe, secure, and happy, right? 

And since WE’RE willing to concede we aren’t really as great at the internet as we thought we were, maybe we can make a small generational request..?

“Participation trophies?” Really?

You know perfectly well you gave us those trophies.  Leave us alone.

We first discussed romance scams on this blog in 2017.  That year, according to the Federal Trade Commission, romance scam victims reported losses of $87 million nationwide.

Since then, the amount of reports made to the FTC have increased 30% year over year.  And last year, romance scams saw the biggest single jump since 2016: a 50% increase in the number of reports made AND over $100 million more swindled from victims than in 2019.

The explanation for this spike is simple: the pandemic has created a massive pool of lonely, isolated potential victims.

Romance scams occur on nearly every social and dating platform online.  In a technique commonly called “catfishing” online, a scammer will create an appealing fake identity on a platform to lure in victims seeking romantic partners or companions.  The romantic scammer will often steal images, names, and personal details of real people on websites like Facebook to create their own fake profile, tailoring the profile to attract an ideal victim.  Frequently, this victim is a senior, a widow or widower, a divorcee, or representative of a chronically isolated group.

Once a victim is identified, the scammer will begin the process of “love-bombing” the target.  Love-bombing is a strategy used by both scammers and abusers to get their victims hooked on the attention they’re receiving and far less likely to walk away or refuse requests.  During the love-bombing stage, the scammer will lavish compliments, gifts, and praise on the victim, ultimately priming them to accept multiple asks and increasingly suspicious behavior.

When the scammer knows the target is fully invested in the “relationship,” that’s when the scam starts.  The scammer will pressure the victim for money for all sorts of reasons, using the affinity the victim has for them as a weapon.  All the while, the scammer will find no shortage of reasons why they can’t ever meet their victim or see their victim despite near constant promises to do so. 

These scams can go on for months and years with virtually no detection.  And due to the deeply personal nature of the scam, victims are far less likely to report them or talk about them with family and friends than other types of scams.

Where previously a scammer may have had to be choosy with his victims, now there are targets everywhere.  We have been separated from our friends, families, and loved ones, prohibited from going to public places to socialize, and driven out of our workplaces for fear of spreading COVID-19.  Our opportunities for social contact of any kind outside of our immediate household have been nonexistent for a year.

The only way most of us can engage in any kind of safe socializing is digitally: through our phones, through webcams, and through text.  Those of us who never depended heavily on the internet for human contact have had to become comfortable with online interaction.  These new social app users may not be vigilant or familiar with how rampant scammers run on these apps.

At the same time, the pandemic has given scammers a tool kit of excuses to ask victims for money and avoid ever interacting with them beyond calls and messages:

“I lost my job.  I need you to help me get by.”

“My hours have been cut.  I can’t earn enough money to come and see you.”

“I can’t come see you.  I may have been exposed to COVID-19.”

“If you care about me, you’ll send me money to get treatment for the virus.”

“My family member is sick and I don’t have the money to take care of them.”

“No, we can’t meet.  I’m caring for an at-risk family member.”

In this environment, we can’t question a potential partner’s unwillingness to engage with us and provide proof they want progress in a relationship as easily.  We are also far less likely to be suspicious of someone we don’t know reaching out to us on an app—it’s the only way to safely meet new people right now.

There’s also the reality that none of us are exactly handling this sudden severe isolation very well.  Even self-identified introverts are learning how much of a difference there is between low contact and NO contact.  We are all suffering for lack of seeing other people.  That suffering makes us extremely vulnerable.

To be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with finding your future partner online.  Online dating and social apps are increasingly responsible for long-term successful unions and marriages.  We’ve come a long way since the dawn of the internet when meeting A Stranger online was something to hide or feel ashamed of.  As we age, maintaining the friendships we already have—let alone cultivating brand new friendships—is easier said than done.  In a perfect world, online socializing would be the greatest thing for seniors dealing with loneliness.

But as it stands, this world is far from perfect.  And with love being the strongest intoxicant known to man, the romance scam is possibly the perfect way to swindle someone out of their life savings.

The hardest part of avoiding this scam—like other affinity-style scams—is not allowing your emotions to steamroll your common sense.  Stripped of the emotional aspects, this scam is actually incredibly obvious and should be easy to poke holes through.

The Telltale Signs of a Romance Scammer

Love at first click.  As much as we like a Romeo and Juliet narrative, it’s rarely the reality of falling in love.  Attraction may be instant, but love is usually something we cultivate over time with another person.  This is NOT the case when you’re dealing with a romance scammer.  Romance scammers typically communicate with MULTIPLE victims at a time, so they’re not interested in investing more time than they need to in gaining your trust.  The hallmark of a romance scammer is the whirlwind nature of the initial meeting to the claims they are hopelessly in love.  If you pump the brakes on the fantasy just long enough to look at the timeline of events with a level head, you’ll see someone who claimed to be your soul mate before they knew anything of substance about you.

You’re smothering me.  In the first stage of a relationship, it is entirely normal for two people to be joined at the hip.  But there’s attached and then there’s attached.  When a romance scammer sees a fish on the line, they want to get it out of the water as fast as possible.  That means they’ll push you to delete all of your dating profiles (so only THEY have access to you—and your bank account) and they’ll often contact you obsessively.  The constant contact is meant to keep you engaged at all times and thinking of almost nothing else but them.  Not only is this part of the love-bombing tactic, but it also eliminates the possibility that you’ll have quiet time to consider how bizarre the relationship is or talk to other people you know about it.  The goal is to get you completely dependent on them for all of your socialization and cut you off from other influences that might steer you away from the scam.  Texts will be constant.  Emails will be constant.  You might even receive phone calls multiple times a day.

Excuses, excuses.  Since romance scammers will conceal their identity completely during the scam, using fake photos, fake biographical information, and a fake location usually, they can’t exactly live up to their promises to come see you without blowing the scam.  The person you think you’re talking to almost NEVER looks like, sounds like, or is that person.  There will ALWAYS be an excuse when it comes to visiting you or even video chatting with you (“I don’t have a camera,” “I don’t have a webcam,” “I don’t have a computer”).  With a lot of these scams being operated outside of the country, the scammer might not even be willing to talk to you on the phone for fear of revealing a foreign accent.  They’ll absolutely PROMISE to come see you—they might even make plans with you to do so.  But they’ll cancel at the last minute every time: a broken car, an illness, trouble at home, a job opportunity, a wedding, a funeral, and ESPECIALLY not having money to do so (so they can ask you to send them that money, of course).  And don’t think you offering to visit THEM is going to change anything.  They’ll be out of town on all of those weekends.  Which is weird since they can’t ever seem to afford to go out of town to see you…

Boo-hoo-hoo.  Romance scammers use pity to steal their victims’ trust and money.  There isn’t a romance scammer in the world who doesn’t have a backstory more depressing than Les Misérables.  Everything bad in the world has happened to them and only them, and that’s why you should listen to all their problems and send them money.  These stories are meant to wear you out emotionally as much as they’re meant to convince you to send them cash.

Gimme, gimme, gimme.  If all else fails, this is the BIG one.  The goal of a romance scammer is to GET. YOUR.  MONEY.  It’s not to be your friend, get to know you, or talk to you.  All of those things are means to a financial end that will preferably come as fast as possible.  Expect the asks to start almost immediately.  They may be subtle or strictly implied (for example, “oh, I WISH I could come see you, but I just don’t have the money for a plane ticket right now…”), especially in the beginning.  But as the relationship goes on, the scammer can get downright cocky about pressuring you for cash.  Whether it’s constantly bringing up hardship to get you to feel sorry for them, asking you directly for help with a financial problem, or aggressively demanding or even extorting you for money, they WILL transition from love-bombing to money quickly.  Normal people don’t ask the people they’ve just started dating for money.  Normal people don’t lay their financial baggage on their partners right out of the gate.  Your cue to run for the hills is the FIRST time someone you’re casually dating asks you for your money.  This is NEVER appropriate behavior early in a relationship.

Catching a Romance Scammer

Even ticking all these scam checkboxes, you may not be prepared to believe the person you’ve grown to care about is a liar.  Again, this is EXACTLY why these scams are so effective: you don’t WANT to believe the person you love is tricking you.

No worries.  There are actionable ways you can verify the identity of your partner.  They may not be 100% effective on their own, but in most cases, these verification methods can reveal at least SOMETHING that doesn’t quite add up.

Scrutinize their social media profiles.  Since you’ll most likely be meeting this person on some kind of social media platform or dating app, you’ll have access to their fake profile (you can also ask to see any of their other profiles on different platforms).  There are some key things to look for that can tip you off to a fake account: a very new profile created date, an extremely low number of followers or friends, very little activity in terms of posts or interactions with other people, a bare bones profile with next to no pictures or personal information, and multiple accounts on different platforms that were all created on the same exact date.

Image search is your best friend.  In almost all cases of romance scamming, the scammer will be using profile pictures and photos stolen from someone else.  The images we put online include metadata (called EXIF data) that can be used almost like a fingerprint to identify copies of the image elsewhere online and lead you to the REAL person who posted the photos.  EXIF data CAN be stripped from an image (often scammers don’t bother to do it or aren’t consistent about stripping every photo they steal), and certain “secure” online communication platforms like Whatsapp automatically strip EXIF data on sent images (be suspicious of anyone who tries to move you from a very public communication platform to a “secure” platform right away for this reason).  But performing a reverse image search on each and every one of the images you have available to you to check for this data is your very first step in looking for fraud.  You can do this via Google Reverse Image Search or a variety of online tools specifically for finding stolen images and exposing catfish.  Should you locate your partner’s images in multiple places online with different names, locations, ages, and other inconsistent details.  You’ve got yourself a romance scammer.

 Ask for an updated photo.  Ask your would-be soul mate to take a self portrait just for you. …While holding a newspaper with today’s date on it.  Or holding a piece of paper with a code word you’ve specified on it.  If they’re not who they say they are (or hit you with he “oh, my phone camera isn’t working right now”), they won’t do this.  They’ll probably launch into a speech about how HURTFUL it is that you don’t trust them.  Yawn.

Romance scams are particularly alarming among other types of financial fraud for having the potentiality to escalate even further than simply robbing you of your savings.  Romance scammers are known to operate in large networks, and there are even cases of romance scams leading to victims getting involved in serious criminal activity.  Romance scam victims have been persuaded to money launder and even mule narcotics unknowingly for their scammers, resulting in serious criminal charges for the victims.

This is a scam that is not only really, really effective, but could lead to increasingly dangerous consequences for victims.  And in the COVID-19 world, these scams are growing in number and harder to resist.

Do NOT allow the fear of scams to ruin the safest way for you to communicate with your loved ones.  But do be very aware of how vulnerable we all are to these scams in the current day and how widespread they are.  If you are using online platforms to meet a new partner, don’t allow isolation to affect your judgment—anyone can be anyone on the World Wide Web.

In another life, I used to write about a lot about sheep.

I used to write about a lot of animals, actually.  My job was to explain how different landscape and livestock tools worked.  Wild animal repellents, animal fencing, those really creepy fake owls you put on top of your barn to freak wild birds out—that sort of thing.  To understand why those sorts of products work and how to use them properly, you have to understand why animals act the way they do.

So, now I know a lot a lot about sheep.  And I’ve had a linguistic bone to pick with a lot of people ever since.

Sheep are the most slandered animal in our language.  If you’re going with the crowd, you’re being a sheep.  If you hold a popular belief someone else disagrees with, they’ll probably call you a sheep.  To be a sheep means you’re the kind of person who goes with the group.  It means you share the same opinions as the rest of the “flock.”  The implication is you’re too weak or stupid to go it alone, so you find 30 of your friends and do what they do instead of forming your own opinions or behaviors.

But if you know sheep—or at least, if you’ve had to do a lot of Googling about them in order to write promotional materials—you know this is not at all the reality of flocking behavior.

Sheep are NOT stupid.  Far from it, as a matter of fact.

The flocking behavior we see in social animals is actually pretty genius.  When you’re not strong enough to stand up to a wolf on your own, you’re safer when you stick with your friends.  Flocking animals rely on having dozens of eyes on the ground to look for the slightest sign of danger—that’s why they follow each other so closely.

Sheep aren’t the only animals known to get by with a little help from their friends.  Without our cooperative social nature, humans would likely not have shot straight up to the top of the food chain as quickly as we have.

Much like sheep, we rely on other people in our communities on a daily basis to do all the things we need to do.  And we absolutely depend on our flocks to stay safe from would-be predators.

Our flocks are more than just our family and friends.  Whether we realize it or not, we form flocks based on any number of shared traits, experiences, and identities: sharing an alma mater, a religious belief, a locality, a political affiliation, an ethnicity, a language, or a place of work.  We tend to trust others more when we have things in common with them.  You can probably think of at least a few people in your life you may have trusted almost immediately—despite being strangers—based on a few shared traits or values.

It’s not a bad thing most of us do this.  We make lifelong friends because we are able to quickly identify commonality and bond over it.  But when we do that too readily, the tendency to trust those we view as part of our flock can be dangerous—especially when we’re dealing with a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

There is a term for the types of scams that rely on people’s tendency to trust those they perceive as similar to them.  It’s called affinity fraud.  Affinity scams are scams—usually investment scams—that exploit a target audience by dressing those scams up to be everything that audience would trust by default: someone just like them.

While not every scam targeted toward a specific group is a textbook affinity scam, many of them are. 

Seniors are one example of a flock—a group of people who share a specific age range and many of the unique experiences that come with being that age.  Seniors would be far more likely to trust pitches made to them by other seniors or senior-adjacent people or causes.  This is why so many scammers opt to pretend to be from Medicare or the Social Security Administration.  A retiree target deals with those programs every day.  They trust those organizations.  These scams aren’t classic investment affinity scams, but they are successful because they use affinity tactics.

The most recognized affinity scams are those targeting religious groups.  Religious people have a great deal of trust in their churches, other members of their religious sect, and causes related to religion.  Someone who might be very wary of answering their phone and handing out their information to just anyone might not question a stranger claiming to be part of their religion asking for a donation for the church.  This behavior is exactly why churchgoers have lost MILLIONS of dollars to fraudulent investments and Ponzi schemes committed by fellow church members or bogus church organizations.

Another example of a classic affinity scam is this story of a pair of Cambodian immigrants who targeted other Cambodian immigrants to participate in a $30 million Ponzi scheme.  The scammers flaunted the wealth and comfortable lifestyle many immigrants dream about when moving to the United States, using it to convince their kinsmen to contribute their hard-earned money to an amazing “investment opportunity.”  In 2007, these scammers were sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

An affinity scammer can use almost any part of someone’s identity to gain their trust.  But the most basic affinity scam is one where someone is simply targeting their own friends and family.  Why?  Because those people already trust them simply for being them.  It’s the simplest way to get money from someone, but it’s probably the most tragic, too.

Anyone can fall prey to these scams.  Everyone has something about their identity that can be exploited to gain their trust.

But seniors are particularly vulnerable to affinity fraud.  Seniors have more assets than younger people.  Seniors have retirement nest eggs and savings accounts.  If an affinity scammer is looking for someone likely to have at least one account or asset they can tap immediately to get a few thousand dollars to invest, they’re probably looking for a retiree.

Not only that, but seniors tend to be very active in church communities and charities.  Many seniors choose to spend their retirement volunteering or participating in community activism.  Seniors are a group of people known to be generous with their time and money when it comes to higher causes.  This is exactly the personality type an affinity scammer looks for: the kind of person who will contribute to something bigger than themselves.  The fact that retirees also tend to have bank accounts with readily available cash is icing on the cake.

Because these scammers are playing on the trust you have for those who share some of your most intimate and passionate beliefs—or even the love you have for them as a friend—these scams are some of the most damaging of all.  The money lost is bad enough, but trauma, shame, and devastation of having your trust destroyed by someone you may have cared about can follow you the rest of your life.  Sometimes the victims of these scams never move past what was done to them.

Protecting yourself from affinity scammers starts with understanding every single one of us is at heart a sheep.  I don’t mean that in the negative pop culture sense of the word, but rather in the sense that we all have the exact same need to stick with our flock as the animal we like to make fun of.  The reason we’re so quick to trust people like us is because we SHOULD be able to trust each other, especially when have so much in common.

But humans are predators, too.  For every one of us just trying to enjoy some grass with our friends, there’s another person who sees a field of fresh lamb chops.

Whether it’s an absolute stranger, someone loosely associated with certain things you are, or someone you’ve known for years, there can be no difference in the level of scrutiny with which you examine ANY investment proposal made to you.  The temptation to trust certain people over others will always be there, but you can’t allow anyone to override your common sense when it comes to your check book.

Verify every detail of the pitch made to you independently.  Take nothing someone asking you for money says for granted.  Get as much information about the opportunity as you can and do your own independent research to verify the legitimacy of their claims.

Do not succumb to grandiose emotional appeals, guilt tactics, or pressure to give someone your money.  This is true of ALL kinds of scams.  If someone is trying to guilt you into giving them money (“don’t you trust me, we’ve known each other for years,” “but I helped YOU all those times—why won’t you help ME?”), don’t make a knee-jerk decision you’ll regret.  The more someone pressures you emotionally instead of listing the data-based reasons why an investment is good, the more you need to be wary.

Make sure absolutely everything is done in writing—no handshakes, no verbal agreements, and no money exchanged without a legitimate receipt.  Everyone knows this, but this tends to really go out the window when dealing with a friend, family member, or someone close to you who you trust.  Never give someone a substantial amount of money without the paperwork.  And if that person balks at you requesting such a thing?  It’s not because they’re worried about YOUR best interests, if you catch my drift.

Consult a financial planner or lawyer in absolutely every major financial investment.  If you aren’t a financial professional, chances are good you won’t really know the full extent of what you’re getting involved in.  Never stroke a huge check to anyone without talking to a pro.  If there’s something fishy about the arrangement, a financial advisor will see it right away.

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”  It’s pretty hard to tell someone how to avoid getting affinity scammed.  The red flags may not be flying as high or as bright as with other scams, and because victims trust the scammer, what few flags are visible might be hidden by fog.  But one ancient bit of wisdom will always serve you well here: beware of investment opportunities promising mind-blowing returns or rewards.  The bigger the promises, the smaller the chance what you’re being told is true.  If there’s one glaring warning sign, it will probably be this one.

With nothing else better to do, you might be one of the millions of people who have succumbed to the temptation of internet shopping in the past few months. Don’t worry—I’m not going to judge you. The way I see it, if you don’t ask me what useless things I’ve purchased on Etsy this year, I’m not going to ask you. Nothing empties my wallet faster than boredom.

And anyway, a lot of our increased online shopping this year is out of necessity and self-preservation—at least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself. This isn’t exactly the best time to be milling around in brick-and-mortar stores if you can avoid it.

Then, add Christmas on top, and most of us have been going a little swipe-crazy sitting at home on the computer.

But with increased usage of our cards online, payment processing services like Paypal, logging in and out of our email accounts, and setting up online accounts at retailers we may have only shopped at in person, we open ourselves up to online fraud. We are giving online thieves and scammers infinite opportunities to scam us out of information, steal our card numbers, and snatch our login credentials. The more we put out there, the more there is for someone to steal—that’s just kind of how the internet works, unfortunately.

So getting a fraud alert email, text, or call around this time would be a bummer, but would you question it if you spent the last month running up your credit cards online? Probably not.

Well…it turns out you probably should.

Today the Better Business Bureau published its newest fraud warning regarding bogus fraud alerts about “compromised” accounts, including Amazon, Paypal, and Netflix, to name just a few.

But this can happen with any one of your online accounts. You could receive a fraud alert from your bank, your email client—anywhere you log in, and especially those accounts that could contain sensitive or financial information.

But the compromised account alert is merely just a solicitation to you to get you to compromise your account.

BBB reports this scam is happening via email and phone call. Emails—which may be disguised as coming from legitimate senders and businesses—will send you to a phishing site, asking for your login information and even your Social Security number. In the phone version, the caller tells you that suspicious charges were seen on your account. The caller will either try to get the same information out of you the email version does or will ask you to download a mysterious “anti-malware” program to your device. Spoiler alert: that “anti-malware” program will be malware.

In a stranger version of this call, the caller may direct you to…buy a bunch of Google Play or gift cards in order to…buy back access to your account? I don’t entirely understand the gambit there, but as we’ve discussed before, any time someone asks you to buy pre-paid cards in order to pay for something, it’s a scam. It’s one of the biggest red flags there is.

Just a few months ago, consumers reported calls regarding their Apple accounts being compromised.

In each case, the scammer will either use trusted branded materials or a spoofed legitimate business address to contact you via email or tell you on the phone that they’re an employee of the business in question. It is possible the phone number will be spoofed to appear legitimate, as well.

Whether the scammer contacts you by email or phone, the key here is not to give any personal information up until you can verify what they’re telling you. For example, if someone calls from your bank telling you there are suspicious charges on your account, log into your online banking before you continue the conversation. If there is indeed some kind of freeze or flag on your account, it’ll be pretty obvious once you’ve logged in.

You can also ignore the email or hang up on the call, find the phone number for that business, and call them directly to check on your accounts. If you do this, just make sure you’re getting the phone number for that business from your own search—not from any website or email the caller might give you.

The most important thing to remember—especially with scam callers—is not to let fear or pressure cause you to do something you know isn’t safe. You don’t have to share your information with just anyone who asks for it, no matter what the situation might be. And the more a caller tries to apply pressure or use fear tactics to get that information out of you? The more likely it is they are fraudsters.

Besides. What are they going to do if you don’t? Beat you up over the phone? Don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re doing the wrong thing by being protective of your personal information. Frankly, any business would be happy to know their customers are protective of their information. It saves them a lot of hassle, you know?

So now that the Christmas shopping rush is over, it might be a good time to go through all of your accounts and statements just to make sure everything is in its right place. Keeping an eye on your finances in general is another good way to thwart anyone trying to tell you that you have thousands of dollars in suspicious charges or that your accounts are frozen. Being aware of your spending and the health of all your accounts will make it much harder for someone to lie to you about it.

There are few things I hate more than the sound of my own ring tone at noon on a Monday.

To be fair, I hate the sound of my ring tone at all other times, too. Since settling into my quarantine life, I’ve really gotten used to a minimal amount of social stimulation. A ringing phone sounds like a baseball going through a picture window at this point.

But at noon on a Monday when I don’t have a prescription for pick-up or a pet due for a wash and cut the next day? There is only one type of person who calls me. And that’s generously assuming it’s a human being.

When I hear that sound at noon on a Monday, I start making gentleman’s bets with myself.

It’s the police.

No, it’s the “Social Security Officer.”

Ooh, no, it won’t be the Officer this time—it’ll be the Agent.

Maybe I’m feeling especially lucky and it’ll be the guy who really just wants to give me deals on medical equipment.

No, I definitely won a free cruise today.

I’m not feeling particularly special or lucky today—today, I thought, I’m going to play it safe and guess that my Social Security number has been suspended. That’s what it’s usually been lately.

But I was wrong. Good thing it was only a gentleman’s bet. I would hate to lose the ten dollar bill I found in my jacket pocket to the responsible part of myself who would put it in the piggy bank.

I daresay I was almost excited after I picked up the phone. It’s a little embarrassing to admit certain types of scam calls make me excited, but, hey. We’ll just chalk it up to the quarantine lifestyle.

The call I received was exciting because I hadn’t considered it for several years. It’s been about three or four years since I’ve read anything about it. Even then, reports about it were dubious at best. It was a call everyone was getting in 2017, but despite the panic headlines, there were just as many questioning whether or not the scam existed at all.

When I answered the phone, I didn’t get a “hello,” “hi, this is–,” or “is this–?”

The first thing I heard was, “can you hear me?”

Part of the reason I answered with more of a grin than an audible response is the caller caught me in the middle of a vicious battle with my post-holiday writer’s block. Little did the caller know he was doing me a real solid in the middle of the day.

But part of it was also getting that verbal response is the goal of the caller’s game. In 2017, this scam was known as the “Just Say Yes” scam.

This phone scam is actually pretty interesting because although we have a detailed rundown of how it works and what the caller is trying to gain from asking a weird question as a greeting, there are very few documented cases of this scam occurring. If you Google it, the second and third search results are from CNET and Snopes calling these calls a potential hoax.

Here’s how they’re supposed to work:

You receive a call and the caller asks, “can you hear me?” Or greets you with some other question with a yes or no answer.

You say, “yes.” And then the caller immediately hangs up.

The caller asked you a question to get you to say, “yes” because they were recording the call. They now have a recording of you saying, “yes.”

From there, the caller will attempt to gain access to your financial accounts by using the recording of your voice saying a confirmation word. This could result in new accounts appearing in your name or fraudulent charges showing up on your bank statement.

What isn’t up for debate is that these strange calls were all the rage several years ago. Tons of people reported receiving this weird call—and I, myself, received it just now. “Can you hear me?” And then click. There isn’t a question that it’s something that happens.

What IS questionable is whether this call is being made to record your voice and gain access to your personal information.

Back when this “scam” was a hot topic, I even thought it was a weird premise. It’s possible, sure, but…does it make sense?

Think about it: how many customer service phone trees do you use that rely on voice recognition to determine your identity? It would nice to not play 20 Questions every time I need to call my bank, but unfortunately, I’ve had to provide at least three pieces of critical information to prove who I am since the day I had my own bank account.

And that’s another thing. Knowing someone would at least have to provide my birth date and the last four numbers of my Social Security number or account number (probably both) to gain access to my account, what would having a recording of me saying one word do?

So you have me saying, “yes.” What about the other hundred words you’re going to need to use? The call would have to be in two different voices.

I’ve never been sure what having a recording of me saying one word would accomplish. My best guess is because financial institutions often record calls for quality control, it may be a defensive measure in the event the recording of that call is used as evidence to prove fraud. In that case, it might be a good thing to have my actual voice on the line giving someone permission to look into my private information.

But given the fraudster would use far more words than just “yes” to access my accounts, it still seems a little far-fetched.

Nevertheless, there ARE reports—albeit, very few—of people receiving this call and experiencing some kind of fraud soon after the call.

A man in Washington reported receiving this call and finding fraudulent hotel charges on his bank statement several days later. Though he is convinced the call was the source of the mystery charge, there’s little in the way of direct evidence to link the call to the charge. And it still doesn’t explain how the scammer could have made the charge without also getting the victim’s financial details.

According to the director of Consumer Federation of America, it’s possible the people who receive these calls have already had their information stolen. The call might be occurring only because a scammer has already managed to steal your identity.

But if that’s true, I still don’t entirely understand why a scammer would need to go to these lengths to access your financials. Unless they also have a recording of you saying all of your information on top of every other word in the English language, it seems a little pointless. Having had my credit card maxed out by a thief in a matter of hours just weeks ago, I can attest to the fact that nobody needs a recording of your voice to buy 10,000 followers on Instagram on your dime.

And, yes. Someone stole my credit card number to buy Instagram followers. These are strange times we live in.

All my questions aside, did I answer the question with a yes or no? Absolutely not. I’d much rather protect my bank account from any future would-be social media influencers than be right about this scam not making much sense. At the end of the day, I can’t use smugness to pay my light bill. If I could, I’d be cruising around in an Aston Martin right now.

The fact remains this call is still happening and we aren’t entirely sure why. And it’s happening enough that the Better Business Bureau just recently put out warning. It may not make a lot of sense, but as it concerns your money and identity, being safe is always better than being sorry.

At the very least, these calls could be nothing more than a scammer checking for a live phone number. Every time you answer a scam call, you’ve just let an entire network of scammers know you’ll answer your phone. See here if you want to know how THAT works out for you in the end. I’m STILL getting texts because of that little investigation.

The best thing to do is refuse to pick up the phone from an unknown caller. And if you do? Don’t ever say “yes” or “no” to someone asking you a question before they even greet you. I recommend a hearty and cheerful “mmm-hmmm” if you absolutely must speak.