-It's my pleasure now to introduce Chuck Harwood.
Chuck and I go back many, many years.
He has been the regional director
for the Federal Trade Commission in Seattle
for a couple decades, and for a period of about 4 or 5 years
was actually the national head
of the Consumer Protection Division for the --
He was the acting director
of the Bureau of Consumer Protection
for the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, DC,
but we are really glad to have him back,
and he's been a tremendous partner.
You can see how many times during my presentation
I mention things the Federal Trade Commission is doing.
They are really at the forefront of this work,
and he has been at the forefront of this work for a generation.
Please welcome Chuck Harwood.
[ Applause ]
-Okay. -All right.
Let's look at this. Oh, what happened to the mouse?
There it is.
-There. We're good?
-Let me just get your presentation up.
-All right.
So while we're doing that, I will tell you a stupid pun
because it seems like the time for a pun, doesn't it?
So what is the most dangerous reptile that uses a phone?
Can you guess?
The croco-dial. [crocodile]
Get it? Yeah. [ Audience groans ]
Okay. Thanks. Okay.
It's going to go...
I wish I could say it's going to get better from there.
I can't promise, but we'll try.
All right. So...
Oh, all right. There we go.
So that's me, and that's what I'm going to --
I'm unmasking the impostor.
I figured out where I'm at, actually,
and I'm going to talk about a number of things.
One thing is going to be identity theft,
but before I do that,
I'm going to talk about some of the impostor scams
we see, some of the ways that you can help us,
and so let's get started with that.
Let me figure out where the slide bar is.
There we go. That'll get us there,
so this really cool chart here, a really cool graph here,
it's actually a bit of a plan of attack
for dealing with impostor schemes,
and it also gives me a chance to rave about and heap praise on
AARP, which is well deserved, but first, let me tell you
why this is a plan of attack.
So you have -- Up there, you see three parts --
law enforcement,
business guidance and consumer education.
So law enforcement is what I spend most of my time doing
and what people like Attorney General Ferguson
spend most of their time doing,
and it includes things like the cases
the FTC announced just last week.
We announced four just last week
involving new tech support scam cases,
so we continue to file cases.
Doug talked about some we filed a year or so ago,
and I'll talk about an interesting follow-up
to one of those,
and Doug at the end of his comments
said they're still out there, absolutely,
and we're still filing them, but that's law enforcement.
What about the other two parts of this.
Well, business guidance is critical.
I know that this is not a business meeting,
but I want to emphasize, it's very important for business
to be aware of impostor scams.
For example, the FTC recently put out a new piece
on what businesses can do
if they discover that their name has been hooked
in an impostor scheme because as we know,
there are many instances where entities are calling,
individuals are calling claiming to be Microsoft,
claiming to be Apple,
claiming to be some other smaller business,
and so what can a business do when their name is hooked
in one of these impostor schemes?
We put out some guidance for businesses on this,
and we're trying to work more with businesses on identifying,
responding and dealing with that problem,
so thanks for getting -- Okay.
Thank you.
Third part is consumer education,
so I do law enforcement, and that's my business.
We work on the kind of cases Doug talked about.
What we don't do very well
is talk about what happens after the case.
We don't do a particularly good job
of explaining the meaningfulness of a particular case,
how it fits in the larger perspective,
how it fits from your perspective.
That's where AARP comes in.
What you saw today was something fabulous in that
they take these cases that, you know,
I'm already on the next case, but somebody needs to explain,
you know, how these cases work, what happened,
what the takeaways are, what the lessons are.
That's where AARP comes in,
and that's why it's really fabulous
to see a program like this, to see the work
that Doug and Bruce did where they went to India,
where they actually talked to the people who --
You know, they've been shut down.
They're not doing that again, I hope,
but, you know, you can still learn lessons from them.
You can still learn things from them.
Also, the consumer ed part is the part
that I'm going to turn to you to help me with
because as we saw it just a few minutes ago,
you have experiences.
You have information you can share.
We heard about the grandparents scam a few minutes ago
or the jury pool scam even more recent,
just a couple minutes ago.
Those kind of experiences are invaluable
because you can share those experiences
with your friends and neighbors.
Those are the kinds of consumer education opportunities
that I can't replicate, but you can,
and I'll talk more about that in a minute.
So that's our plan of attack for dealing with impostors --
law enforcement, business guidance,
consumer education.
Let's move on, though.
So when we talk about impostors, why do we care about impostors?
And you're here saying, "Well, that's a stupid question, Chuck.
Of course we should care about impostors.
We need to do something about them, right?"
But why do we want to unmask them?
Well, let's face it -- Impostors create havoc.
They create havoc for each of us
when they're out there in the world loose amongst us.
They create financial losses.
The financial losses can be huge,
as you're going to hear about in a minute.
They cause in some cases tremendous emotional distress.
I'll explain in a couple minutes how that happens.
They lead to identity theft in many cases,
some pretty serious cases of identity theft,
and identity theft, for those of you who have dealt with it,
you know, you know, that is a self-help recovery situation
that can go on for years
while you try to deal with the problem.
They can create lost and delayed benefits and services.
If somebody is stealing your medical information
because they somehow convinced you
that they're your real insurance company or they're Medicare,
and they're not, and they've applied for your benefits
or somehow intercepted your benefits,
you're going to have to struggle to get them --
to deal with them.
I'll talk about some of those problems.
And finally, in some of the worst cases,
they actually convince people
that they're somebody they're not,
and they convince those people to actually engage in activities
that contribute to further criminal violations.
I'll talk about some of that in a minute, too,
so those are some of the ways that impostors can hurt each
and every one of us and hurt those of us
who, frankly, are just trying to live normal lives.
There are lots of other examples, too,
but those will give you some good ideas
to sort of think about.
So what am I going to talk about during the next 30
or 35 minutes or so?
I'm going to talk about impostors, of course.
I'm going to talk about trends,
what we're seeing with regards to the trends.
Doug has talked about some.
I'll add a few additional points,
but we could just spend a couple minutes on that.
I'll talk about impostor scams and some --
I'll spend a few minutes talking about a lot of them
and a few other minutes talking about a few specific ones,
so we'll drill down into a few to sort of give you
a better idea of some of the impostor scams
that we're seeing, but we'll also just sort of run
through sort of a quick catalog of all kinds of scams.
I'm going to spend a few minutes talking about identity theft,
and that's because identity theft, as I said,
is a self-help recovery situation.
Law enforcement will try to help you when they can,
and my office and my agency
do a variety of things regarding identity theft.
There are criminal prosecutors
that try to help with identity theft,
but in many instances, to really recover from identity theft,
you have to do your own.
You have to do it yourself, and I'll talk about that.
Then finally, back to my consumer ed message,
I'm going to talk about what you can do to help protect friends,
family, yourself from impostors and identity theft
and the consequences of both, because, really, hopefully...
The fact that you're here today
gives me hope that when you leave here,
you will talk to your friends and neighbors,
and, by the way, take some extra materials with you, if you want,
and hand them to those folks too.
Let them know you were here today
and that you're happy to talk further with them
about impostors.
So let's begin by talking about impostors.
Yeah. Let me see where I am here.
Ah, yes. Okay.
You'll recognize this one because we've already talked
about it, if I can make it run here.
-Granddad, it's me, an accident in Mexico.
I'm in jail.
-Jimmy, is that you? -Yes.
It's Jimmy.
I need money for bail right now. -In jail?
-You need to send money right now.
Please don't tell anyone.
-Scammers are tricky and can pretend
to be anybody in any situation.
They seem like the real deal and play on your fears.
The goal -- To get you to act fast.
Check out if they really are who they say
they are even if they sound like a loved one.
Heard from an impostor?
Report it at FTC.gov/imposters.
-Okay, so we've already heard about the grandparents scheme.
Some people call them family emergency schemes
because it doesn't have to be a grandchild
or grandparent involved.
It could be a brother or sister.
It could be anyone you know and care about,
but there are some common things that you often see
in any one of these kinds of impostor,
these family emergency type things.
First of all, it obviously works very well
if the scammer has lots of information
about the person they're calling, right,
they already know a lot of information
because it increases their credibility
with the recipient of the call, the victim,
but they don't need to have very much.
Frequently, what the scammers will do is,
they will lead you on and cause the victim
to actually supply some of the additional information
during the phone call,
and you don't realize you're supplying that information.
They may say, "It's your grandson,"
and they'll say, "Jimmy, is that you?"
Well, now they know Jimmy's name.
Now they know your grandson's name is Jimmy.
Now they can claim to be Jimmy,
so they won't always have all the detailed information,
but they're really good at sort of cajoling it out of you
if they don't have it.
Secondly, lots of times,
the voice doesn't sound the same, right,
and let's face it, that did not sound like Jimmy,
probably, and the person calling is not necessarily
going to sound like your grandson or granddaughter.
Couple of ways they get around that,
and you'll hear this lots of times, too --
They'll claim to have been in an accident,
and so their voice is not right,
or the phone connection is not bad,
or if all else fails, they'll say,
"I can't talk to you. Let me put this other person on the phone
who's here to help me get out of this problem,
the attorney that I've been assigned to,"
or the police officer or something like that.
There are various tricks they can use to circumvent
that problem that the voice doesn't sound exactly the same.
They're obviously trying to get you to act fast.
They want to create a sense of immediate emergency.
They want to get you into that cloud of --
suspend your common sense -- Doug talked about this --
by getting you to respond quickly and emotionally
rather than applying any thought to it.
It's hard to hang up on a grandson or granddaughter,
even one you think maybe should be in jail.
When it comes down to it, you really don't -- You know.
You'll seldom hear somebody say,
"Well, I think that's exactly the right place for you."
Slam.
But that might be the right -- You know, right?
So must of us are not going to hang up on those folks,
our grandchildren, our kids, and they're counting on that,
so at the FTC, we received about 10,000 complaints
about just this scheme in 2015.
I don't have 2016 data with me,
but you can assume it's at least that number
if not more so lot of complaints,
and we get only the tip of the iceberg kind of thing,
so you can probably multiply that by at least five if not 10
to give you a better sense of how many of these calls
are actually being made to consumers in the US.
Let's see.
So some strategies for dealing with them.
Some obvious ones -- If you get a call like this,
hang up and try to verify the accuracy of the information.
Call the parent.
Call whoever may actually know where the individual
that's supposedly calling you is.
Try to call them back.
Ask them information that they wouldn't necessarily --
that a scammer wouldn't necessarily know.
"What's the name of your dog?"
You know, "What's the name of your cat?"
"What's the name of my dog or cat?"
Those are -- You can try those, see if they can answer those.
I think our consumer
talked about a middle name or something like that.
That sometimes works. That's a great plan.
Here is one other thing I'll suggest --
A lot of these scams...
One way these scams work these days is --
and Doug talked about it -- the Internet
is such a crucial part of lots of these scams.
Obviously, there's no Internet piece here.
It's a phone, but the Internet is still a crucial part
of a scam like this. Why?
Because so many of us now use social media
and put information online.
My kids are all over the Internet.
They have a different sense of privacy than I do,
and they don't really...
You know, they put a ton of stuff up,
and that kind of information is a gold mine
to somebody who's trying to run a scam like this.
They can find out a lot about somebody
just by looking on a social media site,
and, frankly, they can --
including parents and other family members.
So here is a good tip that I'd suggest --
If you get one of these calls,
I would wonder whether other members of your family,
let's say, you know,
your sister or somebody like that may get the same call
because if it doesn't work with you,
it might work with the aunt,
or it might work with somebody else in the family,
so this is a good chance
to do a little bit of consumer ed as well.
Send a note or an e-mail, Internet, right,
or call on the phone and say,
"Hey, I just got this call from Jimmy.
I know it's not Jimmy, but just because, you know, I got it,
you may hear from Jimmy, too --
somebody who claims to be Jimmy, too.
Just wanted to let you know now before this call comes in."
So take that as a chance
to let your other family members know about it
because once they've researched you and spent time --
Once the scammers research you and spend time online,
it's a pretty good chance they've also found out
about other family members,
so that's a grandkid or grandparent scam
depending on where you sit or stand.
So, trends.
So Doug talked about this, and it's really amazing.
Nationally, what we're seeing is that impostor scams
are now ahead of identity theft
in terms of complaints we receive at the FTC,
and I never would have thought that would happen because,
you know, identity theft complaints have been
and continue to be a huge source of complaints to my agency,
but impostor scams moved ahead
of them this year to second place.
Only debt collection complaints are higher,
and there are a couple of reasons for that.
One is, we have some arrangements with some entities
that report a lot of debt collection complaints to us,
so it's an example where...
That's it. Stop right there.
It's an example of where, you know, the way you get data
sort of skews your data, but we get some folks
who send us a lot of debt collection complaints.
Also, everybody complains about debt collectors
even if they owe the money. Why not?
You know, it's...
But, you know, so the debt collection situation
is probably going to remain that way, but...
And, frankly, in some cases, they should be complained about,
in many cases, but impostor scams
is now number two, and among military personnel --
This is interesting because we actually keep separate data
at the FTC concerning military personnel.
They are victimized by some of the same kinds of schemes
but also different schemes,
and we've worked a lot with military --
with JAG and military support organizations
to try to educate military personnel
and their families about some of these scams.
So then with military personnel,
impostors is number one, ahead of debt collection, and...
Go down here. And the interesting thing is,
and this is equally interesting,
here in Washington State,
we're in the same category as military personnel.
In Washington State, debt collection
is not the number-one complaint category.
Instead, it's impostors, which is pretty amazing.
I guess we're good about debt, but, you know, in the meantime,
we're having real problems with impostor scams,
so in Washington State...
I have the numbers here. I think --
Doug talked about this.
So let's see.
Twenty-four percent of the complaints the FTC received,
almost 10,000 complaints total concerning to impostors.
Almost 10,000 complaints to the FTC nationally and --
in Washington, rather -- concerned impostors.
So it's a huge number here in Washington State,
and I should also note that overall, nationally,
impostor scam complaints were up 13 percent in 2016 from 2015,
so what we're seeing is, the numbers are higher.
They're especially, as a percentage basis,
they're tremendously high in Washington State,
and it's a real problem that we all need to pay attention to,
so I'm next going to talk about an area
that Doug has already talked about a bit,
and that is the IRS calls.
I'm going to spend just a couple minutes on this
because you've already heard from Doug,
but it bears repeating.
As Doug said, repetition is the mother lode of education.
I don't know how Doug said it, something like that,
but I'm going to talk about it for a little different reason.
You'll see why in just a second here.
So I really...
You know, you're going to recognize the same tape
except for the very end.
I want you to listen to what happens at the end here.
So I'm going to have to go back here.
We'll go back, and I'll click there.
There we go.
-...to reach you.
This call is officially a final notice from IRS,
Internal Revenue Services.
The reason of this call is to inform you
that IRS is filing lawsuit against you.
To get more information about this case file,
please call immediately on our department number 253-214-4667,
I repeat, 253-214-4667.
Thank you. -Okay.
I couldn't pause that, but the reason I ran that is,
if you remember Doug's example, it was just like that,
but there was one thing that was different.
It's like one of those puzzles, you know?
Something's not the same here. What was different?
That had a different phone number, and you know what?
You probably recognize that area code, didn't you?
That person was not here, though.
They were probably in India,
but it looks like they're calling from Tacoma
or wherever, you know, right here, right?
This is -- Is this 253?
This is probably 253 right here. Are we just north of it?
Okay. Just a little further south, right?
I don't know where the line is, but anyway, that's a 253 call.
At least, it looks like it is.
Same scheme that Doug talked about,
same people behind it,
probably exactly the same people behind it,
different phone number,
and, you know, they can use any number they want.
They can make it look like it's the IRS
on the phone on caller ID.
It doesn't really matter.
It's not the IRS.
They're not calling you, so a couple thoughts,
things I want to add also to what Doug talked about
just before we move on -- I'll just do this.
I'll use the next slide when I talk about these things.
So Doug talked about the fact that
IRS impostor scams are way up.
There you go. There's a chart.
They're way up.
The one little piece here that I should add to this
is that this chart ends in 2016,
and if I had actually carried the numbers through 2016,
you would have seen an interesting dip
in about October of 2016 when the Indian police
and the subsequent action by the US Department of Justice
went down, and there was a drop in the number of calls,
which was pretty cool,
and I actually, like, for about a month,
I actually showed that chart,
but I've stopped showing it, and why is that?
Because the numbers are back up again,
and I don't want to mislead anybody.
As much as it worked for a little bit,
they're back on the phone again and probably different people,
mostly, you know, but they're back again,
so while we had some positive effect,
and I hope every one of those folks ends up
doing some time both in India and in the States.
I'll talk about that in a sec.
It didn't end it, and it's going on now.
So just a couple final thoughts on that scam.
As Doug said, and we saw it --
Great video, by the way. Fabulous stuff.
In 2016, Indian police took action against
some of these IRS operations, call centers in India
that were making the calls, that kind of thing,
but the other piece to know, though,
is that there was another action here in the United States
around the same time by US Department of Justice
and a group of other entities.
That was at the end of October of last year,
and they were targeting the US piece of it
because while we saw the Indian part,
there's actually a US piece of this whole operation.
That's the piece that's collecting
all those payments, right?
Doug talked about iTunes gift cards
and, oh, this kinds of cards.
Who do you think is picking those up?
Who do you think is getting that?
A lot of that processing is being done here
in the United States,
so even if the IRS scammers sitting in India,
they have a US component, and the good news is that DOJ
and others are following up on that,
but it's still out there as well,
and while it's nice to say, "Oh, you know,
the scammers are somewhere else, and et cetera, et cetera,"
and we can blame India or whatever foreign...
They're among us here, too, and there's a real need
for US law enforcement as well, and they're working on it,
but, again, it's not just an international problem.
It's not just an Indian problem.
It's a US problem as well, and we're not just victims.
We're also perpetrators in some cases.
And the IRS...
One thing on the DOJ case, by the way,
because there's some good results here --
They arrested 56 people.
They are in the process now of convicting.
I saw -- I just checked yesterday.
They had already gotten four people that pled guilty already.
The others are still facing trial.
They convict...
The sentencings for the first four are coming up in July.
Case was done in Texas,
but it involved scammers all over the country
who mostly were people who were collecting the money.
They were running the circuit,
picking up money from consumers around the country,
so good news on that one.
So lots of kinds of impostor scams,
and we could spend, you know, hours talking about it.
Doug covered -- Doug provided a pretty good list --
IRS, certainly; debt collectors,
bogus debt collectors who don't really -- aren't really...
Real debt collectors are bad enough,
but add on top of that bogus debt collectors who
you don't owe them money, but they claim you do;
romance, talk about that in a minute;
friends and family, we talked about that;
C-Suite, corporate suite.
That's business lingo I just picked up.
It sounds cool, doesn't it, the corporate suite?
That's basically where somebody poses
as a CEO of a corporation
and, for example, will send an e-mail
to somebody else in the corporation saying,
"I need that employee information right away
so we can get this budget done," and guess what?
The executive's e-mail has been hijacked.
He's now gotten access to...
The scammer who hijacked the executive's e-mail
is now using that e-mail to steal employee information.
They're basically an impostor.
They're posing as the corporate executive.
That problem began particularly in Europe.
Amazingly, it started in France, for some reason,
but we're now seeing it spreading around the world
and another way they're getting these things.
Pet adoptions, haven't talked about this,
but I heard about this recently from my friends
at the Better Business Bureau.
They were seeing instances of people
claiming to have pets that could be adopted.
These were viable dogs, for example, of rare breeds.
It was a scam. There was nobody adopting pets.
They saw this in Spokane, for example,
last fall, so they're out there.
Medical insurance, talked about the mid tech companies.
You're going to hear from Courtney about that.
Utilities, people claim to be the utility company.
"If you don't pay us now, we're going to collect
your utility bill," not going to happen.
The UTC here in Washington state
has been worrying a lot about that,
but you'll also hear that about everywhere -- about that.
Finally, prizes and lotteries, there's two parts of that scam.
The first part is, you have won.
Guess what? You haven't won.
You didn't win anything, and then, secondly,
the other piece of that scam is,
how do they get you to pay them money?
What they'll oftentimes -- after you supposedly won,
because why should you pay more money?
You won, right?
You've already won.
They get you to pay the money by saying,
"But before you can collect your winnings,
you know, we're from the"...
They may say the Internal Revenue Service,
but more often, they'll say they're from, like,
the Customs and Border Protection Agency, CBP,
or something like that,
"And we're holding your money at the border,
and we'll send it to you as soon as you send us the $200 or $500
or $1,000 in import duties that you owe for this money."
And so they purport to be
somebody from Customs Border Protection
or Homeland Security, right,
and so, "We're the Homeland Security folks,
and we'll get the money to you."
That's where the impostor piece
to those kinds of things come in.
They're not from anybody like that.
They're not from Homeland Security, CBP or anyone else.
They're scammers posing as other government officials.
So how do they hook you?
Well, we've already talked about this.
They pretend to be someone you know or trust or respect.
They convince you to send money.
Frequently, it's -- Or information, right?
It doesn't necessarily have to be money.
Information is like gold for a lot of these scammers,
at least identity theft,
but they ask for either money or information.
Doing it quickly is a key part of that,
but the other thing they often do,
and I didn't put this on this slide,
but I remembered as I was listening
to some of the previous presentations,
especially Doug's presentation about the IRS scammers
is, fear is another key element, right, fear and threats,
and a lot of these scammers,
these impostor scammers, well, some of them will --
you know, they'll try to tug at your heartstrings
with your, you know, that kind of thing.
The other thing they'll use is fear and threats.
They are abusive, aggressive,
the kind of conduct that most of us here in the United States
are no longer subjected to and used to,
and they will try every way
they can to convince you to send them money,
including engaging in the worst kinds abusive
practices over the phone, calling you any kind of name
they can think of, threatening to call friends and neighbors,
threatening to haul you away in the police
and put you in jail, those kinds of things,
the kind of embarrassing kinds of things
that none of us obviously want to be subjected
to if it was true, so those kinds of things
also often accompany these kinds of schemes.
So let's talk, though, about a different kind of impostor scam,
and this is one that is...
Earlier, I talked about the idea
that there's an emotional aspect to impostor scams, as well,
and they can cause serious emotional distress,
and this is an example of that.
-Looking for love in all the right places like popular
dating sites, mobile apps and social networking sites?
Ron seems like a perfect match for you.
He's thoughtful and says he can't live without you.
He says he's from the US but works out of the country.
He says he wants to visit but says he can't afford it.
He asks you to send him money.
Last month, it was medical bills for his sick aunt.
This month, he needs money to fix his car.
Next month, who knows?
Ron wants your money.
Don't send it.
The person pretending to be Ron is a scammer.
He'll tell you anything to get you to wire cash right away.
He'll never run out of excuses.
If an online love interest asks you for money,
walk away no matter how compelling the story.
Report scams at FTC.gov/imposters.
-Okay, so, you know, you get the idea that that's...
A lot of people, I'm sure, in this room are thinking,
"Ah, I'd never fall for that.
You know, if my wife ever found out
I was even considering it, the real crime would be,
I'd be killed, right, by my wife."
But, surprisingly,
a fairly large number of people fall for them, and when they do,
the amount of money lost can be startlingly high.
Actually, this came from an AARP Scam Watch.
What's -- Fraud Watch?
Whatever the... Fraud Watch, right?
Fraud Watch, yeah, article that I just was reading,
about an FBI case that they brought that they...
an FBI case in February of 2017 in Texas
in which they profiled a woman who had paid $2 million,
$2 million in connection with a --
over the period of time in connection
with one of these schemes,
and I think, actually, there's an article
in that the thing that Doug is giving out today,
the book Doug is giving out today about romance scams.
Oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention --
Doug, I think, you didn't disclose that you actually have
an article in that thing you're handing out today.
The free prize includes an article by Doug,
not on that but on another topic.
I was going to mention that, but it's interesting.
Anyway, $2 million in that.
Now, the other thing to know is that while it seems
like it might not be something
that a lot of folks hear about, there actually are
a surprisingly large number of complaints.
The FBI reported about 15,000 romance
and related complaints in 2016
to its Internet Fraud Complaint Center.
The AARP Fraud Watch article I was reading estimated that --
and I think they got this also from the FBI --
about $2 billion total in losses.
That's "B," not "M." "B," 2 billion.
Even a large number for us in the federal government,
$2 billion in losses in 2016 from these kinds of schemes.
That's because when they hook somebody,
they hook them for a lot, a lot of money,
so what are the signs of this kind of scheme?
The scammer -- By the way,
the scammer will try to build relationships quickly, right?
They want to get the victim hooked fast.
They will oftentimes plan to meet.
They'll promise to meet, right?
"We're going to meet you at some point.
You know, we're going to get together.
We met online, but now we're going to get together."
It never happens, right?
Just for one reason or another, there's some reason you never
actually have -- the meeting never happens.
Oftentimes, the scammers will be engaged
in some kind of international work.
For some reason, international building and construction
seems to be a popular ploy line for these scammers.
They're traveling all over the world.
They just can't get back, but, oh, you know,
they've had one financial catastrophe
after another wherever they are,
and they just need a bit more money,
and they promise to repay it,
or they will do something to make it up
to the victim soon, and they never do,
and, I mean, it's really a horrible experience
to hear about, to see happen, and as I said,
there's also a tremendous emotional distress piece,
emotional strain here.
The victims are going to be so affected
by this that even after they know
it's a scam, they still sort of secretly hope
that that person may be out there someplace, right?
In fact, if you read the AARP Fraud Watch article,
I think, if I remember right, the victim in that story
talked about being taken by somebody named Charlie
who turned out to be a couple Nigerians,
and she said she still hopes Charlie is out there
someplace even though she now knows
that there's no Charlie, but she's still looking for him,
and that is the emotional aspect.
It's a terribly traumatic situation,
so my message on this is, even if all of us in this room
are never going to fall for this,
it's a good thing to mention to friends,
neighbors and family to watch out for.
All right? Because if they fall for it,
the hook sinks in deep on this one,
and you really want to be aware of it.
So how do these imposters and scammers get to us?
Phone, mail, computer.
The computer is a key part of this,
but that's not necessarily the only way they reach you.
They can reach you on the phone.
They can even reach you by phone,
a lot of the prizes, lottery schemes that we've seen.
In fact, the ones that my office was involved
with taken down late last year
arrived by mail and initially, they were offers
including sometimes fake checks
or sometimes other kinds of things that were really...
They were coming in the mail, and they were coming from, well,
in the case of the ones we did, the mail was coming from the US,
but it was going back to the Netherlands,
and actually, the letters were being printed in India.
So it was an international scheme,
but the mail that posed as a lottery winning was bogus.
They use a variety of techniques.
In addition to somebody being confidence people,
operators, you know, really smooth delivery,
they oftentimes will use other techniques as well.
They will engage in phishing
to try to get additional information.
Remember I talked about the CEO scam
where they hijacked the CEO's e-mail address
and then used that to pose as a CEO
and get additional information about the corporation.
They will implant malware, real or fake.
It's a tech support scam, right?
They will engage in hacking and data breaches.
Any information like that is valuable not
just because it might lead to financial information,
but it might also be a way to bootstrap other information
from consumers,
from victims, to get them to provide information
because once you have a little bit,
you can use that to create credibility,
to establish credibility, all right,
to move onto the next step.
So there are a variety of ways these imposter scams operate.
Courtney is going to talk more about this when she gets here
but, you know, tech support scams.
The FTC, as I said, brought a series of cases last week.
The screenshot in front of you is one of those cases.
Microsoft, it's not Microsoft, but it looks like Microsoft.
Doug has talked about these.
Here is the one thing I want to add
to this interesting fact pattern and these interesting cases,
and this is one that I -- It's fascinating.
So Doug talked about the cases the FTC did in 2015.
'14, '15, that period of time.
And, you know, we successfully sued
and took down some tech support cases.
This is a press release.
It looks like it's from the FTC, doesn't it?
Operator tech support scam settles FTC charges.
Defendants required to surrender assets.
There is -- Everything about that is true or almost true.
I mean, it certainly sounds true,
and that's exactly what the FTC would do.
We would, if we could settle and make them turn over
all their money, that's what we --
that's how we do law enforcement.
We get their money back, if we can,
and we try to return it to consumers.
And here is the second part.
Here is the tricky part
of this press thing, and I'll have to read it to you
because it's a little hard to see.
It says, "Three other tech companies," it says company,
"PC GURU, Verindan Tech and OmniCare
were selected to notify customers
and remove residual software."
You know what that was?
That was a trick to get you
to give those three companies access to your computers
if you were a victim of the previous scheme.
They were using that previous scheme
as an entree or a come-on.
This happened just last week.
This was an FTC case filed just a week or two ago,
couple weeks ago now.
They were using that as an entree
to get you to give them access to your computer by saying,
"Look, we're with the FTC. We're part of the FTC,
or we're part of contractors for the FTC,
and we've been hired by them to help make sure
that that previous scam that took you,
that all that data on that previous scam that took you,
is no longer on your computer,"
and they sent this out to people.
If people would question them, they would send them this.
How did they find these folks?
A couple different ways.
It sounds like maybe they had some address information
for some consumers who had been victimized previously.
Even if they didn't, we've all so had many of these scams
that it's easy to claim that you --
It's that case the FTC did a couple years ago,
and even if you were victimized, why not just let us check
and make sure you weren't inadvertently a victim
of one of these things because why not?
We work for the FTC. We're trustworthy.
We're reliable.
You know, here is the press release with our names in it
from the FTC if you don't believe us.
And this was within just recently a few weeks ago,
this was still going out.
The good news is that we sued them
and hopefully they're now stopped,
but there's probably a third iteration of this scam
out there someplace, right?
Identify theft.
I wanna talk for a little bit.
All kinds of identity theft, many of which
are related to imposter scams -- financial identity theft.
Once you get the consumer's information,
Social Security number, bank information,
whatever, you can use that to get additional...
You can use that to steal money,
obtain access to valuable information.
Tax identity theft, posing as the...
Filing tax returns,
posing as the consumer to whom a refund is owed.
We see a lot of that particularly in January,
February, March, early in the tax filing season.
I won't even ask how many of you have had to deal with that
because I'm sure that some have,
and I'm sorry to hear about that.
Here in Washington State,
we saw a particular spate of that a couple years ago
when the Catholic archdiocese was hacked.
I guess it was in 2015.
What they stole in that case was Social Security numbers
which they then turned around and used to make filings
with the IRS for taxes, the tax refunds.
Employment hack, scammers will use the information
they get to apply for jobs in the name of a customer.
Why would you do that? There are a variety of reasons.
They may not have legal status in the United States.
They may want to do something else questionable.
They may be engaged in illegal activity with the company,
and they'd rather not be discovered.
Medical, we'll talk about that in a second
and various other benefits.
So identity theft which can sometimes
be the result of the kinds of imposter we're talking about,
it takes a variety of forms as well.
I've talked about some of the ways it happens,
but it can also be as simple as lost phones, smartphones,
those kinds of things, family members, friends.
Particularly among seniors, we see a lot of identity theft
that involves caregivers who are on the premises,
have unusually large amounts of access
to the mail that comes in.
They steal that mail.
Friends, visitors do that.
It can be scams, and phishing schemes can steal information,
data breaches, hacking, skimming,
corrupt insiders or corporations.
All these places and people can gain information
that can be used for identity theft.
How is it misused once they get the information?
So taxes, filing tax returns is one of the ways,
and it doesn't really matter if you're one of those people
who actually owes money and aren't due a refund.
The scammer doesn't actually care
whether you do or don't owe money.
They will make up the tax return
so that it looks like you're owed money back, right?
So even if you actually still owe the IRS money,
when they file that tax return, it looks going to look like,
in fact, the IRS owes you money,
and there's a chance the IRS will send out that check
before they figure out that it's a scam.
Credit cards, this has been up and down.
Credit card scams are up again this year.
I'm working through one right now personally,
and I suspect others of you have dealt with them as well.
Phone utilities, posing as the customer
to steal phone utility service, banks,
applying for various kinds of services at banks,
employment, loans, leases, other,
variety of ways that this information is used
by identity theft perpetrators.
So let's talk about the last piece
I want to spend time on today,
and then we'll see if we've got time for a few questions
before I turn it over.
How do we protect? How do we address?
How do we deal with this problem of imposters
and the related problem of identity theft?
I'm going to talk about, first of all,
the identify theft piece. That's that self-help.
You're going to have to do a lot of the work yourself,
but the good news is, there's some tools out there.
Secondly, imposters, third, education.
So with identity theft, the first strategy,
of course, is just to reduce your risk.
Protect your information. Keep it.
You know, restrict what goes out there.
Don't give it out to imposters, clearly,
but be more careful even that that.
Make sure that you know why you're giving out information.
Lock it down if you don't need it.
Share it carefully.
Monitor who's getting it and why they're getting it.
Dispose of it quickly if you don't need it,
and if you do get...
And this is critically important,
and some people miss this point.
If you do hear about the possibility
you've been a victim of identity theft, you get a sign.
For example, you get some kind of a sign
that somebody might have applied for a credit card in your name,
or you get a letter from the IRS saying,
"It appears that," you know,
"you earned some extra money at this business you didn't claim"
because they have another filing.
Act quickly.
Don't figure, "Well, this is going to be dealt with.
I'll eventually deal with it."
The trick is, get on it now.
Deal with it quickly because that is going to be
one way to reduce the risk of identity theft
and ensure that you don't lose more money.
So let's see.
Let's move onto what happens if you are a victim.
So sadly, a tremendous number of consumers have been victims.
I suspect if I took a poll, a majority of people
in this room have had some sort of identity theft
that has affected their lives,
either themselves or a family member.
The trick for victims is to minimize the loss.
Stop it as quickly as you can.
Act quickly.
Secondly, the victim needs to prove
that the identity has occurred
and that the victim is not responsible for the debt,
so there a variety of ways you can do that.
I'll talk about some of the strategies there
because what you want to do is make sure that the merchants
who might have been affected by the identity theft,
the IRS that might have been affected,
whoever has been affected knows that you are the victim
of identity theft and that's not you.
You're not the one who owes that money.
You want to separate that conduct from yourself
and make clear that you're not responsible for the debt,
and then third piece for goal for victims
is to correct those errors.
Clean up that record.
Make it -- Get rid of the information
that is the result of the identity theft
so that you can live your life
without having to continually be questioned
about these outstanding debts or whatever might have happened.
So those are the three main goals, and you want
to keep those in mind if you're dealing with identity theft.
How do you do that? Well, the first step, of course,
is to contact the companies where the fraud occurred.
If it's a credit card company, contact them, bank, merchant.
If it's a jewelry store, somebody applied
for credit, contact them.
Just tell them, "I've been a victim of identity theft.
That's not me."
Now, they may question you.
They may say, "Yeah, right. You're just another debtor
trying to get out of it," but at least let them know.
Tell them to make a note.
Push them on it, and make sure they know
that you've been victimized, and keep it up.
Secondly, contact the credit reporting agencies.
We'll talk about that in just a minute.
Place fraud alerts.
We'll talk about that in just a second.
Get copies of your credit reports.
Third, and this is the key to the other point,
is go to this website here.
It's the FTC website, so I'm flacking for my own product,
but I earn no money from this.
It's all free.
Well, you already paid for it is the actual fact,
but go to it now, or go to if you're an identity victim,
identitytheft.gov.
What you'll find there is a detailed information
about how to deal with identity theft,
and it provides detailed advice,
easy-to-print checklists, sample letters.
This is what the website looks like,
and the way it works is,
it essentially creates a plan for you
that walks you through the various steps
in recovery from identity theft.
It helps you by -- You can create an account
if you want to, or you can just sort of skim
through the information on your own,
but you can create a plan.
It then keeps coming back and asking you, "Have you...?"
It even provides preprinted letters
you can use to write to those merchants.
It gives you the addresses and the contact information
for the credit reporting agencies,
the ones I said make sure to contact.
It tells you how to reach them.
It tells you what you have to tell them
to get that information fixed, so all --
and I'm not spending a lot of time
on sort of the recovery steps
because it's all right here on this website,
identitytheft.gov.
It's a great website that's just...
We rolled it out about a year ago,
and it's received rave reviews, and if you are a victim,
if you are concerned about being a victim,
if you know others who are victims,
have them take a look at this site
because it's really useful.
And by the way, the other reason I like it is
because if you are willing to let us --
to give us your -- I know. It sounds like identity theft.
"If you will give us your information."
If you will give us your information, it will be...
The back-end of this site is accessible
to law enforcement agencies around the United States,
and they use that information to identify
the perpetrators of identify theft
because one of the problems with identity theft,
if you go to your local police department and say,
"I've been a victim of identity theft,"
they're going to say, you know...
Hopefully, they'll sympathize.
They'll take a police report.
But the chances are highly likely
that they can't do much more than that
because the perpetrator
is probably not in their jurisdiction.
The perpetrator is just as likely,
you know, a couple hundred miles or a couple thousand miles
or many thousands of miles away, and there's no chance
you're going to get a police officer in Kent,
as much as they might like to, to go to India or somewhere else
and deal with that identity theft perpetrator.
You're going to need...
That's part of the self-help thing.
Or it may be...
But if they're in Georgia, let's say, they're in Georgia,
there's a chance that the Georgia police
will have access to identitytheft.gov,
we'll hope, and they'll at least see
that we've got victims of this perpetrator,
and perpetrator seems to be just down the street from us
here in Georgia or Atlanta, for example,
so that's the reason to use this site is,
it helps law enforcement.
Imposter responses -- These are all obvious.
First of all, the government didn't just call you.
I assure you, the government did not just call you.
It just didn't happen.
If they say they're from the government, they're not.
They didn't call you.
Secondly, if they're making claims,
you want to verify the claims whatever way you can.
If you even want to spend any time on this,
if you think there may be some validity
to what they're saying, try to verify.
Don't pay by wire or prepaid card
or Apple iTunes cards or PayPal cards.
I know. You're in this suspended world
in which you just want to get this off, get this done,
but all those things are tools that imposters use
to try to get you to pay quickly, right,
because their goal is to make you pay fast
before you get out of that cloud of, you know,
the lack of common sense cloud
that you're in and back to the real world,
and if they can get you to make that payment before then,
they will -- they're ahead of you.
They've got the money then, and there's almost no way
you're going to get the money back
if you pay with a prepaid card or wire the money.
Be very wary of anybody who tries to get you to act quickly,
you know, any kind of imposter-type situation.
Why?
Because they should give you the opportunity to think
about it, to call them back, to inquire further.
If they say, "You need to act now,"
that ought to be a red flag.
Hang up, easy enough to do.
So I've got up here, sign up for the do not call registry,
and I know that every time I say that,
people start booing and hissing because they say,
"Oh, that thing doesn't work, never helps!"
and, yeah, I get that.
I get that it doesn't stop all the calls.
I wish I could guarantee you, it is 100 effective,
and it never stops any calls.
Sadly, it doesn't do that. Why?
Because the people in India don't care
if you're on the do not call registry, right?
They don't care. They don't check.
It makes no difference to them, but US companies do care,
and if you're on the do not call registry,
legitimate companies do care,
and if you're on the do not call registry,
they will check that do not call registry,
and they will not call you if they're a legitimate company,
and that's a great way to screen out the legitimate companies
from the Indian callers, right?
If you're getting calls, and you're on the registry,
and you haven't done business with --
you know, there's some exceptions --
Then you should be highly suspicious that it's a scam.
I know there are a couple questions, but is this, like...?
Could I finish, or do you want me to...?
Okay, I'm going to wrap up in just a minute here.
All right.
So I have one final thing.
I think we're probably just about out of time.
I saw Courtney wander in here,
so I'm going to just move on and skip this one.
I will tell you, though, that this particular imposter scam
involved somebody who was taken in connection
with a Medicare-related scam,
and here is the background on this.
You may know this.
The Medicare, all of our Medicare cards,
for those of you who have them, they're going to be --
they're issuing new cards in the next 2 years.
This is also -- I also learned this from the AARP.
Why are they issuing new cards? Because if you have an old card,
it has your Social Security number on it.
Yeah, I know. I know.
But I can't tell you how many years I've had
to try to defend the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
for that stupid decision, but, anyway.
They're changing finally, and...
But the problem is,
they're issuing new cards, but guess what?
Every time there's a change,
who immediately figures out, "There's an opportunity here"?
An imposter, so what we're now hearing about
is people calling and claiming,
"Hi. We're from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid,
and we're calling to help you get your new card.
All we need is some information from you
to issue your card to you today,"
so I want to alert you to, that's coming.
Be ready for it. Watch for it.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
are not going to call you either.
Again, the government is not going to call you,
and they will not call you either.
They're going to actually -- The plan, as I understand it,
is to send them out starting...
And they're still working on it,
so I get that there may be a mail issue as well,
but they plan to apparently send them out next year.
More information will be coming.
They have assured all of us
that before they actually start sending these cards out,
they will do a major public relations campaign
to let us know how it's going to work,
but I would keep watching for it and follow your local news,
follow the AARP information, wherever you get it from,
and watch for more information in the future.
And with that, my final pitch
before I take a couple questions,
and that is, if this stuff --
if you're upset about this, if you think this is appalling,
if you want to do something right now,
today, the best thing you can do
is to talk to a friend or a neighbor about this.
Tell them what you heard, what's happening.
You know, take that indignant anger and frustration, upset,
and channel it in a way that alerts others
in your family members, friends, others to do something as well.
So the FTC has put together a little kit that we use.
It's at this website here.
Pass it on, FTC.gov/passiton, one word, pass it on.
It's basically --
It's particularly intended for...
Let's see. I didn't write this part.
It's tips for active older adults.
I guess me.
And the idea is that, people who have lived
as long as all of us in this room have lived,
I think, have a lot of life experiences to share.
We know about things about things like
the jury pool imposter scams.
I didn't even mention, but thank you for
whoever talked about that,
and we can share that information with other people
so now they know about it, too.
So the idea is that you can pass on your life experiences
to friends, neighbors, families, and this kit basically
has in it a variety of pieces of information
including presentation information,
fliers, things you can hand out,
things that will supplement your life experiences
when you do presentations,
when you talk about it with friends and family members.
So take that indignant anger that you are hopefully feeling
when you hear about these scams
and when you see those numbers going up.
When you hear about -- when you see the people in India
who frankly don't care at all about what they say to you
if they can get your money, and channel that anger towards
telling other people about these problems.
And I'm going to...
Do I have time for a couple questions, Doug?
Otherwise, I need to wrap up
because I think I'm pretty close here.
I don't -- The clock is weird. Okay, couple questions.
I'm going to sort of start at the front and go back.
I'm going to start in the back, okay,
because I see the mics back there.
So the mics are going to come up this way, okay?
So we'll start there.
If we can have a mic, ask a question.
Go ahead.
-I'd like to find out if the do not call list,
do you have to renew it in 5 years?
-Yeah, you do not anymore.
It used to be you did. You do not now.
If you are on it, you are permanently on it,
but I still think it's good to occasionally check
because it's, you know, technology is not
100 percent perfect every time, and stuff drops off,
but you can check by going to DNC.gov,
and you can put in your number and check.
Next question. Wait for the mic here.
We have a mic there. Okay, there we go. Yes?
-Three quick questions.
One, please comment on online purchases using a credit card.
-Well, if you -- if you...
[ Chuckles ]
Good idea to use a credit card, and here is why.
You have additional rights if you use a credit card
that you do not have with other forms of payment.
That's because you can dispute the charge with the credit card.
Is that what you're asking me about?
Am I covering it correctly?
And the second piece of that, by the way,
though is if you are going to make purchases online
using a credit card or any other kind of transactional device,
make sure you're using a secure website when you do it, right?
Oh, so two things.
When you buy stuff online, two thoughts.
One, credit cards are the right way to go
because you have dispute rights,
and then secondly, when you make that purchase,
make sure that you're entering your credit card information
on a secure website.
It'll usually say "https," right?
That tells you that you at least have some assurance
that it's not --
that you're dealing with something secure.
Lots of other tips as well.
Check your credit card statements regularly.
Don't do like my kids did for years
and just throw those credit card statements in a pile,
but take a look at them.
Open them up and see what's on there.
Maybe use only one credit card
for your online purchases so you can monitor it.
There are lots of other strategies,
but credit cards are the best way to go
in many instances for online purchases.
Okay, who has the mic now?
I've lost track here.
Mic, mic, mic, okay.
Okay, you've got to point at each other.
This is confusing.
Okay, here we go.
And I'm going to get the hook here in a minute,
so you guys got to -- we're going to talk fast.
-Oh, thanks.
Can you talk a little bit about credit monitoring agencies
and especially in light of,
I was a former federal employee and now,
I think I was offered multiple opportunities
for credit monitoring.
-Yeah. -Do you need more than one?
-Yeah, so I have those same credit monitoring opportunities
because I'm a current federal employee,
and my identity was stolen, too.
So credit monitoring services, two or three things.
One, if somebody offers it to you for free,
I mostly think you should take it because it's free, right?
If they're offering it to you as a benefit, for a while,
I had two or three monitoring my...
That shows you what's happened in my life, but it's fine.
It doesn't hurt.
If you have to pay for it,
I think there you want to think twice
because what a credit monitoring service
does is the same thing you can do.
Basically, they check your credit reports regularly.
They check other things.
You can do the same thing yourself.
You can actually get free credit reports.
In fact, you should.
Annualcreditreport.com is the place to get those.
Annual credit report, one word, annualcreditreport.com.
You can do that too, but, you know, for many people,
paying, it makes more sense.
It's easier for them to do,
but I think it's a personal choice
particularly if you are going to have to pay for it,
and to be honest, even if you're not,
it's still a personal choice.
You can do the stuff that they'll do for free yourself,
but I have had good experiences with them.
In fact, one of my -- I hate to...
And I don't remember which company it was,
but one of my identity theft episodes recently,
actually, I learned about it
because of one of these monitoring services
which came about from the federal government act,
but I discovered that somebody in Maryland
was opening credit cards in my name.
So, yeah. -One more question.
-Yeah, one more, and then we're done.
Okay, who's got the last one here?
Sorry about that. Thanks.
-I get a lot of charities calling me.
Can you address charity fraud?
-I would love to if I had to all day.
I could talk about it all day.
Doug knows, I've worked. I do a lot of work on charities.
Couple thoughts on that -- First of all,
I usually refuse to give in response to people
who just call me over the phone and claim they're a charity.
I say, if you -- I have a plan every year.
I know how much I want to give.
If you're really serious about me giving you money,
you know, give me some written information I can look at.
Tell me where I can get more information online about you
because I want to do some research on your first,
so I can decide whether to include you in my plan.
People who call you on the phone,
they might be legitimate, but you really want to verify it
because there are a lot of scammy charities out there.
Last year, my office took down
a cancer charity that raised $70 million,
and 90-some percent of the funds they raised
went to the operators of the charities,
the three of them. They were all family members.
Almost nothing reached any cancer patients,
so it behooves you to do some research.
And by the way, the State of Washington
has a great division, Secretary of State's office,
that does charities-related regulatory work.
They have materials on the Secretary of State's website.
Most states will help you find information,
but I'd do research before I would give money to a charity.
And I've got to quit now, but I'm going to stay around,
so you haven't seen the last of me.
I'm happen to answer questions later,
and I'll be in the tri-cities next week,
so we can go over there and continue this conversation.
Okay. Thanks.
[ Applause ]
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